Huberd's Shoe Grease - Best Ingredients and Best Price
Huberd's Shoe Grease - Best Ingredients and Best Price
I bought a couple of leather jackets from Fox Creek Leather. Then I purchased a pair of Wesco harness boots from Stompers in San Francisco. Both were very expensive, but both are tops in their category. With the price I paid, I don't want to buy those things again. So I am going to make sure they are preserved till I die. I started doing research on leather and leather care. If you think this should be simple, you would be wrong. There is lots of conflicting opinions about what products should be used on leather, but most people seem to agree that leather conditioners and preservatives containing alcohol, waxes, silicone, tallow, animal fats, and petroleum should NOT be used. So that weeds out a lot of stuff that everybody uses and comes down from the lofty tower of ignorance. For example, a LOT of people will recommend mink oil because it softens leather. But many experts say mink oil is harmful and should be avoided because it is an animal oil and causes irreparable damage to leather fibers, plus a lot of other stuff. One web site was highly critical of mink oil for the following reasons:
Mink oil clogs the pores of the leather, attracting dirt, darkening the color and rotting the stitching.
Mink oil will absolutely rub off on your clothing. Do you really want a thick greasy substance on your new cashmere sweater? Buffing will not remove all of the oil from the purse, so don't be tempted.
Mink oil stinks.
Mink oil will penetrate the color of a tanned leather product and the color will come off-ONTO your clothing.
People out there have their favorite leather applications and give convincing testimonials for them, like Pecard's, Lexol, SnowSeal, Neatsfoot, and a host ofothers. But I am not going by testimonials. All products have testimonials. As far asI am concerned, testimonials are based on short-term experience and a lot ofmisinformation and superstition passed down by other ill-informed people. Iam going by ingredients based on research. However, trying to find out what is inmany of these products will remain a mystery. For example, try and find out justexactly what Lexol is. Yet, it is sworn upon as if it is the Bible.
So here are my conclusions. Because of the diversity of opinion and uncertainty about mink oil, I decided to look for something that had no mink oil in it. But here isanother interesting fact. The Fox Creek people from whom I bought my jacketsrecommend mink oil. They also sell another product called Montana Pitch-Blend.That also contains mink oil and pine pitch. So from what I have read, I am not surethat even the people who make leather products know for sure what they aretalking about. Several of them recommend things that others say will rot leather.So one has to be very careful here.
In any case, there were two products whose names kept coming up over and over, and as far as I can determine, they are pretty similar with a couple of differences between them. AND, they contain no mink oil. One was Obenauf's Leather Care Products, and the other was Huberd's Shoe Grease. Both of them have the same ingredient as their main base - beeswax. Beeswax seems to be universally recommended as the best application for a leather conditioner and preservative. Beeswax is virtually non-controversial when it comes to leather care. But here is the mind-blower from the maker of some of the world's best boots that throws off almost everything and demonstrates just how complex this whole issue is as to which ingredient delivers the best protection for the leather I am trying to protect. WESCO, the boot-maker whose boots I now own, highly recommends BEE OIL (a bee base) AND - now get this! - MINK OIL! This is the maker of the boot, mind you. So whereas they affirm the bee base for leather protection, they contradict so many others by recommending the mink oil. Obenauf's denounces mink oil as harmful in their advertising. Obenauf's also contains no pine tar, and they censure that too. But Huberd's does contain pine tar. The Huberd people disagree with the Obenauf people about the destructive nature of pine tar. I searched but was unable to find any information about the effects of pine tar on leather other than the fact that it is a preservative and used for water-proofing. However, Stompers specifically recommended Huberd's for oil-tanned leather like the boots I bought. Huberd's says oil-tanned leather is their specialty for their kind of shoe grease. What was interesting is that the woman I spoke to at Fox Creek Leather had never heard of Obenauf's. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I was going to use either Obenauf's or Huberd's. I settled on a small can of Huberds that I was able to buy locally from a distributor. You will probably have to buy Obenauf's strictly off the Internet. By the time it is shipped, it is all the more expensive, which is why I went with Huberd's.
With a 7.5 oz can, I have treated two motorcycles jackets, a pair of 16" Wesco harness boots a couple of times, two sets of chaps, and another of my wife's leather coats. I still have a quarter of a can of the stuff left. I applied it with my fingers. As Obenauf's claims for its own product, Huberd's could be used for hand lotion and lip balm. When warm, it almost gets to the consistency of water. It is very easy to apply and smells pleasant also. When I bought it from the distributor and asked him if I could apply it to a leather jacket, he said, "Oh, no. I wouldn't do that. It will leave the leather real sticky." Here was another man who didn't know what he was talking about. When soaked into the naked leather out of which Fox Creek makes its jackets, there is no greasiness on the jacket. Or the boots, for that matter. It does not stick to anything, and it does not come off on your clothes. The leather absorbs Huberd's nicely and immediately. However, when I put it on my chaps, that was a different story. That was when I discovered that I don't have as good a leather as I do with the coats and boots. Some leathers are treated with a spray coating that may not be apparent at first until something like Huberd's is applied. If the leather garment has been sprayed so that the pores of the leather are sealed, then the leather will not absorb the Huberd's readily and there will be a greasy residue left that will have to be wiped off. Other than that, I think Huberd's is probably as good as the Obenauf's product. But finding a review and comparison for these two side by side on the Internet was not possible. When I am finished with the Huberd's, I may try the Obenauf's. But at this point, Huberd's has protected my boots and jackets without any known destructive and controversial ingredients applied. The jackets are soft and water resistant, and water beads on the boots without soaking in.
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