Chromexcel Leather Shoe Care | 1000 Mile Boot

Transcription

Hi I'm Kirby Allison founder of The Hanger Project and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. The purpose of this video is to talk about the Wolverine 1000 mile boot made from chromexcel and to show you how to take care of it and other boots made from chromexcel using the Saphir greasy leather cream. If you have any questions about this video please ask them in the comments section below. I get back to all those questions personally. Also let everyone know if you own a pair of Wolverine 1000 mile boots or any other pair of boots made from chromexcel in the comments section below. So the Wolverine 1000 mile boot is an incredibly popular boot and we receive questions about it here at The Hanger Project all the time. It's American made in Rockford Michigan out of horweens chromexcel material which is a chrome tan oiled leather and is a beautiful boot that's perfect for casual wear. It's a traditional work boot and it looks great with a pair of jeans yet still maintains a ruggedness that allows it to be worn out and beat up. So the Wolverine 1000 mile boot is an absolutely beautiful boot that only looks better with age as you wear it. Now chromexcel is a material that is unique to horween based in Chicago. Now people often talk about chromexcel in the same sentence as cordovan and I think that's just because they're both made from horween. But chromexcel couldn't be any more different than cordovan. Cordovan is a horse membrane that is highly polished whereas chromexcel is a more rugged oil tanned to boot that's traditionally kind of more of a casual work boot type construction.

As an oiled leather, you really don't want to be applying any type of waxed polishes to it because part of what makes chromexcel so beautiful is it just has this natural kind of beautiful oiled look. Now you can tell that a boot is made from chromexcel or an oiled leather is if whenever you push on it the leather actually lightens. And so what you're doing if you push on it and you see that it lighten is that you're simply just pushing those oils kind of around into the leather. Now that's important because the type of polish that you want to use to take care of an oiled boot is it couldn't be any more different than what you would use for a waxed calfskin. So to take the best care of your Wolverine 1000 mile boots or any other boot that is made from horween chromexcel, you want to be using the Saphir greasy leather cream because it's going to have those oils that's going to hydrate the leather without changing the texture of the leather itself. Now what's great about the Saphir greasy leather cream is that it comes in three different colors. A brown which would be perfect for a boot like this black or neutral for any other colors that you're having trouble matching.

Now the brown and the black have a very light pigment so you don't have to worry about really completely changing the color of the boot itself, but it's going to help you recolor the finish so that if you have any deep scuffs or scratches you're able to repair those to renew the finish and the color of the boot while conditioning and oiling the letter. So to show you how to take care of chromexcel I have a pair of my rider boots from Richmond Virginia that are made from chromexcel leather. Now this boot I absolutely am not careful with. I actually going hunting with this boot the other weekend and so you can absolutely see where it's beat up which is you know really kind of what chromexcel is made for. And so I'm going to use the Saphir greasy leather cream not only to condition this leather but also to kind of recolor some of these nicks and scratches that I have on this boot. Now I've already shampooed this using the leather cleaning soap because it was quite dirty and so now I'm just going to come back on top of it with this greasy leather cream. The greasy leather cream is an incredibly easy product to use. It's a very kind of light oil texture and so it actually is easiest and most easily applied just with your fingers kind of rubbing it onto the leather itself. And as you can see it's a very light pigment. You know the brown is perfect for that kind of like cordovanesque color that horween uses in their chromexcel. So I'm just gonna apply it with my fingers kind of massaging it into the leather. As you can see the pigment is quite light, so again it's not going to totally transform the finish of the boot and so therefore it's really not essential that you have a perfect match. I mean it's really not something I would worry about.

And so you can see this boot really needed it. You can see the leather darkening and that simply just means the leather was dry and is really absorbing this greasy leather cream into the pores. Unlike traditional calfskin you really don't have to worry about applying too much here. With traditional polish less is certainly more. But again you know this oiled leather from chromexcel really just kind of takes this greasy leather cream beautifully. So I'm applying an extra coat onto the heel just because it's especially kind of beat up. So I want to get as much pigment into that leather as possible. OK so I've allowed these boots to dry for about 20 or 30 minutes. They're still a little bit dark. If I allowed them to dry overnight the color would probably lighten even a little bit more but it's still going to be darker than this incredibly beat up kind of dehydrated boot to the left. One of the things that I love about chromexcel is that it's really a very easy leather to take care of. It just doesn't require much attention. So the greasy leather cream is the best thing that you can do to use to keep the oiled leather hydrated to re-oil it and then to add pigment to the extent that you need it. You can even brush it a little bit with the brush but you know there's no waxes that you're having to buff buff up to shine. So brushing it's really not that important other than just kind of cleaning any type of dust or dirt off.

So again one of the important things about chromexcel is that fundamentally it's an unwaxed leather. it's oiled. It's not meant to be waxed. And so if you really want to maintain the traditional kind of soft natural leather unwaxed feel you've got to use a product that does not contain any type of waxes. So just to summarize taking care of your Wolverine 1000 mile boot or any other boot made from horweens chromexcel is incredibly easy. And here at The Hanger Project to absolutely recommend that you use Saphir's greasy leather cream because 1. It maintains that natural neatsfoot oil basis that's going to help rehydrate the oiled leather and 2. It doesn't contain any waxes it's going to change the texture of the boot itself. All you need is a little bit of greasy leather cream your fingers to smear it onto the leather and you're good. If you have any questions about this video please feel free to ask them in the comments section below. I get back to all those comments myself. Also if you like this video give us the thumbs up or better yet scribed our channel and turn on your notifications so you can hear whenever we release new videos. I'm Kirby Allison, founder of The Hanger Project and we love helping and the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Please make sure you visit HangerProject.com to view our full assortment of luxury garment and shoe care accessories and other products for the discerning. Thanks for joining us.