First, acetone smells just as bad as I remember it, especially after you knock over the bottle and about a quarter of it spills on the carpeting
Second, the goatskin is incredibly tough leather. All the sanding I did only seemed to make the skin softer, rather than really making distress marks. The visible marks were caused by some very rough swipes from the 100 grit sand paper, and I'm pretty sure I could mask those with leather conditioner if I wanted to. The 220 had almost no effect at all. Also, considering the acetone ate through my wells lamont pvc coated gloves, it took a lot of rubbing before I noticed any significant color changes. Even having done everything short of gouging the jacket, it still doesn't look that beat up when compared to the films and other cow members jackets.
Finally, between this distressing job, trying to take pictures of it, and my newfound hobby of watching the commentary features on dvds(esp. John Carpenter/Kurt Russell films
), I have an even bigger respect for the pre-computer film industry. It's very difficult to make something look good, and it's even harder to make it look good on film. None of the pictures I took look like my jacket to the naked eye. The camera accentuates certain things we don't see, and yet it doesn't pick up other things we focus on. Anyway, this book's long enough, so here's some pictures. The first 3 were the closest I found to what I see with my own eyes. The last one shows how much the color tones of the jacket actually did change (considering the jacket used to be a very dark and uniform brown), yet this effect isn't seen under most light conditions. 
