Because of the innovations in synthetic fabrics and more awareness for the humane treatment of animals, it’s not very surprising that there’s an increase in the quantity and quality of leather alternatives; one of these is microfiber leather. It’s known to feel like real leather and being durable. Continue reading to learn more about microfiber leather.
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Microfiber leather has gained significant attention in recent years as a versatile and innovative alternative to traditional leather. But what is microfiber leather exactly? Unlike genuine leather products made from animal skin, microfiber leather is a type of synthetic leather crafted from ultra-fine fibers that mimic the texture and feel of natural leather. Often compared in the debate of microfiber leather vs real leather, this material is renowned for its durability, breathability, and resistance to wear and tear.
Unlike PU leather or faux leather, which can sometimes feel less authentic, quality microfiber leather closely replicates the luxurious feel of real leather. Furthermore, this microfiber synthetic leather is considered an eco-friendly option because it doesn't involve animal cruelty, making it a popular choice among those who prefer vegan leather. Often used in leather accessories and garments, microfiber leather combines the aesthetic appeal of natural leather with the practicality of artificial leather. This innovative material, often made from non woven fabric, offers a sustainable and high-quality alternative for those who appreciate genuine leather products but are looking for a more eco-friendly option. Whether you're comparing microfiber leather vs real leather or exploring the benefits of microfiber synthetic leather, it’s clear that this material is revolutionizing the world of leather goods.
Synthetic leather wasn’t taken seriously for many years. By simply looking at this kind of leather, you know they’re fake. The smell, look, and feel aren’t close to animal skin. Manufacturers thought of ways to develop synthetics because of the increasing demand for this material. This is where microfiber leather was discovered which is considered the best synthetic.
The process of making other synthetics starts by placing fabric strips down and coating them using polyurethane resin. For microfiber leather, it begins with a mat of synthetic fibers that are intertwined and bound together with the use of polyurethane.
Because of this process, it’s very close to how real leather is made. Real leather replaces skin fibers for microfibers. Microfibers may seem good, but you have to keep in mind that not all microfibers are the same. If possible, you can look at the sides of the fabric closely. If you find it hard to differentiate, it’s likely high quality.
Compared to other synthetic fibers, microfiber is longer lasting. That’s because it’s treated like animal skin when created. Most traditional synthetic fibers are sheets of material that are painted to look like leather. Then, it’s laminated with polyurethane to protect the coating.
So, traditional synthetic fibers aren’t durable, unlike microfiber leather which is as durable as real leather. It’s also considered the best grade for artificial leather now. Microfiber leather has benefits that real leather doesn’t have such as not peeling and aging fast.
The real indicator of how durable microfiber leather is in how it’s maintained. Therefore, you should clean and care for it well because microfiber leather isn’t unbreakable.
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In the different leather grades, bonded leather is considered the lowest quality of real leather. Microfiber leather is a better option than bonded leather because it’s sturdier and looks more realistic. Bonded leather is made of leather scraps, so they’re not tough.
Unlike microfiber leather that’s made from microfiber fabric, PU leather is made of standard fabric with a polyurethane resin coating. Microfiber fabric is soft and breathable. It’s also very absorbent making it tough. PU leather, on the other hand, cracks and peels.
Many people like full-grain leather. Since it’s a luxurious material, full-grain leather is pricey and is best used when making clothes or shoes. Microfiber leather is indeed the highest grade of synthetic leather. But it can’t stand against genuine full-grain leather.
The company is the world’s best coated microfiber supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.
So, what is microfiber leather? It’s a revolutionary material that stands out as a top contender among high end leather material options. Whether you're a fan of genuine leather products or someone who prefers faux leather, microfiber leather offers a unique blend of qualities that make it highly desirable. This artificial leather closely mimics the look and feel of traditional leather, yet it provides additional benefits such as being water repellent and water resistant. For those concerned about protecting delicate surfaces, microfiber leather is much softer and less abrasive compared to other materials like PU leather or PVC leather.
In the realm of leather accessories and garments, quality microfiber leather has become a preferred choice for its durability and versatility. Its construction often involves a microfiber cloth base, which contributes to its strong, long-lasting nature. Moreover, leather microfiber is an environmentally friendly alternative, offering a sustainable option for those looking to reduce their environmental impact while still enjoying the luxurious feel of high end leather material. Whether you’re considering it for leather accessories or larger projects, micro fiber leather is undeniably a game-changer in the world of artificial leather.
