About Moonster
Moonster is a leather goods brand founded in 2014, with its first leather journal shipping out in May 2016. Its products are handmade in a four-story factory in India that employed around 165 people as of 2021, and the brand says the factory now runs on solar power it generates on site. Every piece is cut from 100% genuine full-grain buffalo leather sourced from tanneries certified by the Leather Working Group, the leather industry's environmental standards body, and several journals pair that cover with cotton paper made from recycled clothing waste.
The catalog has grown to more than 44 products across leather journals, bags, wallets, and office goods, with the journal line built around a refillable-insert system so a broken-in cover can outlast many paper inserts. Moonster also donates 5% of its profits to charities on five continents, including Tehila in Zambia and the Cheers Foundation in India, and reports cumulative giving that passed £133,000 by 2021. The company says it carbon-offsets every shipment it sends.
Brand website: moonsterleather.com
What Moonster makes
Moonster's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Leather journals
refillable and classic covers, blank and lined inserts — featured on DeskRated
Bags
crossbody, duffle, and messenger bags
Wallets
women's leather wallets
Office goods
portfolios, pencil cases, phone holsters
Journal refills
replacement paper inserts for the refillable covers
Why we recognized Moonster
The DeskRated Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. Moonster earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, used at a real desk, and judged on merit.
Moonster products we rated highly
MOONSTER Refillable Leather Journal — Handmade Genuine Leather, Embossed Tree of Life, 400 Pages
This is genuine handmade buffalo leather, not PU, so it softens, darkens, and develops a personal patina over years of handling, which is the entire appeal of a leather journal that a vegan-leather or hardcover book cannot replicate. It is also refillable: when the 400-page insert fills up, a fresh one slides into the same broken-in cover, so a single cover can outlast a decade of inserts. The wrap-strap closure and embossed Tree of Life cover make it the keepsake and gift pick in our testing, at a 4.8-star average across 5,300 reviews.
Read the 9 Best Journals of 2026 guide →What earned Moonster the recognition
- Genuine full-grain buffalo leather sourced from Leather Working Group gold-rated tanneries, not a vegan or PU substitute.
- A refillable insert system: buyers keep the leather cover they have broken in and swap in a fresh 400-page insert when it fills, rather than replacing the whole journal.
- Handmade construction out of a solar-powered, four-story factory in India employing roughly 165 people.
- 5% of profits donated to charities across five continents, with cumulative giving reported past £133,000 by 2021.
- One of our top leather journal picks, earning a 4.8-star average across 5,300 verified Amazon reviews.