It darkened them a ton and over the years I’ve often said to myself, “If only I’d use mink oil then this wouldn’t have happened.” Now, I actually used Obenauf’s Leather Oil on my Iron Rangers, which is a mixture of beeswax, propolis, and oils. On boots, the idea is that it helps to provide a barrier to the elements.
RED WING BOOTS CARE SKIN
Pine pitch has had many uses over the years, including as a popular topical ointment for eczema and other skin conditions, but it also has a long history of being used as a preservative. That’s made from the sticky sap in pine trees, which are known for being pretty darn tough and weather resistant, as far as trees go. Red Wing’s Boot Oil is also made from mink oil, but it’s silicone-free and has added pine pitch. Red Wing’s “Mink Oil” isn’t actually just mink oil: it also contains lanolin, which is a wax secreted by wool-bearing animals (typically sheep), and silicone, a synthetic polymer made from silicon and oxygen and some other elements. So mink oil is a lot less likely to go rancid and it has a long shelf life - it can stay in your boots for a long time without going bad. It’s unusual among animal fats because it’s super high in unsaturated fats: 75 percent of it is unsaturated, but it has better stability than other unsaturated fats like vegetable oils. Mink oil is made by the rendering of fat that has been removed from mink pelts that are destined for the fur industry. I’m aware that some leather snobs might disagree with this, but one hundred percent of Red Wing’s representatives I spoke with said that whether you’ve got their famous Amber Harness or their Charcoal Rough and Tough or a different Heritage leather, if it’s oil tanned then this article applies to you. While you might hear different advice for their shoes made from roughout, suede, or their fancier smooth finished leathers like their teak featherstone, everyone I spoke to at Red Wing said you don’t need to use different products on different Heritage boots. While Heritage boots are extraordinarily well crafted shoes, they’re a bit more focused on the look and appeal of old-fashioned boots than the kind of footwear that’s resistant to electrical current, or acid, oil, and other things people look for when they need to outfit themselves for certain blue collar jobs.Īlmost all of their Heritage boots are made with oil tanned leather. In fact, they’re so popular that they have their own tannery, SB Foot Tanning Co, out in Minnesota, which produces about 6 million linear feet of leather per year. Now, Red Wing makes a ton of very high quality work boots and among the more fashion-inclined, they’re perhaps better known for their Heritage line. At this point, they’re more or less the default boot: when a guy makes his first step into grown up, tough, Goodyear welted boots, his first purchase is usually a pair of Red Wings. Red Wing is an enormously popular brand of both work and heritage boots, so popular that the term “red wing boots” receives about as much search volume on Google as just the words “men’s boots” - more than Wolverine, Frye, and Alden put together.
RED WING BOOTS CARE HOW TO
So what’s the best product for taking care of your Red Wings? It depends on how you wear them and what you want out of them. But I confess that I was looking forward to the rich patina that a lot of guys on Reddit like to show off in their old, well-aged Iron Rangers. Credit: Steven Walling, licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 This is what they looked like when they arrived on my doorstep versus how they looked after applying a conditioner that blocked the pores and made them very water resistant - but darkened the leather a ton.
Take a look at these Red Wing Iron Rangers, perhaps the most beloved American heritage boot on the market. Don’t lose your Red Wings to the wrong conditioner.
0 kommentar(er)
