Genuine leather is a catchall term used for any product that once contained leather. Genuine leather is one of those misleading marketing terms used to make bottom of the barrel leather sound high quality. While technically genuine leather could refer to something like full grain or top grain leather, it typically does not. These days, people use the term to differentiate bonded leather from polyurethane leather, which are extremely similar in their look and feel. Polyurethane leather contains no actual leather, is is a plastic imitation of leather.

Bonded leather is made up of the leftovers, the scraps, what falls of the table to the dogs. Leather scraps from the floor of the tannery are melted  down, mixed with some junk to hold it together, and whala! – you’ve got yourself some genuine leather. Saying genuine leather is real leather is kind of like claiming genuine fast food burgers are “100% real beef.”