The Leather Mouse Pad

The leather of this mouse pad is full-grain leather, which means that it has all of the grain still intact on the top layer of the hide. The grain is the toughest and most water-resistant part of the hide that is only on the surface. Most companies shave off the top part of the hide to get rid of any of the character of the hide like scars or tiny bug bites, but in doing so, shave off the hardest and toughest part of the hide. Like taking the shingles off of the roof. When there is still a little of the grain left, that's what you call Top Grain Leather. It is still good leather, but not the best. If all of the grain is gone then that's what's called Genuine Leather. It stains easily and will fall apart before long. It sometimes takes a long time to find just the right hide to cut such a large piece of leather from and we end up having to scrap a lot of our leather because we cut around unusable scars and blemishes. It's not the cheapest way to make things, but there's something about making things this way that feels honest and true to me. A respect for the hide and the animal it came from.