Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Nate. And I am Mike. So as we often do, we do usually record maybe two episodes one night a week. And we just came off the underground shade Connecticut, I'll call it an abomination. And so before we started this one, I had to hold some drinking new Glarus Moon Man, and I just took a big sip and held it in my mouth for as long as I could before swallowing to try and get some of that that shade out of my out of my face hole. So what are we smoking this episode, Mike?
We are going to smoke the under crown Maduro. And this is a 91 rating, apparently. It smells a lot better than it tastes a lot better. It smells better. It tastes better, but I'm not I'm not I'm not beholden to it yet with the taste of just wetting the cap. I don't know if that's the the the holdover from the shade or if there is kind of a bit of that kind of acidity, accredity, acrid, acrid, accredity, accreditation, one of the two, I don't know. First light, it's much better. It's better.
It's a 91, but you know, first couple puffs. So not not telling yet. What are we talking about, Mike? Something near and dear to your heart, I hope. Yes. So we talked about it off air. Shocking. And I am going to do an episode about shoe care because it's a hot topic on the Internet. And it seems like nobody knows how to take care of their leather shoes or their regular shoes that aren't leather, whatever you want to say. But nobody seems to have any of the answers.
So I'm going to provide some information and hopefully not be too confusing for everybody. How's that sound, Nate? That sounds great. I should probably look at my shoes again. I try not to wear. Why wear shoes? Because my my feet are fairly sensitive. So like if I run out and about without shoes on, I get tickly. So not a huge fan of that.
But in the summer, I'm usually just wearing flip flops or something, you know, like I'm not actually like putting on the full blown shoes and I don't go to the office anymore. So I'm not really wearing my dress shoes. But I do have the shoe shine kit. I know how to shine a shoe. You know, the it's not really horsehair anymore, but the synthetic equivalent of horsehair brush and the polish and the shine rag and all that.
So I'm very interested to see how badly I have been shining and keeping up with my shoes. Sure. We can. Well, we'll get to that, too, because a lot of people make a simple mistake when you use polish on your shoe. Are you also using a conditioner of some kind? So you know, you put the polish on the outside. I'm guessing it's like a kiwi and you dab it on and then you let it dry and then you brush it to a polish. But are you using any conditioner?
No. Well, you need to start using some conditioner. So we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Tell me why. When we get there, when we get there. So I have these broken down into classes of products and I can name a few specifics. And the product you use. Are these all men's shoes or are these genderless, genderless shoes? Genderless, genderless and mostly for leather. But I also have products for cloth as well. How many of these products are sponsors, Mike? None. None are sponsors. All right.
So then you know they're good. Yes. Oh, yes. So the product you use depends on the type of leather or material that your shoe is made out of and also the type of shoe. So the generic leather types are smooth, rough out suede, new buck, distressed, patent leather, painted leather, and then you have exotic leathers. So how do you know? Generally. I mean, I understand patent leather because it's shiny as fuck, but some other stuff like how would I know if it's new buck or something else?
Suede doesn't have the top grain in it. It's that really furry stuff. A rough out leather you can tell because on the inside of the boot or shoe, it'll be smooth and the outside will be rough. You know what I'm saying? So like suede is rough on both sides. It doesn't have the top grain. Rough out has the top grain on the inside. New buck has the top grain, but it's sanded down. You know what I'm saying? So they sand the top of it. So it's a little bit rougher.
Distressed leather is typically even more sanded. It's like matte. It doesn't necessarily have to be sanded, but it's not smooth. It's got some texture or marbling to it. And then a patent leather has a layer of plastic over the top of the leather. Sometimes it's just a layer of plastic with fiber underneath. And then painted leather is like a smooth leather that has a layer of paint over the top of it. So think Doc Martens. That's like painted leather.
And then of course exotic leathers are snakeskin, lizard, alligator, ostrich. Stuff like that. Stuff that I'm guessing most people have something that's a little exotic. I don't know how much alligator. I don't think I have anything exotic for shoes anyway. I don't. I don't know. Underwear, britches, that sort of thing. Maybe but not shoes. I don't have any exotic shoes, but I have some alligator watch bands and lizard skin watch bands and stuff like that. But I do have distressed leather stuff.
And then I take care of Sarah's stuff. She's got all the high heels and junk like that. So anyway, so for cleaning products, you nailed some of it. So you have brushes and there's a variety of brushes. You have nylon brushes that are stiff and medium. You have hard and stiff or hardened medium and soft horsehair brushes. I use a toothbrush. You can get a cotton cloth and microfiber cloths. There's something called a suede brush, which is like a four way brush.
