Leather Advice for Non-Equestrians

As an equestrian, I’ve seen a lot of interesting tactics used by my non-equestrian friends to keep their leather clean and polished. Even though I tend to be pretty lazy with my leatherware (admittedly, I don’t always follow my own advice), I’ve come up with three simple tricks to keeping your boots, belts, and leathery goodness clean and conditioned:

1. Never clean polished boots with soap. Using glycerin soap (or any soap) pulls the polish off freshly polished boots. If you want to limit the times you have to fully polish your boots (its a pretty smelly process) wipe your boots with a wet cloth. Make sure you polish them at minimum twice a month. Men? You can do the same with your swanky work shoes. That ought to save you some money at the shoe-shining stand.
2. Break in your boots/shoes faster.  If you just purchased fancy leather shoes or boots, wet them with a cloth or with the ‘mist’ setting of a garden hose and walk up and down a set of stairs for 40 minutes. Do this daily until they break in. DO NOT dampen white leather or light brown. This might leave permanent color changes!
3. Do not use Urad. Though this product will make your boots shine through dirt, grime, and mud (probably) it does have one design flaw: the chemical compound for whatever reason eats through stitching. Not good. Stick to Fieblings or Kiwi (if you’re ok with cheap polish).

Hope that helps!