{"id":3517,"date":"2026-08-05T18:24:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/?p=3517"},"modified":"2026-09-30T22:59:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T22:59:26","slug":"what-apple-leather-is-vegan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/what-apple-leather-is-vegan\/","title":{"rendered":"What apple leather is (and why it doesn&#8217;t smell of fruit)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3498\" src=\"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-200x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"489\" height=\"734\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-200x300.png 200w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-683x1024.png 683w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-768x1152.png 768w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-700x1050.png 700w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-300x450.png 300w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2-1000x1500.png 1000w, https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blog-2.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 489px) 100vw, 489px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the question I get asked most. And I&#8217;m always glad when people ask it.<\/p>\n<p>Does it smell of apple?<\/p>\n<p>No.<\/p>\n<p>Does it rot if it gets wet?<\/p>\n<p>No, either.<\/p>\n<p>Is it actually durable?<\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p>I get the confusion. When someone hears &#8220;apple leather&#8221; for the first time, the most natural thing is to imagine something fragile, organic in the most literal sense, maybe with a smell. Something that&#8217;s clearly not what you want in a bag you&#8217;ll use every day.<\/p>\n<p>But apple leather isn&#8217;t that.<\/p>\n<p>Apple leather is a technical material made from the waste left over from processing apples. The skins, the seeds, the pulp the food industry throws away. What normally gets binned.<\/p>\n<p>That waste goes through a transformation process where it&#8217;s ground down, mixed with other components, and laminated onto a textile base. The result is a material with properties very similar to conventional leather: strength, flexibility, resistance to moisture.<\/p>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t smell of anything in particular. It doesn&#8217;t break down in water. It doesn&#8217;t warp with normal everyday heat. And it has a feel that most people can&#8217;t identify blind.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve run the test many times. I hand someone the bag without telling them what it&#8217;s made of, and ask. The usual answer is: looks like leather, doesn&#8217;t it? That&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;m going for.<\/p>\n<p>I work with apple leather because it&#8217;s the most honest thing I&#8217;ve found. A material with the functional properties of leather, that lasts as long as it should, that comes from something that would otherwise be waste, and that hasn&#8217;t cost any animal its life.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not an experiment. It&#8217;s a solution that already exists, that&#8217;s been tested, and that hardly anyone knows about yet. That&#8217;s part of what I like too: that there&#8217;s still something to explain.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve got any more questions about the materials, I&#8217;m here.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks,<\/p>\n<p>Un abrazo,<\/p>\n<p>Bel\u00e9n<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to see the bags made with apple leather, here they are: https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/vegan\/vegan-bags\/<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Frequently asked questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Is apple leather vegan?<\/strong> Yes, completely. It contains no animal by-products whatsoever. It&#8217;s made from plant waste left over from processing apples.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How long does an apple leather bag last?<\/strong> With normal use and the basic care you&#8217;d give any quality bag, it lasts for years. It&#8217;s not a material that breaks down quickly. It doesn&#8217;t peel. It&#8217;s designed to have a long lifespan \u2014 which is precisely the opposite of fast fashion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you care for an apple leather bag?<\/strong> Wipe stains with a damp cloth, and store it somewhere dry when you&#8217;re not using it. No special treatments needed. If you&#8217;ve got questions about specific care, write to me and I&#8217;ll let you know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is it cheaper than leather?<\/strong> No. Quality vegan leather costs about the same as traditional leather, and the manufacturing is nearly identical. The cutting, the tools, the machinery, the work put in by people \u2014 it&#8217;s all the same. What changes isn&#8217;t the price: it&#8217;s the values behind it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where&#8217;s the apple leather you use made?<\/strong> The materials I use come from certified suppliers in Spain and Italy. The bags themselves are made in artisan workshops in Spain, in Mallorca and C\u00e1diz.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; It&#8217;s the question I get asked most. And I&#8217;m always glad when people ask it. Does it smell of apple? No. Does it rot if it gets wet? No, either. Is it actually durable? Yes. I get the confusion. When someone hears &#8220;apple leather&#8221; for the first time, the most natural thing is to imagine something fragile, organic in the most literal sense, maybe with a smell. Something that&#8217;s clearly not what you want in a bag you&#8217;ll use every day. But apple leather isn&#8217;t that. Apple leather is a technical material made from the waste left over from processing apples. The skins, the seeds, the pulp the food industry throws away. What normally gets binned. That waste goes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_joinchat":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[148,149,150,151],"class_list":["post-3517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apple-leather-material","tag-sustanaible-alternative-to-leather","tag-vegan-bag-material","tag-what-is-apple-leather"],"aioseo_notices":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3517"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3597,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517\/revisions\/3597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.belendols.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}