Dyes and colors available for our Traveler’s Notebooks

The leather we use is 2,5 mm thick premium choice vegetable tanned leather, as explained here. This leather is used by saddle makers and for “tooling”. The leather can feel a bit tough at first, but with use it’ll become more and more pliable and subtle.

We use first choice vegetable tanned leather even though it is more expensive then chrome tanned leather or second choice vegetable tanned. Firstly because the vegetable tanned leather is firmer and better suited for the Traveler’s Notebook set-up and secondly because the first choice pieces are selected for less marks and scars on the leather ensuring a better dyeing result.

When undyed, this leather will, by exposure to the sun and oils in your skin, turn darker. It’ll turn into a beautiful warm brown and develop a lovely patina. This happens because of the tannins in the leather. The leather will also color after applying the different oils we use in conditioning and maintaining it.

There are two main ways of dyeing leather, Aniline dyeing, which is basically dyeing the leather with soluble solvent based dyes without sealing the surface of the skin, and, as would follow from the previous, using an insoluble topcoat, like with acrylic dyes or sealing in the color of some of the Eco-Flo water-soluble dyes with and insoluble coat.

Aniline

The dyes used for the standard Traveler’s Notebook listings (here and here) are aniline solvent based dyes, these are permanent transparent dyes that will penetrate the leather.

There are 4 different dyes I use primarily:

Angelus leatherdye
Angelus suede leatherdye
Fiebings leatherdye
Fiebings oil based leatherdye

Each of these leather dyes has a somewhat different effect on the leather, Although these differences can be very subtle. The oil based dyes and the suede dyes tend to leave the leather more subtle to start with, but the alcohol based dyes have a wider range of colors available. Specifically the oil dyes have mostly brown tints.

There are other colors available and custom mixed colors, which is why I there is an option for custom in the listings.

Here’s an overview of the colors and their names.

Fiebings dyes

1	6	11	16
Fiebings	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based
Navy	Mahogany	Light Brown	Black
2	7	12	17
Fiebings	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings
Light Blue	Dark Brown	English Bridle	Purple
3	8	13	18
Fiebings	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings
Turkuoise	Walnut	Saddle Tan	Oxblood
4	9	14	19
Fiebings	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings
Green	Golden Brown	Light Tan	Maroon
5	10	15	20
Fiebings	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based	Fiebings, oil based
Aqua Green	Spanish Brown	Yellow	Red

Angelus dyes:

21	26	31	36
Angelus	Angelus, suede	Angelus, suede	Angelus, suede
Dark Brown	Purple	Dark Brown	Beige
22	27	32	37
Angelus	Angelus, suede	Angelus, suede	Angelus, suede
Light Blue	Lilac	Light Brown	Pink
23	28	33	38
Angelus	Angelus	Angelus	undyed
Blue Jean	Rose	Brown	Natural
24	29	34
Angelus	Angelus	Angelus
Turkuoise	Red	Gold
25	30	35
Angelus	Angelus	Angelus, suede
Kelly Green	Oxblood	Tan

We could of course give the leather colors all fancy names, but we feel it is straightforward to give them the name of the dye used.

After dyeing we condition the Travelers with either oil or carnauba cream, so you don’t need to condition it further. The oils in your hands will be enough to keep it conditioned. We brush the inside with a suede brush and spray it with a suede conditioner, to make it water, dust and dirt resistant.

If you somehow haven’t used your leather cover in a while you may find it needs some conditioning. A light rubbing with either oil or any other leather conditioner will suffice.

For the ROSE and TURQUOISE colored leathers we use Carnauba creme as a conditioner, because this has less tendancy to activate the tannins in the leather and it’ll stay lighter longer.

With use and handling the leather will get softer and more flexible over time, so don’t be afraid to take it with you and handle it a lot. You can also roll the leather of your cover to start the process.

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IMPORTANT >>Always make sure to roll it toward the inside (the suede side) to avoid wrinkling of the leather!<<

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Semi-Aniline

It is also possible to paint the leather with acrylic dyes. This is available in the shop as a customization for the standard Traveler’s Notebooks.

We use Acrylics specifically intended for leather and a sealant as a coating on top of them. After painting them and sealing they will be conditioned with Carnauba creme, like with the Rose and Turquoise TN’s.

There are different kinds of upgrades available, but if you have a specific idea in mind you can always contact us and we can discuss your idea and let your dream Notebook come to live.

The painted upgrades are:

Distressed, a mix of colors, sanded or not sanded, to reveal the underlying color, or one color and sanded to reveal the underlying color.
Custom artwork, a painted Traveler, with your requested image painted onto the leather.

Here are some examples of these

Distressed

Other color combinations are possible, the sky is the limit…however 4-5 colors are usually plenty.

The distressed with sanding option

Since these paints are are hand-applied, no two will be exactly the same, even if we use the exact same colors, the mix and or the sanding will always be different.

Custom artwork

A basic nebula or a more complex one with moons and stars are definite favorites.

Perhaps some Nothern lights

Or a nebula with with a mermaid.

Or how about a more elaborate painting with a Weirwood Tree. Together with us, you can bring your ideas and imagination to life for a unique and beautiful Traveler, that will last you a life time.