Want a belt or shoes made out of human skin but don't want to deal with all of the tiresome Nazi comparisons? [Hu]manLeather, a UK company, is taking all of the flak for you.
Apparently, people bequeath them their skin (I guess it will get weird if it turns out people who donate their bodies for organs end up as wallets but the company will not disclose its sources) and they use it to make stuff. Like clothing, you know, that covers your skin.
Human leather has been used by anatomists, tannists and medical scholars over the ages to bequeath life to their work and writings. It had been lost in modern times as a working material, partly due to social and religious taboos.
Well, that is true. Wholesome, Godless-yet-still-culturally-superior savages from ages past did wear the skin of enemies and put their heads on spikes but if I try to put an enemy head on a spike outside my house today, it will be such a big deal. And don't even try cannibalism today even though it was done ages ago. I guess governments have no sense of history.
This part is arcane and creepy...
Is this illegal?
Not at all. However, this is an expensive business, as the raw material is not cheap to produce or process, plus their is official hindrance along the way. We value our donors and we reward their beneficiaries and next of kin very handsomely. In fact, we have had to turn away some potential donors, as we can accept only the highest quality human skin. We can not give you the source of our raw product, we apologise.
Official hindrance about skinning corpses and selling belts? I can't imagine why. And let's make some candles out of their fat also.
So if some creepy weirdo comes up to you and starts touching you and asks how often you use lotion, don't get all Ed Gein paranoid about it, it's probably just a Brit.
For a funny (well, funnier than a company selling human skin) take off on the whole "Silence of the Lambs" or Ed Gein thing, enjoy some Joe Dirt:
