What Is Chamois?

How is chamois leather made?

Chamois is made by working marine oils into sheepskin or lambskin that has lost its grain layer, then letting the oil oxidise inside the skin until it tans it. The international leather vocabulary, ISO 15115, allows two starting points: the flesh split of the skin, or a whole skin whose grain has been removed by frizzing.

The grain is the outer face of a skin. A flesh split is the underside layer left when a skin is sliced in two through its thickness. Either way, the finished chamois has no grain surface.

Full-oil and combination chamois

ISO 15115 names two tannages:

• Full-oil chamois is tanned with marine oils alone.
• Combination chamois is treated first with an aldehyde and then with the oils.

Britannica describes oil tanning as an ancient method in which fish oil or other fats are worked into the skin and bind to its fibres through oxidation. Its main use is chamois. A 2015 study by India’s Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) names menhaden and cod oil as fish oils used in the leather industry. In that study, goatskins pretreated with glutaraldehyde were drummed with oil, hung for 11 days to oxidise, washed to strip the excess oil, then dried and buffed.

From the chamois to the sheep

The leather takes its name from the chamois, a goat-like animal of the mountains from southern Europe to the Caucasus, whose skins supplied the original leather. ISO 15115 notes that leather from the chamois itself is rare, and that goatskins are also used. The CAMEO materials database at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, says modern chamois comes from the inner side of sheep and lamb skins.

Sources disagree on how the first chamois was tanned. CAMEO says the original tanning used cod liver oil. A conservation dictionary of bookbinding terms says the original leather was vegetable-tanned, and gives “chamoising” as the older name for the full-oil process.

In English, the word is recorded for the animal from the 1550s and for the leather from the 1570s, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. It came through French from Late Latin camox.

What are the properties of chamois?

Chamois is a soft, porous, suede-surfaced leather that soaks up water readily and can be wetted and dried many times without damage.

• Absorbency. CLRI researchers call chamois a highly porous leather with exceptional absorption. In their tests, fish-oil chamois reached a water absorption of about 320%, against roughly 190–197% for leathers tanned with castor oil, sunflower oil or tallow.
• Wet-and-dry stability. Britannica says oil-tanned leather can be wetted and dried repeatedly without harm. CAMEO adds that chamois can be soaked in hot water and still dry soft and supple.
• Surface. Chamois is mechanically sueded, which gives it a soft, napped feel like suede.
• Colour. CAMEO describes traditional chamois as a yellow leather.
• Smell. The CLRI study lists a strong odour, along with high cost, as the main drawback of fish oil.
• A weakness. Chamois needs moisture. A bookbinding dictionary records that, kept artificially dry, it hardens and tends to crack, which is why it is seldom used in bookbinding today.

Those properties explain its uses. CAMEO lists clothing and polishing cloths. The CLRI study names cleaning polished surfaces as the main use, with gloves and orthopaedic applications besides.

How is chamois classified?

The names you will meet for chamois describe its raw material and its tannage. ISO 15115 recognises the first two, the third overlaps with them, and the last two are not leather.

The line between “artificial” and “combination” depends on the source. Formaldehyde is an aldehyde, and Roberts and Etherington’s dictionary itself describes combination tannage as formaldehyde first, then oils. CAMEO’s artificial chamois therefore overlaps with what ISO 15115 accepts as combination chamois. When a maker uses either word, ask which tannage they mean.

How does chamois appear on a label?

On its own, “chamois” should mean sheep or lamb leather tanned with marine oils, and anything else needs a qualifier. Roberts and Etherington’s bookbinding dictionary, published by the Library of Congress, records that in the United States “chamois” without qualification is restricted to sheepskin flesh split tanned solely with oils, that is, full-oil chamois.

Read the words around it:

• “Full-oil” or “full-oil chamois”: tanned with marine oils alone, the ISO 15115 term.
• “Combination”: an aldehyde step came first.
• “Synthetic” or “PVA”: not leather at all. Like faux leather, a PVA chamois is a non-leather material.
• “Artificial”: still sheepskin leather, but CAMEO uses the word for skins tanned with formaldehyde or alum and then impregnated with oil, not tanned by marine oils alone. Ask which tannage was used.
• “Chamois” on a cotton shirt: the cloth, not the leather. Read it as you would “flannel” on a flannel shirt: a description of the fabric. The fibre-content line will say cotton.

What is chamois cloth?

Chamois cloth is a cotton fabric made to imitate chamois leather, and it contains no leather at all. Merriam-Webster records this cotton sense as a meaning of “chamois” in its own right, beside the animal and the leather.

Its name is easy to confuse with other cloths named for their surface, such as flannel, brushed cotton and moleskin, each of which has its own entry. Judge chamois cloth as a cotton, by its fibre content and the feel of the cloth, not by the leather name.

How do you tell genuine chamois from imitations?

Genuine chamois has a suede feel and no grain surface, takes up water fast, dries soft, and a full-oil skin may smell of fish oil. Use these checks on a cleaning skin, an offcut or a hidden seam allowance.

1. Look at both faces. Chamois is a flesh split or a skin with its grain removed, so neither side should show the smooth face of ordinary leather.
2. Wet it. Oil-tanned chamois absorbs water readily. In the CLRI sink test, a fish-oil sample sank in about 120 seconds.
3. Let it dry. Real oil-tanned chamois dries soft and supple. A piece that dries stiff is not behaving like oil-tanned chamois. A genuine skin stored very dry can also stiffen, so wet it and re-test before deciding.
4. Smell it. Fish-oil tannage has a strong odour. No smell does not prove a fake: the CLRI study found linseed-oil chamois comparable to fish-oil chamois, so other oils are possible.
5. Read the packaging. A synthetic chamois is made from PVA fibres, not skin, and should say “PVA” or “synthetic”.

Red flags: “chamois” with no tannage or material given on a premium item; “chamois leather” on something that dries hard; and “chamois” on a garment whose fibre label lists cotton but whose description implies leather.

How do you care for chamois?

Oil-tanned chamois can be wetted: it tolerates repeated wetting and drying and stays soft. CAMEO notes that it can even be soaked in hot water and dry supple.

What it does not tolerate well is being kept artificially dry for long, which can leave it hard and prone to cracking. Store it where it can take up normal room humidity. For garments, follow the care label.

Is chamois sustainable?

There is no sourced lifecycle data here to give chamois an overall verdict; what is documented concerns the tanning oil. Conventional chamois uses fish oil, which the CLRI study calls costly and strong-smelling. The same study found linseed oil produced chamois with comparable properties, and noted that linseed oil is available in large quantities and cheaper. Synthetic PVA chamois is not leather, so it should be judged as a synthetic textile, not as a leather alternative with a better record by default.