Abstract

An international “round robin” trial has been carried out to investigate the ability of a number of instruments to objectively measure leather softness. Also investigated was the inter-laboratory variation of the instruments tested. Results show that as the softness range of a pack of leathers narrows, the variation of softness rankings by assessors increases. The average of the rankings of nine assessors was used to assess the ability of each instrument to measure leather softness. The instrument which performed the best in this trial was the BLC’s ST300 Softness Tester. This instrument is also non-destructive in its application and an order of magnitude quicker in its operation (as no sample preparation is required).