Need your help: Leather Jacket project

[Arm Lancestrong]

First let me say I'm under no illusions - this is silly, but that's what makes it fun. If it works we might all save a fortune on leather items!

 

Introduction

I bought a stylish PU leather jacket (fake leather) online as a total gamble, not expecting much. In all honestly I have been surprised and impressed with how good it looks as a jacket, but the material reflects light too brightly, giving the game away, cheapening its appearance significantly.

 

The jacket was so cheap that faced with the dilemma of sending it back, keeping it as is and probably never wearing it, or carrying out an experiment on it to dim the reflection (risking ruining it), I'm going to experiment on it. Figuring that my best shot will be with someone that understands chemistry, I came here.

 

So far I've searched high and low for solutions online but they all compromise the integrity of the material. Not only will that result in faster wear and tear, but it's virtually impossible to get such effects to be even. The best way to overcome those hurdles is to have a paint-on effect, IMO, keeping the protective layers in tact.

 

Experiment Objectives

• Dull faux leather shine to similar levels of a genuine leather jacket (see preview images below)
• Maintain the significant savings over an equivalent real leather jacket - equipment and materials used ideally have negligible price tags or are common household items.
• Durable - The effect must not fall off at the first sign of contact with another surface or water

Preview

As a proof of concept I photoshopped the jacket. The first image is unedited, it's a direct comparison of real leather versus the faux leather. You can see how much shinier the PU leather currently is here. The second image is a photoshop of the dimmed PU leather jacket, indicating the desired outcome of this experiment.

 

Preview 1: Real leather (left) next to Faux leather (right) jacket

Preview 2: Photoshopped target outcome for the faux leather jacket (right)

 

 

Edit: FYI the jacket came with a "belt strap" that goes around the collar. I don't intend to keep this so it will make an excellent test strip for any techniques we try. I can cut this up and use each segment to test an alternative approach to de-shine the PU leather.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Arm Lancestrong