When it comes to silicone leather,  there are some questions unavoidably asked by lots of customers, for example, with the economy goes worse day by day, why should I change my PU/PVC leather into silicone leather,  is silicone leather better than PU/PVC leather etc? I fully understand and respect different sounds, and here I would like to make it more clear about the differences between silicone leather and PU/PVC.

What is PVC?

PVC leather, in most cases we call and put it Vinyl because Vinyl is the main material of PVC leather.  Compared to PU/Silicone Leather, there is a big advantage: Yes, it is cheap, the cost only ranges from $1.5 to $5 according to different types of quality/quantityrequirements. 

Vinyl leather is widely used in various areas because it adopts calendering process which could make various beautiful patterns, bags/ suitcase usually uses PVC leather because it could be forged into different styles. when you step into one house decorated with attractive wallpaper, there is a large possibility that it is made by vinyl, in some hospitality occasions like restaurants & bars & public library etc, the owners usually choose PVC leathers to be covered on the sofa/ seats etc, PVC leather are also largely used in Medical and Marine industries.

In general, vinyl is one kind of hard material, when producing it into leather, manufacturers usually add 30%-40% plasticizers which could make PVC leather softer and more like leather, except for plasticizers, there are still some heavy metal added to make the PVC more suitable for some specific functions. PVC leather is cheap, when the customers choose PVC leather, we highly suggest them buy a little expensive ones, becuase it would be more stable, super-low pricing PVC leather would be faced with some problems, for example, when it is exposed to sunlight for long time, the plasticizers may seperate out and make the leather surface oily, as more and more plasticizers cleaned away, the leather will be harder and harder, also when PVC leather is in the low temperature circumstance, it would have a big risk of cracking.  

Is PU leather better than PVC?

Polyurethane leather(briefly PU leather), when we talk about it, the first reflection into our mind is that PU leather was born 30 years after the PVC leather, before silicone leather comes out, PU and PVC almost dominates the faux leather world. They are everywhere, when we are at home tired after a whole-day work, we would like to sit down or lie on the cozy sofa, when we wear a pair of high heels shoes,  when we drive our car for travelling,  we can see PU leather everywhere, it is so usual that we even may ignore it.

Usually the pricing of PU is higher than PVC with much better softness. The lifespan of the PU leather is about 2- 5 years according to the usage frequency.

PU leather has its unique properties, for example, it suports debossing and embossing which some customers could make their logo on it, I ever saw one company who produced some kinds of green PU leather with some cute bears debossing to attract baby products customers, anyway, I would like to say, PU leather is also mature enough to meet different customers' requests. 

But every coin has two sides, PU leather has its good sides, at the same time, it has some properties which is challenging, firstly, DMF is an inevitable topic we need to know, although some manufacturers claim that their leather is waterborne PU and no-solvent, there are a large quantity of manufacturers still producing conventional PU leather,  secondly, water-hydrolysis is also another issue to be faced with, in the market, there is a word "half-silicone" compared to 100% silicone leather, PU leather has the herent issue of water-hydrolysis, we smart human being think out a great solution---put some silicone oil on the PU leather, this perfectly solve the problem of water-hydrolysis and water-proof, with the time goes by, the silicone oil may disappear and then we have to be faced with  this issue again.

What is silicone leather? What are the properties of silicone leather?

Silicone leather is 100% silicone-coated leather with different substrate layers. Compared to PU/PVC leather, it is like a young man with young age but full of energy, except for some manufacturing pioneers of silicone leather, more and more PU leather supplier also come into this industry because of its promising future, Timwell welcome more manufacturers come into this field, we believe this will push every manufucturer make the silicone leather industry maturer, more sustainable and more healthy.

Silicone leather is an eco-friendly alternative sustainable leather which live up to today's environmental awareness, during the  procession, silicone leather is completely water-free and solvent-free, no pollutants come out. 

Silicone leather is water-hydrolysis resistant,  inherently flame resistant and has strong colorfastness performance even in high temperature environment for long time, it is one kind of stable material which has excellent physical property. in Chemical aspect, silicone leather has no plasticizers, no heavy metal, and no PFAS, RoHs and Reach approved.

Silicone leather is being a future faux leather full of big potential.

More information about silicone leather, please kindly read: what is silicone leather