The tannin molecules will enter the hide and displace the water that is bound in the collagen. When tanning hides to make leather, the hides are soaked in a tanning solution.
#CHROMIUM VS CHROME VS CHROMIXIUM SKIN#
Just as the tannins in wine come from the skin of the grape, so the tannins in trees are found in the bark. If you are a red wine drinker, you may have had heated debates over a wine’s ‘tannins’ – the ingredient that makes the wine feel dry in the mouth, sometimes to the extent of making both your tongue and gums feel unpleasantly arid and barren. So ‘tanning’ has nothing to do with coloring as in getting your kit off and letting the sun brown your skin.Ī tannin is a molecule that bonds easily with proteins and will draw liquids out. In fact, the word ‘tannin’ derives from an old German word for ‘fir’. These tannins would most often come from trees such as oak, chestnut or mimosa, but hundreds of tree types and other plants have been used. Tanning modifies the molecular structure of the skin.įor the vast majority of the past thousands of years, this modification has been performed by soaking it in a solution made up of vegetable tannins.
What tanning does is leave the skin much less susceptible to hydrolysis – the separating of chemical bonds caused by water – which would otherwise cause its degradation. Look closely and on vegetable tanned leathers you will be able to see the collagen fibers that leather is made up of.
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