I finally tried a bone folder on leather and it left permanent marks

I've been binding for about 2 years now, mostly cloth and paper covers. Last month I decided to try a full leather journal and used my trusty bone folder to crease the hinge joints like I always do. Big mistake. The leather showed every single pass as a shiny, compressed line that won't buff out, even after a day of pressing. My mentor in Portland told me, "That's why you use a teflon folder on anything with a grain you care about." I thought she was just being fussy. Now I'm wondering if there's a way to fix these creases or if I need to re-cover the whole thing. Has anyone else wrecked a leather cover this way, and did you find a trick to lift those marks or just start over? I keep going back and forth on whether to tear it apart or call it a "character mark."