Everything you need to know about pleather care
Pleather can often be truly indistinguishable and far easier to clean than its leather counterpart.
Meurice explained in their article, ‘A guide to pleather: Faux leather care’ how pleather is far easier to clean and maintain than real leather.
“Faux leather, or ‘pleather’ is fantastic. A favourite from rocker girls, to hipsters to fashionistas, pleather is everywhere. It’s less expensive than real leather, feels and looks almost exactly the same, and is best of all, ethically sourced. An added benefit? Faux leather is much easier to clean and care for than its natural counterpart,” they said.
History of pleather
Under the name artificial leather, faux leather was originally designed as an alternative leather substitute for upholstery. Some early faux leathers were made with a web of “calico” fabric, coated with boiled linseed oil and mixed with pigments. These were then layered, and spread over cotton and pressed with rollers. It then was passed through various embossing rollers to give it a specific grain.
Check this out: Find out when you need to wash your clothesÂ
Faux Leather care
Faux leather is great because it is pretty easy to clean with just water and detergent. Always test on a small area before you go ahead with the rest of the piece.
1. Mix up some liquid dish detergent with warm water in a bucket and use a soft bristle brush to scrub your garment and then rinse with cold water. You may want to check if your garment can be machine washed. I would probably stay away from machine washing as it can start to wear on the finish.
2. Hang drying is the most important step! This is a crucial step because faux leather is made of PVC or some other kind of synthetic fabric and will either shrink and distort or melt. You could end up ruining other clothes by getting melted pieces of PVC on them.
3. Even though this material is not real leather, it can definitely crack and distort. I would find some PVC moisturizer and use that in small areas. You are going to want to make sure you keep your pleather garments clean and not wash them too often. Over time the finish of the material can start to become brittle and flake right off.
DID YOU KNOW?
Click on the words highlighted in red to read more on this and related topics.Â
To receive news links via WhatsApp, send an invite to 061 694 6047
The South Coast Sun is also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – why not join us there?
Do you have more information pertaining to this story?
Feel free to let us know by commenting on our Facebook page or you can contact our newsroom on 031 903 2341 and speak to a journalist.
(Comments posted on this issue may be used for publication in the Sun)
