If you saw chrome tanned leather without context, you’d never guess it was leather. Chromium III is a blue, artificial looking powder. So when hides are tanned with chrome, they come out a pale blue. Chrome tanned hides are referred to in the industry as “wet blue.” Because of its unnatural and unappealing color, wet blue needs to be heavily processed after tanning to make it viable for use. To make consumers think of wet blue as leather again, it is almost always painted. Paint as a finish for leather has an expiration date so to speak, it can usually be scratched off with your fingernail and will eventually peel off with time and use, revealing its true color.

Seeing vegetable tanned leather hanging to dry after the natural tanning process is immediately recognizable as leather. Vegetable tanned leather comes out beige, and is often left completely untouched after tanning. The beige is a beautiful and coveted color in the world of leather.

Making vegetable tanned leather takes longer and costs more than making chrome tanned leather. The entire chrome tanning process can be finished in hours, whereas it takes several days to several weeks depending on the process for vegetable tanned leather.

Alta Andina uses only vegetable tanned leather. We source leather from one provider, Curtiembres del Valle, who produce 100% vegetable tanned leather. There is no chrome or other synthetic chemicals anywhere at their facility.