Attention Bachelors: Stop Buying Leather Couches! Actually check that. I’m talking to anyone who purchases leather furniture. Put your VHS tape of “Coming to America” away, and let’s talk about why leather couches are the most unpleasant piece of furniture that can be purchased.
1. Is your furniture cold or is it just you?One feature of leather that isn’t discussed often on the sales room floor is it’s uncanny ability to absorb and magnify the temperature of the surrounding room. This temperature issue is particularly grating as any man with an air conditioning unit in his apartment or house will jack it down to 60 degrees (I can almost guarantee this. How they expect to get a woman naked in a polar environment can be saved for another discussion, but perhaps they are thinking to apply the “Can I warm you up?” technique. I digress. )
Since his apartment/house is guaranteed to be 60 degrees you can bet your frozen bottom that his premium Italian leather couch will feel like it’s 50. Yes, it will take 10 minutes to heat up to body temp. No, that is not going to feel good against naked flesh.
But cold is preferable to the hot couch. Woe the day you wear a mini skirt or short shorts to a man’s house in the summer and are forced to sit on that sweat machine. Good luck peeling your legs off the furniture. Don’t worry though - him owning that piece of furniture is far more embarrassing than the sweat marks you will leave behind when you stand up.
2. Sure, it is to easy clean up! You just buy a new one.
Most fluids will come off of leather if they are cleaned up within 3 seconds, but water/liquid marks will generally stick around for the second coming if the liquid stands past that time. A stain on leather is extremely noticeable due to the monochromatic surface. A couch cushion can only be flipped so many times and I haven’t seen many leather couches with removable cushions. By the way, if you tear a leather couch (easy to do as leather doesn’t give) you might as well make it into the most expensive scratching post you ever purchased.
3. Excuse You. Never mind that was the couch.
A leather couch makes rude noises. Once I’m positioned comfortably on a leather couch, which takes a while, I find it almost impossible to switch positions without making discourteous sounds. “No, really. It was the couch!” A couch doesn’t need to converse.
4. You and the couch - not cuddly or comfy.
There is nothing cozy about a leather couch. On a cold night the last place you want to curl up is on a slippery surface. The appeal of the slippery leather vs. the cozy cloth couch among the male population might have to do with fantasies of turning the couch into a spontaneous slip and slide with…God knows what. That won’t work because of leather laws 1 and 2.
Plus, as previously mentioned, leather generally doesn’t give. I have a tendency to fall backwards onto furniture very lazy-like. I almost knocked myself out attempting this move on a family member’s couch. Don’t knock out writers. Go cuddly. Get fabric.
5. No, really, I love to sit on animals.
Please, lay on my couch made from the foreskin of a calf. This is premium lamb hide. Seriously. Maybe you also want to show me the videos of you torturing sea turtles? Why did you neglect to buy a zebra hide rug to finish up the room?
Beyond my dislike of leather couches for the above reasons, buying an animal hide item that could easily be made of an alternative fabric is callous at best. It’s not like we’re talking about a hard-to-avoid leather purchase like shoes, which 90 percent of the time have some leather component. This is an item that doesn’t have to have a stitch of animal carcass on it to be beautiful, comfortable, and functional. Make the humane choice for beasts, which includes your acquaintances that have to sit on the damn thing at parties.
6. There’s this thing called the Earth and on it we have limited resources…
We could get into the semantics of which type of fabric, i.e. cotton, polyester, leather, is more damaging to the environment. Some of the negative effects of leather production include: support of factory farm lots, sickened workers who are exposed to the tanning process, water contamination by both feedlots and tanning chemicals. 95% of all leather is chrome-tanned and waste areas containing chromium are considered toxic.
However, there are those who argue that due to current beef demand not using leather would be wasteful. For an in depth look at environmental and social impact of leather go to this Hoof to Hide report.
Finally, I would like to add that my tirade is applicable to all leather seating. Especially leather car seats, which seem to exemplify the leather temperature law so you either burn your ass in the summer, leave a humid butt print, or freeze to death before the seat warmers finally work.
But Raegan, you say, you’ve never been in my Bentley, Porsche, Ferrari, etc. I may not have been in yours, but I have been in those cars before and I don’t care how expensive the car - the laws of leather still apply.
I know leather furniture can be a status symbol to some, but perhaps we need to look beyond status and instead invest in sustainability. It’s a hell of a lot sexier and less sticky. Think about it when you’re curling up with your issue of Muscle & Fitness on the cold hard surface of you’re newly purchased adult slip and slide.
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