People decided to care about the ethics of fur farming after synthetic materials made fur obsolete
Not really your main point, but I have a shaving brush made out of synthetic fiber and another made out of badger fur. The synthetic one is a complete pain to use — foam slides right off of it. I don’t use it anymore.
That’s the only case I can think of where I have a near-identical fur and synthetic form of something to compare. I can readily believe that the difference is eliminated or less-substantial elsewhere, but for that particular sample size of one, the synthetic one was pretty disappointing.
I can also believe that one can synthesize fibers that are less prone to the sliding — maybe they need to be made rougher? — than the brush manufacturer did with that shaving brush. But they didn’t in that case.
Also going to add that while not fur synthetic leather is absolutely shit, I have a leather jacket from the 70s that is still holding up really well but when I worked estate sales nearly every piece of synthetic leather we found was going through some type of severe breakdown.
Not really your main point, but I have a shaving brush made out of synthetic fiber and another made out of badger fur. The synthetic one is a complete pain to use — foam slides right off of it. I don’t use it anymore.
That’s the only case I can think of where I have a near-identical fur and synthetic form of something to compare. I can readily believe that the difference is eliminated or less-substantial elsewhere, but for that particular sample size of one, the synthetic one was pretty disappointing.
I can also believe that one can synthesize fibers that are less prone to the sliding — maybe they need to be made rougher? — than the brush manufacturer did with that shaving brush. But they didn’t in that case.
Also going to add that while not fur synthetic leather is absolutely shit, I have a leather jacket from the 70s that is still holding up really well but when I worked estate sales nearly every piece of synthetic leather we found was going through some type of severe breakdown.