Hey so how does the durability of vegan leather compare to actual cowhide? I need a new belt for daily wear and am wondering if vegan might be a good option.
(Love my chainmail belt, but using it as dailywear seems to mean it'll require more frequent maintenance than I want to deal with.)
@starkatt poorly. My vegan leather accessories all wore out much, much more quickly than their leather counterparts. Anything under stress wore through in a small number of weeks, as opposed to years with cowhide.
I am hard on objects, so your experience might not be as drastic as mine, but there is definitely a difference.
@sev @starkatt Seconding this assessment. Vegan-leather belt started showing wear in a matter of days, became unusable in ~2mo. Replaced it with a full-grain animal-leather belt, which if I oil it once or twice a year and don't allow to sit around wet for an extended time, could realistically last longer than I do under conditions of daily wear.
@sev Thank you, that's the data I needed!
I really appreciate leather as a material, but would skip it if there's alternatives that are near equally as good. If there's not, then leather it is.