Natural HH mistery - Help needed!

Tom71 · May 22, 2020

Sooooo!

Some of you may remember, that I am busily weathering my "raw" natural italian HH Primo HWM for quite some time now. Lately I´ve been thinking, "Well, this is not really getting any darker any more, is it...!?!"

Today I had a closer look and guess what I found: The hide is actually getting lighter again (thereby showing all the stains much more prominent). The Areas NOT exposed to sunlight are actually much darker than the main body/sleeves.

I attach pix from today; the second one shows the underside of the collar, i.e. an area which can possibly see no sunlight or very, very little of it.

Not sure how much that bothers me, but I thought I´d show it to you guys. Any thoughts most welcome...

Tom71 · May 22, 2020

Carlos840 · May 22, 2020

Tom71 said:
View attachment 237010 View attachment 237011

Only thing i can think of is that you need to move to California to get the correct sun.
Think about it, everyone in the UK is pale, maybe our sun just isn't setup right for taning.

torfjord · May 22, 2020

Tom71 said:
View attachment 237010 View attachment 237011

That... makes no sense at all. Super weird. These natural leathers should tan a little even in cloudy conditions. But it sure looks like the sun has bleached it. Never ever seen anything like that happen to natural leather. Have you asked Aero about it?

Will Zach · May 22, 2020

The hide is quite clearly getting bleached by sunlight. Might be worth asking Aero. Some dyes get bleached by sunlight, maybe that is what the tannery used on that hide.

marker2037 · May 22, 2020

I guess you could put some type of neatsfoot oil on it and get it into some sunlight to see how it reacts to that.

jacketjunkie · May 22, 2020

I thought the whole idea of natural hide is that it doesnt have a dye and is a naked hide that will tan in the sun.. if the leather has a dye/topcoat on the hide, it cannot tan, can it?

Will Zach · May 22, 2020

^^
True enough, no dyes, but tanners do use lightly colored compounds like tree bark in their natural leather tanning process. No idea what that specific tannery uses, but whatever it is it bleaches.

navetsea · May 23, 2020

I think your leather is dry, the part hidden under the collar has more oil in it
sun can only brown so much, the rest is just embedded dirt/ stains, oxidation, and oil, and accumulation of little brown color the oil has, at least that is what I believe. I sun tanned my belt for awhile but once it browned a little it didn't get any darker from doing it, so when I oiled it, it got a step darker. and then you can sun tan it again, perhaps the UV will break down composition in the oil or maybe the oil oxidize then it get another step darker again, and so on.

I see on my darker veg tan belt it has oil pull effect from accumulation of light oiling over the year

Same with my wristband, sorry my belt is on another pants.

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

Carlos840 said:
Only thing i can think of is that you need to move to California to get the correct sun.
Think about it, everyone in the UK is pale, maybe our sun just isn't setup right for taning.

Fair point, Carlos! It’s an Italian hide, though and Italian hides never seem to pale. Even those in Bermondsey and Fitzrovia...

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

torfjord said:
That... makes no sense at all. Super weird. These natural leathers should tan a little even in cloudy conditions. But it sure looks like the sun has bleached it. Never ever seen anything like that happen to natural leather. Have you asked Aero about it?

Haven’t reached out to Aero yet, as I only discovered that misters yesterday but will do so. Weird thing is, that it DID tan and big time all the time. Process seems to be reversed only for the last weeks or so.

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

marker2037 said:
I guess you could put some type of neatsfoot oil on it and get it into some sunlight to see how it reacts to that.

I am thinking about that. Thing is, I wanted to let the leather evolve naturally, no oil, no rubbing with a damp cloth to even out the rain-stains etc.

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

jacketjunkie said:
I thought the whole idea of natural hide is that it doesnt have a dye and is a naked hide that will tan in the sun.. if the leather has a dye/topcoat on the hide, it cannot tan, can it?

