Cruelty Free Embossed Paw Leather Journal

[Okami]

I purchased this journal for three reasons - 1. the purchase provided bowls of food to animals in shelters, 2. I like the embossed paw prints and 3. it was on sale

 

Here is the link Embossed Paw Journal and here is the description from the website:

 

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Beautifully embossed with a subtle paw pattern, these journals are more than just a place to store your thoughts – they’re works of art! Using handmade cotton paper and the skins from animals that have died of natural causes, our Cruelty Free Embossed Paw Leather Journal will add peace of mind to your sketches, notes, or diary entries. When full of your ideas, it's a simple matter of slipping in fresh insert pages made with 100% tree-free, archival quality recycled cotton.

 

Made with leather sourced from local "Haat" markets in villages where the predominantly vegetarian population reveres goats, sheep, cows and buffalo for their value as milk animals, and where a live animal is worth far more than a dead one. Without economic incentive to kill animals for their skin, the artisans instead reclaim skins from animals that died naturally. Our supplier's practices are geared toward creating more respect for all lives, as well as for the environment.

 

Each journal comes filled with paper, with refills available for prolific writers. Handmade in and fair-trade imported from India.

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I really did not expect a lot from this journal - the cover is nice but not very heavy, it reminds me very much of the Exacompta Nostalgie Leatherette Refillable Journal. The one difference is that this journal is real leather while the Exacompta is not. The stitching on the cover is acceptable, but again not high quality.

 

The paper is interesting. I really was not expecting much from this paper. It is recycled cotton and has A LOT of texture, which many people will not like, but it accepts fountain pens with little or no feathering and absolutely no bleed through - I was surprised. The journal is stitched not glued and there are only three stitches holding it together, but it lays open flat. The one thing that I found with this paper, as with most cotton papers, is that it does not particularly like crisp italic nibs although it handled my other italics well.

 

To me this journal was well worth the money that I paid for it, since my primary purpose was helping the animals.

 

Here are a couple of photos

 

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo289/Okami1122/IMG_0892.jpg

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo289/Okami1122/IMG_0887.jpg

Edited May 2, 2009 by jbynum

[gregamckinney]

Thanks for the review, and for the pointer on where to buy these.

greg

[all my hues]

Wow! What a great find, and a great cause. Helping animals? Supporting fair trade in India? Oh hell yes. Thanks for posting this!

[Bo Bo Olson]

Cows are sacred, not goats. Goats are eaten.

So this sounds mighty BS to me.

 

What is the difference between plucking the fruit of a cotton bush instead of letting it naturally cycle and murdering a tree?

Jumping JC on a pogo stick.

[Okami]

Cows are sacred, not goats. Goats are eaten.

So this sounds mighty BS to me.

 

What is the difference between plucking the fruit of a cotton bush instead of letting it naturally cycle and murdering a tree?

Jumping JC on a pogo stick.

 

 

No where does it say that goats are sacred, it says that all the animals are revered for their value as milk animals -

Edited May 6, 2009 by jbynum

[all my hues]

Cows are sacred, not goats. Goats are eaten.

So this sounds mighty BS to me.

 

What is the difference between plucking the fruit of a cotton bush instead of letting it naturally cycle and murdering a tree?

Jumping JC on a pogo stick.

 

When you pluck cotton from the plant, you're not damaging the plant. In fact, seeds/fruit/pods are MEANT to be taken off, and be dispersed far and wide. The cotton plant will continue to produce cotton as long as it lives and removing the cotton won't harm the plant, because, like I said, that's how it was designed. So, murdering a tree is quite different.

 

And about the cow/goat thing: Depends on which sect of Hinduism you're talking about. Jainism, Sikhism, etc. Different rules regarding animals. Not to mention, just because an animal isn't sacred doesn't mean that it's going to be eaten. A goat having less cultural value than a cow doesn't make it any less valuable in terms of resources -- like milk.

Edited May 6, 2009 by all my hues

[xmattxyzx]

You know, I'd really like to have a journal made from human skin.

[Banana]

That whole spiel about harvesting leather from animals that died of natural causes rings the BS alarm for me too. But they are pushing something left naturally on the ground by cows.

[Strang]

Cynics! Everybody's a cynic. The fact that these are fair-trade items is enough to get me interested. Build a little good karma folks...do something for the animals. What harm could it do?

[Possum Hill]

If these catch on it could provide quite an economic boost to the communities that make them. It might be enough that they start raising animals for their skins as well as milk.

[Balog]

I seriously doubt any quantity of leather can feasibly be harvested from naturally dying animals. How do they verify the claim?

