10December 2021
welcome to boot spy my name is william today i'm going to talk about how to use saddle soap the different tools you're going to need to clean your boots and the conditioner how to condition your boots after using saddle soap so that your old looking leather pair of boots comes out looking brand spanking new let's get into it to get started in cleaning your boots with saddle soap you're going to need most importantly saddle soap i'm using kiwi for this demonstration but there's lots of different options out there there's phoebings doesn't really matter which type of saddle soap you do kiwi is cheap and expensive and it works just fine so that's what i'm using for this demonstration you're also going to need a dauber brush this is basically just a badger hair or horse hair brush but it's small and circular you'll need a microfiber towel or even a paper towel will work for that and lastly you're gonna need a leather conditioner for this demonstration i'm using bic four but there's lots of other good options out there like venetian chew cream but any sort of leather conditioner you're going to want to condition your boots after you uh clean them with saddle so step one you're going to remove the lid of your kiwi saddle soap like that and you're going to fill this part up with warm water so i'm going to run this under the tap fill it up with warm water right now step two you're gonna take your boot and you're actually gonna knock off any extra dirt any extra debris you're gonna take out the laces get this thing ready to go ready to basically wash because that's what you're doing so it shouldn't have any extra dirt on there that can scratch the leather clean it off as best as you can with the microfiber towel you can use that one later um and that's step two step three you're gonna work up a rich lather inside of the saddle soap so i take my dabba brush i dip it in the water the warm water i have in there and i'm basically just working up a rich lab now that i have a rich lather on my dauber brush step four this is really where you just clean the boot it is pretty simple you just go in circular motions across the entire boot i'm gonna show you exactly what that looks like in close detail right here and all you're doing is working around the boot make sure you get inside the welt make sure you get inside the creases cover the tongue cover every area of this boot that has any sort of dirt patina grime build up anything like that you're going to want to make sure you rub that lather into the leather as well as possible your dauber brush shouldn't be soaking wet it should just be lightly wet so that you're able to spread the suds around the leather but you never want to soak through the leather you never want to saturate the leather with water basically just keeping it lathered but not soaking wet after you've gotten a rich lather across the entire upper you're gonna take this microfiber towel and you're just gonna wipe the suds off of the boot making sure that you're not leaving any extra build up any extra soap in any of the creases double check that you're scraping out the welt double check you're scraping out the creases where the tongue is all those parts get all that extra soap on at this point your boot is a little bit damp so it's not quite ready for conditioning you're going to want to let it dry for anywhere between 8 and 24 hours i'm a little impatient so i usually do it later on in the day i'll soap up my boots in the morning and in the evening i'll go ahead and i'll condition them but if you want to leave the proper amount of time it's really 24 hours to let that moisture leave the leather and then go ahead and condition conditioning is a really straightforward process it's really easy i'll just use bic 4 for this example but with the i'm using the thorough good mock toe in this situation you could use mink oil that's going to darken the leather but it's going to give it a lot of waterproofing or you can use something like venetian shoe cream which is going to really absorb into leather make it very very supple i like big four because it's very inexpensive and it doesn't penetrate super deep into the leather but it does a great job kind of restoring some natural oils and waxes after you've used saddle soap because saddle soap does extract some oil from the leather so you definitely want to add something back bick 4 is a really cheap and easy way of doing so using any of these leather conditioners it's basically the same it's a super simple process now that you got the boot completely clean it's been 24 hours since you washed it with saddle soap basically get like a dime to quarter sized amount in your hand and you're going to rub it across the entire boot making sure you spread it around evenly as possible then you're going to use a horsehair brush basically buff it out so that you are spreading the amount of conditioner evenly across the entire boot and you are done if you found this video helpful please give me a thumbs up and also hit that subscribe button down below if you want to know some of my favorite leather conditioners you can check out these videos right here those are what i use to condition my favorite boots and until next time put your best boot forward