It's got like rubber ribbing on one side and like some gearing tooth on the other side. It's got like some bristles and a shoe eraser. OK. And your shoe eraser is super important for suede and tennis shoes and stuff. So if you don't have a shoe eraser, you should probably get one. OK, I don't have a shoe eraser. Yeah, the shoe eraser is a great. Do you have like actual products that you want to link? Like in the description, do you want to link some of these things for people? I suppose I could.
I mean, I go over some brands for people. Oh, OK. And typically anything by these brands are going to be reputable. They have to determine what their particular shoes are. And something like a Birkenstock has multiple leather types, and you're going to need several products to actually maintain it correctly. OK. Yes. And then the cleaners. So you have suede and nubuck cleaner, which are sprays typically, and they're formulated for suede and nubuck.
You have to use it because the napping, you know, it's that fuzziness. And if you use the wrong cleaner, the fuzz will wipe off. And that's what you don't want. Yeah. And if you get them wet, generally, right? Like if you wear them in the rain, it's kind of like game over. No, you can brush that out. If you just get them wet, you can brush suede out with a suede brush. OK. You can brush it out.
The actual suede cleaner has little particulates in it that bond to the oils that get in there and it'll pick them up. You know, you wipe them clean with a cloth and then you brush them. And there's several different brands. I use Bicmore products for most of my cleaning. I got Obanoff's cleaner too. Then there's generic leather sprays. That's for smooth leather for the most part and work boots because it's more caustic. You know, it actually like eats the leather away.
They have gel cleaners and that's mostly for tennis shoes. I think they're kind of like for white tennis shoes. It's kind of like a brightener, if you will. A lot of people, especially if you go to like the Walmarts of the world, you get these sponges that have like cleaner soaked into the sponge and they're worthless. Oh, yeah. I've seen those. I'd never bought one because I kind of thought it wasn't going to be good. They're worthless. I've had them over the years and they're garbage.
And then there's saddle soap. First of all, there's only one brand anybody should buy and that's Fiebing's because they're the original saddle soap people. And I will end the debate for everybody because if you look up Fiebing's saddle soap, the first thing you'll see is, should I get white or yellow saddle soap? Have you ever heard of this? No, I haven't.
OK, so saddle soap, you can put water in it and you take a horsehair brush or a soft brush and you make a lather and it's like a soap for leather. Right. Yeah. So according to Fiebing's, who's the biggest name in saddle soap back in the olden times when saddle soap was sold at tax stores out in the western United States, they had white for shoes and yellow for saddles because it was a marketing ploy. So people bought more fucking saddle soap. Perfect. So there is no difference.
Whatever you get, just get the cheapest one, whichever it doesn't make a difference. Yellow saddle soap will not stain your shoes and white will not bleach your saddle. That is correct. And you use that on smooth leather. New Buck, you want to use products for suede and new book because of the nap. Yeah. You know what I mean? You don't want to ruin that fuzziness on it. And then there's cleaning creams. I've never used a cleaning cream, but they have creams out there. OK.
Yeah. So there's a variety of cleaners and they're all specific to whatever type of leather you're dealing with or plastic or whatever, or even cloth. So I have like a felt hat cleaning kit for wool. And I use that on like canvas and shit like that because it's intended to be a cleaner for dyed wools and fabrics. OK. Yeah. So the big brands in the cleaning world or the shoe care world are going to be Safier, which is a French company, Bickmore, Fiebing's, Obanoff's.
And then you get down to more specific stuff. Kelly's, Otterwax, Hubbard's, Honey Leather or Leather Honey. And then you have your Walmart stuff, which is like Kiwi. And Kiwi, it's not that it's low quality. It depends on what the product is, but it's not going to be as high quality as Safier or Bick or something like that. Yeah. And I have the Kiwi polish and that seems to be fine, but I've never used anything else. So I don't know. Right.
Well, we're going to get to that closer to the end because. OK. Depending on the quality of your shoe. That's the last step, right? That's the last step. That's the last step. Right. So you can use a polish. I don't typically use polish. I use a dyed cream and then I just brush over the top of the cream and it's not as shiny as polish, but it conditions the leather. See what I'm saying? Got it. Yeah. So as far as conditioner goes, there are oil, cream and then waxes and paste.
Outside of that, there's mink oil, which is both waxes and paste. Depends. Mink oil is kind of like everybody knows what mink oil is, but nobody knows what mink oil is at the same time because you see it on the shelf, but nobody knows what's in it. Yeah. And you use it for like your ballglove, right? Yeah. Isn't that what you do? Like to you put the base, you get a brand new ballglove. You rub that thing full of mink oil.
