Your Comprehensive Guide To Caring For Leather Boots
Leather boots are any shoe lover’s delight. They epitomize beauty, class, sophistication, adventure, and rawness- an unbelievable juxtaposition. Given your love for your boots (and the money they cost), you would want them to last longer. And the only way to increase the shelf life of your leather boots is by caring for them.
Caring for leather boots is no rocket science. If you know the dos and don’ts, maintaining them gets easier. In this article, we have shared a few tips that will come in handy in taking care of your boots. These tips work for every kind of boot, be it super expensive dress boots, affordable mens boots, or leather hiking boots.
Let’s take a look at your comprehensive guide to caring for leather boots.
Prepare your leather boots
Before you move on to any treatment, prepare your boots to receive that treatment by cleaning them thoroughly. Remove the laces. Now take a clean microfiber cloth or a horsehair shoe brush and brush off the grim and dirt build-up from your boots.
If your boots are deeply contaminated with grim and stains, consider using saddle soap for deep cleaning. Take a damp cloth or a small brush and rub it on the surface of the soap in a circular motion. Once lather appears, rub it on the surface of your boots. Do not miss the tongue, welt, and other hard-to-reach areas.
Once your boots are clean, let them air dry.
Apply leather conditioner
Leather conditioners lend sheen to leather boots. Conditioning them regularly will not only enhance the shelf life of your boots but also eliminate the need for re-waterproofing them often.
Take a good quality leather conditioner and apply some on a dry microfiber cloth. Rub the cloth on the surface of your boots in gentle circular strokes. Don’t miss the tongue, welt, and midsole edge.
Do not apply the conditioner directly to the surface, as it can lead to staining. Once you have worked the conditioner into the leather, let your boots air dry.
Polish your boots
This step works wonders for dress boots. Polishing them will renew the color of the leather and provide luster. It will also add a layer of protection to the elegant dress boots. You can skip polishing if you want a rugged look.
Before you apply the cream polish, make sure it matches your shoes. Apply a little on the tongue to check. Now, work the polish into the surface using an applicator brush. Let it sit for 15 minutes. Next, take a wax polish to treat your boots with some added dose of moisture and nourishment.
For this, take a clean rag cloth, dip it into the wax and rub it over your boot in small, circular strokes. Buff the boots with a horsehair brush.
Waterproof them
Protecting your boots from spills, rain, snow, and salt is essential to make them last longer. Waterproofing treatment goes a long way in protecting your shoes from bad weather and spills.
Take a good quality spray and spray it evenly on the surface of your boots once a week.
An additional tip
If your boots are completely soaked in water, you better dry them before the water takes a toll on your leather boots.
Start by removing the laces and insoles and stuff the shoes with newspaper. Once in a while keep replacing the newspaper. Stop when the newspaper stops saturating with water. Now, dry your boots under a fan. Never place your boots near a heat source, as it can cause cracks in the leather. Once your boots are dry, apply the treatment.
Takeaways
Leather boots are a big investment. Treat them like your skin. Keep them clean and moisturize them well to make them last years.
We hope these tips will help you take care of your most prized possession- your leather boots.
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