Finally, you have a better understanding of what microfiber leather is, how it is compared to other types of leather, and its pros and cons. It’s sturdy and quality synthetic leather. In terms of look and feel, it’s far better than other synthetic fibers. It also stands out from other synthetics because tightly woven fibers are used to make it.
We’ve said it many times before, and we’ll continue to say it, your vehicle is a very important investment in your life, so you want to make sure to keep it protected and looking excellent for years to come. Using the wrong towels on your vehicle’s paint and other delicate surfaces can cause more harm than good - creating unsightly swirls and scratches. If you’re a shine freak like us, you’ve spent countless hours polishing the paint to near-perfection, so “cheaping out” on towels on any part of the detailing process should not be a consideration.
Stitched Tags and Heat-Seared Edges Make Your Paint Cry
Many of the microfiber towels that you can purchase in bulk packs from retail stores or large wholesale stores are cheap for a reason, their quality is low. These towels are usually multiple colors, thin, and feel almost rough and clingy. They will grab onto your fingers as you pick up the towel, due to the lower GSM (Grams per Square Meter) fiber count and lower percentage of polyamide compared to polyester (80/20). Some of these towels have a GSM so low that they leave light marring and faint scratches in soft clear coats. Many of these towels will have stitched tags made of nylon or some other sharp material, and you will notice these tags are not very flexible, which is a perfect combination to instantly scratch paint, clear coat, piano black plastic trim pieces, and more. Even if you rip the tag out of the towel, it will still usually feel rough at this area, and it will weaken the stitching of the towel. These low-quality towels will feel even more rough over time, especially after washing them.
These bulk towels also have heat-seared edges cut by machines that melt the edges and corners of the towels. This keeps the towels from fraying apart, but these melted edges are sometimes even sharper than the sewn-in tags, so they can cause scratching when wiping away compound, polish, or wax residue, or when using them for a maintenance wipe with Detail Spray for example. These types of towels are good for very dirty jobs like cleaning door jambs, wiping exhaust tips, checking your oil, or wiping up spills and then disposing of them, so we do not recommend them for paint. Unlike these cheap bulk towel options, at Adam’s Polishes we source only high-quality, premium microfiber from South Korea, so while they are a bit more costly, it is worth the peace of mind when using them. Our towels are a higher-quality 70/30 blend, have no melted edges, and have zero tags. You will instantly feel the difference when picking up one of our plush Single Soft Towels or Borderless Grey Towels to wipe down your car, and feel at-ease knowing that you are using premium towels to go along with the premium chemicals that make your ride stand out from the crowd.
Beach Towels, Chamois, and Cotton Bath Towels vs. Microfiber Drying Towels
Having the right products and process to dry your vehicle after washing are just as important as having plush microfiber towels on hand when polishing, ceramic coating, or quick detailing your car. Improper washing and drying are two of the main causes of swirl marks and scratches in a vehicle’s finish. It may shock some of you, but there are many people that still think it’s perfectly fine to dry your car with a cotton bath towel or beach towel. Beach towels and cotton towels are fine for drying off your skin after a swim or shower, but they are not soft enough for vehicle paint and can quickly swirl up a nice finish. They also do not absorb water anywhere near as efficient as a proper microfiber drying towel. Much like the cheap bulk-buy microfiber towel bundles discussed above, beach towels and cotton towels usually have sharp nylon tags that will further aid in scratching your vehicle.
Chamois are a less than ideal vehicle drying solution as well. Real leather chamois absorb significant amounts of water and are easy to wring out, but their very thin design can cause issues. Since chamois and synthetic chamois are very thin, if they pick up a small amount of grit, like a particle of dirt or sand, the chamois will simply drag this particle across the painted surface, usually resulting in long, faint scratches or worse. Since synthetic chamois are not as flexible as a towel, they often leave droplets of water in body contours, panel gaps, etc. Real leather chamois dry out by design, but can also begin to develop an unpleasant odor that you may not want lingering in your garage or laundry room.
The benefits of premium microfiber drying towels like our Ultra Plush Drying Towel or Jumbo Plush Drying Towel, are that they are incredibly soft once they have even a small amount of water in them. The long, twist-loop fibers of these towels will reach down into all of the nooks and crannies, body contours, and cracks and crevices of various exterior surfaces, absorbing every drop of water. These long fibers also help in pulling any potential dirt particles up into the towel, rather than dragging them across the surface like a chamois. Premium microfiber drying towels hold very large amounts of water and are capable of drying entire midsize sedans without wringing them out - in the case of our Jumbo Plush Drying Towel, it holds over one gallon (9 pounds) of water, making it a very safe option to dry large trucks and SUV’s in a more efficient manner.