You put a ball in there, put some rubber bands around it and let it sit overnight or for a couple of days. And then you come back and it's like broken in. Right. Yeah. It softens. I mean, that's what my dad did. We're not MLB players or anything. So is that how you do it or not? I don't know, but that's what we did as kids. So well, mink oil, mink oil is supposed to be oil derived from mink pelts because they are water resistant.
So they kill a bunch of mink and then they derive the oil out of their pelts. And that's what it is. They squeeze them. They squeeze them. Yes. And you can get a paste or a actual oil like liquid at room temperature. Depends on how it depends on how hard they squeeze to make it. It depends on the formulation. Oh, yeah. But a big issue with mink oil is a lot of it is actually just beef tallow with a drop of oil in it. And it's horrible for your leather because beef tallow rots. Got it.
Yeah. It's not very good for your boots typically. And it darkens the leather really long or really dark and it stretches it. And I don't use mink oil. I used to when I was less informed, but I don't I don't use it. We have the oil category. Have you ever used an oil? I have never used an oil on my boots or shoes. And honestly, I don't I've never really done any maintenance on any leather boots I have. Mike is going to go on mute while he screams at the gods.
But I've really only ever kind of like done the the cleaning and the polishing of my work shoes. But I'm you know, I haven't really done much outside of that because that was kind of all that I thought you needed to do. So I am running along with other people. Today, you're going to get book learned. So oils, they darken the leather, all of them. There's several kinds and I have them listed off here. They all darken the leather. They all have some waterproofing.
If you go to the Red Wing store, they'll have a little bottle oil with a dauber that you can put on your Red Wings and it'll condition. I used to use oil. I no longer use oil. It's too easy to overcondition the leather and the leather will stretch out and thin out and weaken. And I don't like it. Yeah, that's a personal preference. But I just don't care for it. So most of the oils don't smell like the Red Wing oil you get. Nobody really knows the scent and it's proprietary.
You know, it's magical science. But it's probably it's probably erm, ermine oil. It could be. I'm guessing it's a Neitz foot oil. Okay. And Neitz foot oil is a natural product. They derive it from shin bones and feet of cows. It's just a rendered and purified oil from their bones. It might just be WD 40. While people do that, they put WD 40 and that's not very good. You don't want to use any sort of petroleum product on your footwear. Yeah. Well, anyway, Neitz foot oil, it darkens it pretty bad.
And it's I don't know, it's just kind of gross that they boiled on bones. It's very old school technology. It's kind of like mink oil. I've never used it. I never want to use it. There's a product called Leather Honey and it does darken and it does do some water repelling. It is synthetic and I've never used it, but people swear by it. Okay. And then I've also used, crazily enough, I used Ballastol before on my work boots and Ballastol. How is that? It stinks, but it does work.
You know, you know about all right. Yeah. Yeah, it does work. It works fine. It's cool for those who don't know Ballastol is like an all purpose gun cleaner made in the 1890s for the German army and it works really well. I use it on it. It's good on wood and steel and leather. So it never dries. So it's good as far as I used. Yeah, it's fine. I use creams a lot. So a cream is obviously a cream, right? It's synthetic. It's not typically a natural product.
There's three main kinds that I would say, you know, in my little brain, there's pigmented creams that are kind of paste like and you would use that in place of a polish. And then there's a non darkening cream that is only a conditioner with no waterproofing. And then there's creams that are formulated for exotic leathers. So they're formulated to go on like snake scales and ostrich and shit like that. OK. Yeah. So there's several brands. I use Kelly's pigmented creams.
People swear by Safir, which is a French product. And the reason why I like both of those is that there's like 100 different colors with pigment in them. So you can match the exact color of whatever your dress shoe or boot or whatever is. They have that. I'm almost scared. Is that the is that the Kelly's? Yeah, Kelly's. Yeah. OK. Safier is to Safier is good. I don't use it, but it is good. People swear by it. So if you get like some color of shoe that's a little off, it's not just generic black.
They will have a color of cream that is that exact color undoubtedly. And you'll be able to find it and use it. And OK. Yeah. So you can polish it and it'll condition it and it's kind of an all in one. It's really nice. Am I losing Ginnate? Nope. I'm here with you. I'm I'm not talking a whole lot because I feel like for the last four or five episodes, I've been kind of talking a lot.
So and I don't know much about shoes and shoe polishing other than, you know, my first couple pairs of dress shoes I just had and nobody really told me what to do with them. So I didn't do anything with them. And, you know, and then they wear out and then suddenly people are like, well, you know, like if you take care of like the leather, you can have them resold and you can do all this other stuff and they last longer and they are less stiff and they, you know.
