What Is Pull Up Leather, Anyway?

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Expert Verified By: Nolan Walsh, CEO & Creative Director, Thursday Boot Company & Michael Baston, Vice President, North Star Leather

Pull-up leather gives Harrison Ford his roguishness and protects Tom Cruise while piloting fighter jets. It’s used in the highest quality boots, attached to Rolexes, and a mainstay of vintage clothes shops. It has an almost alchemical ability to shift in time.

So what is it? To answer this question, we met up with Nolan Walsh, Thursday Boot Company’s CEO and Creative Director, to get the down low on pull up leather.

Key Takeaways: Pull Up Leather

Pull up is a finishing technique where leather is packed with oils and waxes, adding a depth of color that, when bent or folded creates a two-tone effect when the oils move.

santalum shaft — *Santalum‘s chrome tanned pull up leather from Indonesia*

Table of Contents

What is Pull Up Leather?

“Pull up is a finishing technique, not strictly speaking a type of leather,” explains Nolan Walsh. “Any kind of leather can be pull up.” The pull up finishing technique infuses hot oil and/or wax into the hide. The intricate finish allows for lines to form in the leather when pulled or stretched. This pulling creates the desirable “two tone effect.”

“To me, the beauty of pull up isn’t that it looks older or aged, it’s the gorgeous two tone color variation it can achieve,” says Tucker Gasho, the owner of K&H Leatherworks, noting that both veg tanned and chrome tanned leathers can be pull up.

What makes leather pull up or not is if you get the color change when it’s manipulated

“Horween’s Dublin or Derby and Badalassi’s Waxy Veg Tan, those are vegetable tanned with a pull up effect. Chromexcel, or Acadia’s Leather Wheat Harvest are chrome tanned with pull up,” explains Gasho. “What makes leather pull up or not is if you get the color change when it’s manipulated. Bridle leather, like that of Sedgwick or Wickett and Craig, can be heavily stuffed with wax, yet they have no pull up. “

[Related: Vegetable tanne vs chrome tanned: which leather is best for your boots?]

Dayton Service Boot glass floor — *The oil tanned pull up leather on the excellent (and very tough) Dayton service boot. Note the two tones.*

How is Pull Up Leather Made?

Pull up leather is packed with oils and waxes, adding a depth of color while allowing waxes to permeate the top grain, resulting in a leather that develops a richly textured patina.
Nolan Walsh, CEO & Creative Director, Thursday Boots

First, the hide is softened and dyed. Pull up leather’s magic is achieved by “hot stuffing.” Hot stuffing heats oil, wax, and/or grease and forces them into the hide. This coats the fibers of the leather with oil. The leather is then dyed again using a process called an aniline finish.

“Some pull up leather is just waxed, some is just oiled, and some is both,” adds Gasho.

A combination tanned pull up leather on the Parkhurst Delaware boot.

How Can You Recognize Pull Up Leather?

Pull up refers more to the manufacturing and finish process and less to the nature of the leather. The strength, softness, touch, stretchability, and grain tightness will vary between products.

Pull-up leather is recognizable by its unique dual-layer finish that create a high-contrast, dynamic look, with pronounced highs and lows that emerge especially when the leather is manipulated or bent.
Nolan Walsh, CEO & Creative Director, Thursday Boots

Like most leather, pull up leather comes in a variety of colors and shades. The patina will change depending on the color of the leather. Stretching a darker chocolate leather will create a rust colored stressed area. The quantity of oil and wax can also affect the tonal contrast between the leather and stress lines.

Viberg Vs Alden — *Viberg and Alden boots (above and below) made with Chromexcel, a hugely popular pull up leather*

Is Pull Up Leather a Suitable Material for Boots?

There are a wide variety of boots constructed from pull up leather. We have written a lot about the versatility of Chromexcel, a type of pull up developed by Horween Leather Company that’s more or less the most popular leather for American Goodyear welted boots.

You can find pull up leather on mid-range boots like the Wolverine 1000 Mile to $600+ Ludwig Reiter boots. Its rugged look and rustic patina contribute to its popularity, while its finish suggests quality and durability.

“Knowing all those waxes and oils are doing their part to resist water is great,” says Gasho. “In my experience, oiled pull up leathers tend to have color bleeding or cracking more frequently than waxed pull up leather.”

His favorite pull up leather, for the record, is the waxy vegetable tanned from Badalassi Carlo Tannery. Here’s a card wallet that he made with that leather below:

How Do I Care for Pull Up Leather?

Boots with a pull up finish are low maintenance. The tanning process has already filled leather with oil, and the wax and oil shift, so while they show scuffs and scrapes, it’s also easy to rub them out with your thumb, a bit of time, and pressure. On top of all that, the boots are resistant to penetration by contaminants. You still want to avoid water, moisture, other liquids, and stains.

There are different opinions about how frequently you should clean and condition your boots. This has a lot to do with how frequently you wear them. Keep in mind, “over time pull up will even out, and the effect will be less pronounced or even disappear,” says Michael Baston, Vice President of North Star Leather, “you can really accelerate that if you condition too often.”

If you like the look of pull up leather and want to maintain it, “be careful of only doing [conditioning] when absolutely necessary and with a light conditioner with minimal darkening potential,” explains Baston, ” If there’s too much oil, you saturate the leather, you wont have the pull effect.”

Left: SB Foot’s Copper Rough and Tough. Right: Natual Chromexcel. Image source: @nstarleather

Examples of Pull Up Leather

“I like to talk about the variety in pull up leather,” says Baston. “SB Foot’s Copper Rough and Tough has a dramatic pull-up, while Natural Chromexcel has a more subtle pull up.”

There are a lot of other leathers that have a slight, nearly invisible pull effect as well. “Then you have leather that you might not even call “pull up” like Oro Legacy, Black Cherry Featherstone, or Amber Harness,” explains Baston. “They give an incredibly light pull up just because of the oils inside that you still notice when you bend and stress them. “

It’s not just boots: bags, wallets, and belts all benefit from a pull up effect, especially if you’re looking for stuff that is casual and rugged. “Pull-up leathers are great for boots but I think they really shine the most for turned bags,” says Baston. “Totes, messenger bags and backpacks that you sew and then turn inside out. The pull up just creates the greater effect because of the stress of turning it.”