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Sheepskin, goat and deer hides from Driftless Tannery are not factory made. Each hide is hand worked and will retain its natural character. There may be minor scrapes or blemishes on the skin from the processing, and they will not have the shockingly white leather of factory produced, chemically tanned skins. While in process, the hides are washed many times with a wool specific, ecofriendly detergent, and we do not use bleach or use harsh chemicals to clean them. Depending on the breed and lanolin content, the fiber may retain some of the natural lanolin and white hides may have a yellowish tint. Permanent yellow staining is known as canary stain that is a result of bacterial action in wool under wet and humid conditions. Canary stain does not wash out. The leather underside of mimosa bark tanned hides will be a sueded light salmon color whereas the alum tawned hides will have a lovely, white supple leather underside.*
As these hides have been rescued from the waste stream of animal agriculture, all skins will have some relics of their lives and the farms they came from in the form of scars, holes, or small bits of vegetative matter.
*You can learn more about why we are switching our process from alum tawning to predominately mimosa bark tanning.