Wet blue is the name for the first process for turning animal hides into leather. Chromium salts are used to clean and cure the hide, leaving it a pale blue colour, hence the name.

Generally there are two types of tannery. The ones which take the raw hides and transform them into wet blue and others that start with wet blue in order to transform it into the leathers that we use in handbag making.

In Chennai India, the narrow lanes around the area where some finishing tanneries can be found are often filled with carts, taking the wet blue deliveries to some of the smaller establishments.

I took this photo and wrote about it several years ago as a delivery arrived at the tannery I was visiting.

A short one for W today, which I will make up for tomorrow when I get to X in the alphabet 🙂