As you may have heard, Canada is adopting VOC limits on consumer products consistent with what is currently in place in California. The biggest impact will be on Fiebing’s Leather Dye and Fiebing’s Pro Dye. Neither of these products will be legal for sale in Canada after January 1, 2024.
You can see the list of product categories here : https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2021-268/page-4.html#docCont. Item 40 in the table is described as “Footwear or leather care products that are designed to clean or protect footwear or leather articles or maintain, enhance or modify their appearance, durability, fit or flexibility…” The VOC limit for liquid products is 15%.
As you can see on the attached overview, the two main exceptions are:
- “These regulations do not apply to products designed to be used solely in manufacturing or processing.” This means that bulk sizes like gallons, 5 gallon pails and 55 gallon drums of Leather Dye and Pro Dye can be sold to manufacturers of leather goods in Canada without issue.
- “Products manufactured and imported prior to the coming into effect dates have no limit on sell-through.” We interpret this as any product imported into Canada prior to January 1, 2024, can sell through without a deadline. Retailers in Canada will not have to pull any product off of the shelves as long as they were received prior to January 1, 2024. Our dyes are batch coded to indicate date of manufacture if this information is needed to confirm compliance.
Next Steps to Minimize Impact on Sales
For the past few months Fiebing has been working on expanding thier color range of Low VOC Leather Dye and our water based LeatherColors. These expanded colors will be ready by January 2024.
- Fiebing’s Low VOC Leather Dye is a solvent based, penetrating dye that acts like our traditional Leather Dye while remaining under the VOC threshold. https://fiebing.com/product/low-voc-dye/
- Fiebing’s LeatherColors is a water based, penetrating dye that is equivalent in use to Tandy’s water based E Dyes. https://fiebing.com/product/leather-colors/
Additional products that are no longer going to be sold in Canada due to VOC restrictions are:
- Fiebing’s Deglazer
- Fiebing’s Dye Reducer
- Fiebing’s Saddle Lac
In the near future, we will be releasing the list of expanded color ranges for Fiebing’s Low VOC Leather Dye and Fiebing’s water based LeatherColors.
In the meantime, you can continue to purchase Fiebing’s dyes as usual.
Stay tuned for updates.