well, I did not know this about the embossed snake!..I am always regarding my BE bags as indestructableI'm using my grey snakeprint london tote midi which I have treated with the leather honey from amazon. It looked terrible at first, really patchy, but once it dried out it looked really good. I did mine because matte snakeprint does not like water - only a vegetable tanned leather would keep the embossed pattern after getting really wet.