Yes, it’s a “naked” hide. Aero used this leather for their collab with Epaulet, and there are pretty impressive photos of the tanning process on the net. They made me reach out to Holly and ask about the leather in the first place.

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

navetsea said:
I think your leather is dry, the part hidden under the collar has more oil in it
sun can only brown so much, the rest is just embedded dirt/ stains, oxidation, and oil, and accumulation of little brown color the oil has, at least that is what I believe. I sun tanned my belt for awhile but once it browned a little it didn't get any darker from doing it, so when I oiled it, it got a step darker. and then you can sun tan it again, perhaps the UV will break down composition in the oil or maybe the oil oxidize then it get another step darker again, and so on.

I see on my darker veg tan belt it has oil pull effect from accumulation of light oiling over the year

Same with my wristband, sorry my belt is on another pants.

Thanks for chiming in! I was hoping on that, as you always have spot-on suggestions.
All I can say is, that the leather doesn’t FEEL particularly dry and certainly not more so at the “bleached” parts.
As I said above, I guess now comes the time to start experimenting with the hide and maybe apply some oil or so. Will wait and see what Ken/Denny say first, though. I am a believer in natural aging, so I may need to rethink my approach.

torfjord · May 23, 2020

I would be very interested in hearing Aeros response, as I am considering a jacket in that exact leather.

navetsea · May 23, 2020

True naked vegtan is a lot drier than wax stuffed leather, only my 2cents but light conditioning vegtan especially after the jacket is baked in the sun is to me a normal maintenance and part of natural aging of a leather item, i dont think naked nat vegtan would be maintenance free if you want it to evolve nicely taking caramel brown patina sheen like that on photos, part of it is coming from beeswax I think.
The point is to do it lightly and not too often, and brush it with horsehair from time to time to clean the pores and build up some sheen, all to me sounds like normal maintenance, not over tampering or faking it.
Finished top coated leather or oil pull both are a lot easier in maintenance since oil dont escape a pigmented surface and the other is so rich in oil and wax that takes decades to dry out to finally need oil supplement.

handymike · May 23, 2020

This makes a lot of sense. If you think of a saddle, they are cleaned and maintained, and look fantastic after years of use.

58panheadfan · May 23, 2020

@Tom71 Be happy with this cool jacket and even more with this nice unique color. I like it a lot, personally much more than this, seen on every corner actually, suntanned ocre, gold etc. color

Tom71 · May 23, 2020

navetsea said:
True naked vegtan is a lot drier than wax stuffed leather, only my 2cents but light conditioning vegtan especially after the jacket is baked in the sun is to me a normal maintenance and part of natural aging of a leather item, i dont think naked nat vegtan would be maintenance free if you want it to evolve nicely taking caramel brown patina sheen like that on photos, part of it is coming from beeswax I think.
The point is to do it lightly and not too often, and brush it with horsehair from time to time to clean the pores and build up some sheen, all to me sounds like normal maintenance, not over tampering or faking it.
Finished top coated leather or oil pull both are a lot easier in maintenance since oil dont escape a pigmented surface and the other is so rich in oil and wax that takes decades to dry out to finally need oil supplement.

Thanks again. As Handymike said, this makes perfect sense. I did check with Ken about “special treatment” of the hide, and the answer was not to worry, but I clean and wax my shoes regularly, so I guess I’m convinced.

I did reach out to Aero today too and will let you know about their take on this.

58panheadfan · May 23, 2020

Tom71 said:
I am thinking about that. Thing is, I wanted to let the leather evolve naturally, no oil, no rubbing with a damp cloth to even out the rain-stains etc.

That would be perfect. As Aero stated, do nothing absolute nothing with a new Jacket until 2035. Most people baby their Jackets to much (incl. me). Top of the wacky I have seen: a guy from another forum stuffed his MF Campus Jacket full of (olive) oil! and destroyed a nice Jacket which it was originally...

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