ub Outdoors

October 18, 2009 in Apparel by Jeff Jackson

I don’t particularly care about cleaning my hiking boots usually, however, I wear my Keens not just on the trail, but pretty much everywhere. For a professional, one can’t have dirty boots all the time, even in rural Georgia, where I live. So I decided to use my Keens as guinea pigs for this little experiment. My Keens weren’t extremely dirty. They weren’t caked with mud or anything, but just your regular run-of-the-mill dirty from regular use.

I started by rinsing them with warm water by using a wet paper towel. This gets any caked on dirt off. 

After shaking well and pressing the sponge on the applicator to break the seal, I doused my boots with the Nikwax Footwear Cleaning Gel. I used it to clean the leather, the fabric, and the rubber soles.

After applying generously, I rinsed them in the sink.

Then I spot dried them with a towel and let them sit for 15-20 minutes.

Upon return, I found them looking much better. They weren’t sparkling or anything, but I could tell that they had been cleaned.

If you’re going to clean your hiking boots or any other leather or suede footwear, you might as well pick up some Nikwax for it. If my boots had been dirtier, you might have seen a bigger difference, but I still think the result is the same.