[Possum Hill]

I seriously doubt any quantity of leather can feasibly be harvested from naturally dying animals. How do they verify the claim?

It seems it might be possible if the community is large enough, particularly if standards of animal nutrition and veterinary care are low. Verification would still be a sticky issue, though.

[countrydirt]

Cows are sacred, not goats. Goats are eaten.

So this sounds mighty BS to me.

 

What is the difference between plucking the fruit of a cotton bush instead of letting it naturally cycle and murdering a tree?

Jumping JC on a pogo stick.

 

When you pluck cotton from the plant, you're not damaging the plant. In fact, seeds/fruit/pods are MEANT to be taken off, and be dispersed far and wide. The cotton plant will continue to produce cotton as long as it lives and removing the cotton won't harm the plant, because, like I said, that's how it was designed. So, murdering a tree is quite different.

 

And about the cow/goat thing: Depends on which sect of Hinduism you're talking about. Jainism, Sikhism, etc. Different rules regarding animals. Not to mention, just because an animal isn't sacred doesn't mean that it's going to be eaten. A goat having less cultural value than a cow doesn't make it any less valuable in terms of resources -- like milk.

Not to be a stickler - well, actually I am cotton is an annual plant. The cotton boll is not ready to be picked until the plant itself dies and begins to dry out. But, a dead plant has no feeling that can be determined by farmers or scientists. :ltcapd:

Nice looking journal tho

[The Moose]

You know, I'd really like to have a journal made from human skin.

 

Talk about a conversation piece! I don't think it would be worth the trouble for people parchment, so just the cover would be enough for me.

 

But seriously, how many pages does it have? It's not mentioned on the site anyplace I could find.

Edited May 8, 2009 by The Moose

[all my hues]

Cows are sacred, not goats. Goats are eaten.

So this sounds mighty BS to me.

 

What is the difference between plucking the fruit of a cotton bush instead of letting it naturally cycle and murdering a tree?

Jumping JC on a pogo stick.

 

When you pluck cotton from the plant, you're not damaging the plant. In fact, seeds/fruit/pods are MEANT to be taken off, and be dispersed far and wide. The cotton plant will continue to produce cotton as long as it lives and removing the cotton won't harm the plant, because, like I said, that's how it was designed. So, murdering a tree is quite different.

 

And about the cow/goat thing: Depends on which sect of Hinduism you're talking about. Jainism, Sikhism, etc. Different rules regarding animals. Not to mention, just because an animal isn't sacred doesn't mean that it's going to be eaten. A goat having less cultural value than a cow doesn't make it any less valuable in terms of resources -- like milk.

Not to be a stickler - well, actually I am cotton is an annual plant. The cotton boll is not ready to be picked until the plant itself dies and begins to dry out. But, a dead plant has no feeling that can be determined by farmers or scientists. :ltcapd:

Nice looking journal tho

 

Really? Wow, I didn't know that about the cotton plant. Thanks for the info. (Doesn't disprove my point though)

[countrydirt]

Really? Wow, I didn't know that about the cotton plant. Thanks for the info. (Doesn't disprove my point though)

And a good point it was!

 

I teach high school agriculture so we talk about the cultural habits of many crops, cotton being one. Keep thinking!

Edited May 8, 2009 by countrydirt

[burmeseboyz]

You know, I'd really like to have a journal made from human skin.

 

Yah I hear you. But considering my luck, I'd probably be haunted by the ghost of the dead human every time I open the journal.

[Lynn Teague]

Okay, CountryDirt, don't mean to be a stickler either, but I refer you to "Cotton" edited by R. J. Kohel and C. F. Lewis, a monograph of the American Society of Agronomy published in 1984. Cotton (Gossypium sp.) in its native habitat is a perennial. It took centuries after initial domestication for it to be developed as a plant that would grown in northern climates because it is frost sensitive so that short growing season had to be selected for, along with selection for annual habit (the ability to complete a growth cycle in one year, but not necessarily dying at that point) and day neutrality (not requiring typical tropical sequences of light shifts to complete a growth cycle). Cotton does NOT need to die to produce fiber. In tropical climates cotton trees are harvested for multiple years. I've also grown them for multiple years in my yard when I lived in Tucson, AZ, moving them indoors during cold weather, and harvested fiber multiple years. Your impression that it must die to be harvested probably arises from modern cultivation practices that include defoliating the plants before harvest to facilitate mechanical harvesting.

[bitterwonder]

Dead is dead. Leather is leather.

[lowfiwhiteguy]

You know, I'd really like to have a journal made from human skin.

 

http://www.humanleather.co.uk/

 

I'm sure these fine folks could make you one if you had the money.