If you are thinking "what in the world is cactus leather" - you're not alone!
We get this a lot.
Cactus leather starts life as the Nopal cactus, the same spiky, hardy plant native to Zacatecas in central Mexico, grown on organic farms that use zero irrigation, zero pesticides, and zero chemical fertilizer.
The numbers here are pretty impressive.
According to the material's life-cycle assessment, producing one square meter of cactus leather uses roughly 20 litres of water, against roughly 33,000 litres for the same square meter of cow leather, that's more than 1,600 times less less water.
The farms themselves are carbon negative: 14 acres of Nopal plantation absorb around 8,100 tons of CO2 a year, more than the farming and drying process puts back into the air. They're certified organic at the farm level, and because the plant is native to the region, nothing is being imported, irrigated, or forced to grow somewhere it doesn't belong.
Harvesting is the gentlest part of the whole process. Only the mature pads are cut; the plant is left standing and grows new ones back every six to eight months, so a single plant keeps producing for roughly eight years before it's done. Nothing is ripped out of the ground, and nothing has to be replanted every season.
This is what we call REGENERATION.
That said, cactus leather can't hold a shoe's shape on its own. Like virtually every plant-based leather on the market (apple, grape, mushroom, pineapple, corn), the dried cactus pulp gets bonded to a backing for structure, landing at up to 90% plant content depending on the finish.
What it isn't is the skin from a dead animal that has been treated with toxic chemicals, we'll get into that another time. Cactus leather is not the synthetic pleather it keeps getting lumped in with by people who haven't looked closely.
To the touch, it's the closest thing we tested to real leather: soft, with a grain and a flex that holds up. That's the reason it earned a spot on our Voes & Co footwear.
Quick pop quiz: what's actually in a "vegan leather" shoe? "Vegan" mostly tells you what isn't there - animal materials of course - and not what is. Here's what else goes into each pair of Voes & Co.
Q: What holds it together?
A: Vegan Glue
The tricky part that can make a shoes not fully vegan is when you start to look at the details beyond the upper materials. Old-school shoe glue has animal roots most people never picture. Traditional adhesive is often made by rendering down collagen from bones, skins, and connective tissue into a stock, or by using casein, a protein pulled straight from milk. Both work great as glue. Neither is vegan.
And here's the slightly awkward part: plenty of brands that proudly market a "vegan leather" upper have, when asked directly, admitted they can't actually guarantee their glue is animal-free, it's just not a question anyone usually checks.
At Voes, we use a water-based synthetic adhesive: no casein, no collagen, no bone or hide stock. It bonds the layers just as well, cures cleanly, and comes with zero asterisks. Nobody's ever asked to photograph our glue, it's the unglamorous detail that decides whether a "vegan" label is actually true.
A: The Backing: Recycled PU
Every leather alternative needs something behind it to hold its shape, and that something is almost always polyurethane. The important question is whether it's made from virgin petroleum, or upcycled from material that already exists.
We go with recycled PU. Footwear industry testing on comparable materials has found that swapping virgin, fossil-based polyurethane for a recycled or partially bio-based version can cut that one component's carbon footprint by more than 200 grams of CO2 per pair, before you even count the waste it keeps out of a landfill.
Here's the honest bit: none of this is about being perfect.
Cactus and other plant leathers require a backing. Recycled PU is still plastic. A 100% sustainable shoe doesn't exist yet, vegan or otherwise, and if a brand tells you theirs is, ask to see their LCA, their materials, how they are made and what happens when you are done with them.
What we can control is making every one of those trade-offs on purpose, and being up front about it.
We believe the more we invest in materials and brands that are doing their best to be more environmentally responsible, the more we will drive innovation and the closer we will get to completely plastic-free and real sustainable solutions.
