If you’ve ever owned a pair of leather boots, it can be frustrating to see white spots appearing on the surface. I have been an owner of leather boots for over ten years.
During that time, white spots have occasionally appeared on my boots. Learning why they appear has helped me in providing care and maintenance on my leather boots.
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Leather Boots Turn White After Walking In Salt Treated Snow
Walking through salt-treated snow with leather boots causes salt crystals to get logged into the surface pores of the leather boot. Over time the water evaporates. However, the salt is too heavy to evaporate and remains visible on the leather boots’ surface as white spots.
A high percentage of leather boot owners experience white spots on their leather boots due to salt stains.
Most salt stains begin to appear on leather boots after coming in contact with salt.
Salt is commonly used for de-icing roads, and I can’t imagine that this process will stop soon.
But unfortunately, the salt doesn’t just stay on the road. Instead, the salt ends up everywhere. And if you walk in snow regularly, you’ll eventually end up getting salt all over your leather boots.
You can clean salt stains off of leather boots by making a lather of dish soap and water.
The dish soap will break down the salt crystals while also acting as a lubricant to help you scrub them off your leather boots.
If that doesn’t work, you can try using saddle soap instead of dish soap. Saddle soap effectively removes salt stains from leather than any other cleaning agent on the market.
Rinse with water and let them air dry.
After you have finished cleaning the salt stains, protect the leather from being exposed to salt again! I suggest using Sno Seal.
Sno Seal is explicitly designed for snow. It provides the conditioning needed to prevent your boots from becoming dry and brittle. And it is made from beeswax, which provides a protective layer that will make it easy to wipe the salt off the surface of your leather boots.
Excess Salts Used To Create the Leather Boots Causes White Color
Most people mistakenly think that salt stains on leather boots only come from walking through salting ice or snow.
Occasionally, white spots develop on leather boots when plain water comes in contact with excess salt left in the leather during the tanning process.
Why would there be a high concentration of salt within the leather?
The tanning process uses the salts potassium chromium sulfate and chromium to process most of the leather in existence.
Tanneries use them to stop the hide from decaying. But the salt has to be removed before continuing with the tanning process.
Occasionally, the tanning process fails to remove salt resulting in a high salt concentration in the leather hide.
When leather boots with a high salt concentration become wet, the water penetrates the leather surface and dissolves the excess salt located in the boot.
During the drying process, the water evaporates and pulls the dissolved salts to the boot’s surface. After all of the water evaporates, the salts remain on the boot’s surface as white spots.
Sun Damage
The sun can dry out and crack untreated leather. It also speeds up the aging of the leather as well as fading its color.
But more importantly, high levels of sunlight cause leather boots to lighten to a pale white color. The UV rays from the sun are responsible for lightened leather color and damaged leather.
For this reason, you should apply a layer of protection to your boot.
Oxidization
Oxidation is when there’s a chemical reaction with oxygen that causes discoloration of the leather due to natural substances in water or air exposure.
Suede Leather turns white over time because it lacks finish to protect against stains and dirt buildup -especially if you live near saltwater like we do!
The best way to stop your shoes from turning into a shade of off-white is by taking care of them properly:
Store away from sunlight (not in closets) so they don’t get sun damage; clean as soon as possible after getting stained; remove any suede surface coating for protection purposes
Fatty Spew
What is fatty spew?
Fatty spews are white patches that look like dust or mold on the surface of the boot. But the white area is composed of tiny white crystals. The crystals result from the fat and oil located within the leather coming in contact with the air.
By the way, mold is usually green or grey when it’s found on leather.
So how does the spew get on your leather?
Fatty Spew forms when the natural fats in the leather react with hot and humid environmental conditions.
For example, when leather boots are transported over a long distance, the storage container may be hot and humid.
The extreme temperatures change the consistency of the fats within the leather. Thinner layers of fat move to the surface and show up as white spots.
Packaging affects spewing. Leather boots shipped in plastic or air-tight containers may also experience spewing. Correctly ship the leather boots to avoid this headache.
The addition of fats and oils as leather conditioning often leads to leather spew.
I, along with many other leathercrafters, believed that conditioning leather with fats and oils increased the life of the leather product.
We now recognize that this leads to more instances of spew.
Mold
Boots stored in a wet place or put away while still wet often produce a foul odor. Smelly boots usually indicate that you have a fungus or bacteria growing on your leather boots.
Vinegar and water is a simple but effective mold cleaner.
From my experience of working with leather, I have found that Greenwise cleaners such as lemons and vinegar effectively clean leather. For more information on using Greenwise cleaners, be sure to read my post ……………….
But don’t take my word for it. HealthLine provides a wealth of information on using vinegar to clean a variety of materials, including leather.
Be sure to read through HealthLine‘s information on using vinegar to clean mold off of leather and a host of other items. I’m sure you will find some beneficial information.
Using the Wrong Leather Conditioner
I mentioned earlier that leathercrafters are moving away from leather conditioners made from animal products because they are the easiest for molds to attack.
But don’t let this scare you away from using these products as a leather conditioner. Animal products are still an excellent choice for conditioning your leather boots. Just be sure to apply the oil properly.
Read the article How to Apply Properly Apply Neatsfoot Oil To Leather. It will present you with everything you need to know to apply Neatsfoot oil to your leather boots properly.
The best boot grease I have come across is made by Browning. It’s a synthetic grease that does a beautiful job of preserving leather even restoring it, then acts as a waterproofing.
The boot does not even feel greasy afterward and the dirt does not stick to the boots because the leather completely absorbs the grease.
Sweaty Feet
In some cases, sweaty feet contribute to leather boots turning white. When your feet sweat, salt from your perspiration saturates the sock. The salt in the socks gets transferred to the leather boots.
My father served as a Marine during the Vietnam War and he said that often his boots turned white. He said it happened to a lot of his fellow soldiers, and they attributed it to salt.
Treatment – Clean the boots with plain water or saddle soap and a rag. Scrub the boots with a cloth and allow them to dry at room temperature.
You could also use a boot dryer to speed up the process. Repeat the process on any areas that continue to have white areas after the boot has completely dried.
