How To Care For Your Leather Boots - Grisport

Leather boots are an investment and proper care is essential to increase the lifespan of your footwear. Even the highest quality leather requires regular maintenance to put off natural deterioration. In an ideal world, you should clean your boots after every instance of wear. Wipe down your boots with a cloth whenever you take them off for the night. Store in a cool location away from a direct source of heat such as a radiator or household boiler. Force drying boots will both crack leather and shrink the waterproof membrane. This would cause it to break and the boots to leak. If a boot is force dried, the manufacturing warranty becomes invalid.

IMPORTANT:

By wearing wet/damp boots will gradually reduce the ability of the waterproof lining to keep your feet dry. If your boots are wet, allow them to dry naturally completely before wearing them again, or alternate with other suitable footwear.

Apply protective treatment regularly using the methods we will go into further here.

Grisport boots are treated with appropriate finishes at the last stage of production. However, there can be a stretch of time between production and being taken home by a customer. So, it is wise to check if your boots need a bit of treatment as soon as you purchase them. To test whether your leather boots need a waterproof treatment, drip some water on the leather: if it doesn’t stay in a bead and run off the boot, waterproofing treatment is needed.

Next, you will need to determine the type of leather on the boot by using the guide below:

•Full grain: The strongest part of the hide, highest quality and will develop a patina.

•Nubuck: Finer grain, velvet-like, sanded or buffed strong but soft material

•Suede: Soft, flexible and lighter weight side of a hide

Leather can be greatly affected by both moisture and temperature levels. High temperatures and low moisture will dry out and crack leather. Saturated leather will permanently warp and misshape no matter how tough the leather. To maintain a good level of moisture, invest in a conditioning cream. Conditioners seal in a little bit of moisture to prevent cracking and increase flexibility. When applying conditioner pay special attention to areas that crease most such as the flex point of the toes. Then seal with waterproofing spray or wax. We advise using leather conditioner at least twice a year.

There are many products available for waterproofing leather boots. We recommend our Grisport spray - https://www.grisport.co.uk/accessories-c83/grisport-protector-spray-p838 for suede or nubuck leather, as it is easy to apply and retain the colour of the leather.

We highly recommend our Grisport waterproofing wax - https://www.grisport.co.uk/accessories-c83/grisport-waterproofing-wax-p1917, for full grain leather as it is very effective, as long as you don’t mind how it can darken the leather.

Always read the instructions on whichever product you choose.