Car Dusters - Why You Should Avoid Them
It’s nearly a given that at every big car show or event we attend, we will have at least one person ask us “Where are your car dusters?” and they proceed to get upset when we tell them that we do not sell them because they do more harm than good to your car’s paint. Adam often tells them “Car dusters are a great way for us to sell machine polishers!” We then explain to the them that car dusters can leave very long faint scratches up and down the entire hood, fenders, roof, and trunk lid of a vehicle, as they build up more and more dust and dirt particles that stick right onto the edge of the wax tips of the feather duster. You then drag dirt particles over the surface as you pick up the rest of the dust from a panel, with no easy way to clean out the car duster between each section or panel. This same issue can occur with some car covers if you pull them off of a car rather than lift the cover upward off of the car. Then you will need to machine polish or possibly even compound the surface to remove these scratches.
The much safer alternative to using a car duster to remove light dust from your car at a cruise, show, or in your garage is using the correct chemical cleaning solution with a unique type of microfiber towel made for this task. Our Waterless Wash and waffle-weave Waterless Wash Towels were designed specifically with this purpose in mind. Waterless Wash is our most complex chemical formula out of every chemical that we offer. It uses special lubricating agents, cleaners, and polymers that aid in loosening and lifting dirt and dust particles from a surface, that, when combined with the channels of the premium waffle-weave microfiber towel, pull dirt from the surface up into the hundreds of tiny “pockets” in the towel.
The Waterless Wash Towels are a generous 16”x24” size, which allows you to fold the towel into 6 or 8 working “sides” per towel. After spraying down a panel or section with Waterless Wash, you gently wipe one side of the towel over the area a few times, until that side becomes soiled with dust and dirt. Continue to flip the towel to new fresh sides until all sides have been saturated with cleaner and dirt, then set aside that towel to be washed. You can then follow up with a second dry Waterless Wash Towel, or a Single Soft Towel or Borderless Grey Towel if you want to be even more delicate, to wipe away any excess residue from the Waterless Wash on the now clean surface. Typically it may take 6 or more Waterless Wash Towels to clean an entire vehicle if it has heavy dust build-up or light dirt; however, once you do the initial cleaning, it will be much easier to “dust off” main areas with Waterless Wash throughout the rest of the day at the show. The benefit of Waterless Wash is that you do not need to worry about it building up if you use it frequently, since it does not offer any protection.
Premium microfiber towels can be a pricey initial investment, but with proper use and care, you can get multiple years out of most of these towels before you will need to downgrade them to a lesser task and re-stock your supply. Microfiber is one area in detailing where you definitely do not want to cheapen-out or try to find the best bargain. Using a low-quality towel or re-using a dirty towel to try to save a few minutes here and there during the detailing process can end up causing considerable re-work if you end up scratching a panel that you just spent 30 minutes or more correcting with a machine polisher. There are a few simple practices, along with the right cleaning accessories to keep your premium microfiber towels clean, soft, and safe for many detailing sessions to come. Let’s take a look at Adam’s Towel & Pad Revitalizer below.
Towel & Pad Revitalizer
Adam’s Towel & Pad Revitalizer is a simple and effective way to clean and maintain your premium microfiber towels, as well as microfiber and foam pads and applicators. It is a powerful detergent formula made to break down and remove polish, compound, polymers, wax, and other residues that are absorbed into your towels during various detailing processes. Not only does it extend the life of your towels, it will keep them feeling just as soft as the first day you removed the towel from its packaging. Building on our already excellent but older Microfiber Revitalizer & Brightener, our chemist reformulated it into an even more effective cleaner as Towel & Pad Revitalizer, which we feel is one of the best microfiber detergents available in the industry today. Towel & Pad Revitalizer can be used in several different ways:
For a full in-depth write-up on caring for microfiber, please reference our previous blog entry here: How To Care For Microfiber Towels
How Many Premium Microfiber Towels Do You Need?
Another question we are often asked is “How many towels do I need for an all-around good setup of microfiber?” This will usually depend on several factors, such as how many vehicles do you own or work on, how frequently do you clean them, and how do you clean them or what products do you use on them? If you have one or two vehicles that you are maintaining, you may only need 1 or 2 of each towel type; however if you are cleaning a fleet of vehicles or detailing as a business, you may need something like our 24-pack of Borderless Grey Towels so that you are not constantly washing the same 4 or 6 towels every night. If you’re looking to start fresh with your microfiber assortment or to replenish old or lower-quality towels, a good starting point example if you’re maintaining a few vehicles would be:
Contact us to discuss your requirements of colour coded mops for cleaning. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.