So I know that there's all these things that you can do or one can do with shoes and boots to not only upkeep them, but to make them more comfortable and, you know, more likely to be worn by you. So I'm just paying attention and and stuff. So interesting stuff so far with the creams and the oils and oils, see, I'm going through the oils real fast because I don't use oil, but I do use cream. We're going to talk about a particular product that I endorse here shortly.
So with the oils making them darker. Yes. And with the Red Wing boots giving you oil with your purchase, is that because the boot on the shelf is not as dark as it should be? Or are people wanting darker boots and shoes? Or is that just they think the oil is better so they're willing to accept their shoe or boot getting gradually darker? There's two main reasons. The first reason is that you're using on a work boot, so you don't care if it gets darker or not.
All you care is that it's condition so it doesn't break down. Yeah, right. And a Red Wing work boot typically is Gore-Tex lined, so you don't care if it's waterproofed or not. It doesn't matter, right? There's a liner in it. And the second reason is that because it comes in a bottle with a dauber, anybody can put it on their boot. It takes no effort, very low effort. It's not a great product as far as longevity or waterproofing. But it's probably better than nothing, right?
It's better than nothing, right? Exactly. It's the bare minimum you can do for your $400 work boot that you can get resold for years. You know, if you actually took care of them, you could have the same work boot theoretically definitely. Okay. Yeah. And work boots are expensive if you get good quality work boots. How much does it cost to resold one? Last time I got my Danner's resold, it was like 50 bucks, something like that. 10 bucks? It's real cheap. Huh? $10?
50. Oh, 50. Okay. Yeah. It's like $10. It's like, no, no, it's not. I'm gonna go get everything resold right now. Yeah, no, no. So like getting a Birkenstock resold is like 40 bucks. Okay. And then getting a boot because the sole is a little bit more expensive. You know, most of the soles, they're just glued onto the midsole. So they just rip them off and glue a new one on and then they shape it up and it's a pretty quick process. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So as long as you take care of the boot and you're not damaging the leather through work or getting cuts on them, they'll last a long time. Yeah, yeah. So it makes sense to take good care of them. Yes. Really good sense, depending on your environment. So when I was working oil field, we worked on scoria rock and a lot of steel grating and your boots just melt off your feet because you get them cut constantly.
I'd go through two to three pairs of boots a year and I was also oiling them and maintaining them. It's just such a horrendous environment. But if you're working in buildings, God, it's real easy to make a pair of boots last several resoles, so there's not a lot of reason not to take care of them. Yeah, well, it's $400 versus $50 plus whatever the cost of the creams or oils or products, conditioners, things, but it's still less than buying a brand new pair of boots. Oh, yeah.
And later we're going to talk about waxes, which is what I have gravitated towards for my work boots. You only need to do it twice a year. It's more labor intensive, but you only have to do it twice a year. Whereas like the oil, you need to put that on every month. Oh, yeah, it's more often. So you do not save money by using the oil. It's just easier. Yeah. Anyway, this is something that I would suggest for you is a cream. So I'm going to talk about two unpigmented creams.
One is Chamberlain's leather milk and I have never used it. People like it online. It doesn't darken leather. I just I've never used it, so I can't talk a whole lot about it. But there are two creams that I do use and both are made by Bickmore. And one is Bick 4 and the other is Bick Distressed. And they're a cream and it's a synthetic product. It's not made out of like, you know, beeswax or any natural stuff, but it doesn't smell. It's a cream. You write it on. It'll look wet and dark.
And then after an hour, it dries up and it looks exactly the same as it did before. But now it's conditioned. OK. And the Distressed stuff works really well if you have kind of a drier leather, you know, kind of like a buffalo or something that isn't really a wet leather. Oh, OK. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then your Bick 4 is for like lighter colored leathers and leathers that you don't want to darken with a wax.
And especially for leathers that you don't care if it's waterproof or not, or you don't want them to be waterproof. Yeah. Yeah. Because let's say you use a wax. If that leather gets wet, it's going to be wet for longer. So if you use something like a Bick product, it'll dry faster. You don't get wet faster, but it'll dry faster. Right. And it's almost impossible to over oil them.
So like the leather oil from Red Wing, it's really easy to put too much oil on your boot and ruin the leather of the boot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can put way too much on because it'll absorb and absorb and absorb until it's like soaking wet. And then it's got too much stuff in there. And your leather is probably going to stretch and be ruined. Whereas like a Bick La Cream, let's say on your dress shoes, are your dress shoes lined with fabric or is it leather on the inside of the shoe?
I don't remember because it's been three years now since I've had to wear a dress shoe from the pandemic. So. Sure. I don't know. I feel like I've had both. So let's just say I've had both, maybe. So let's just say that your leather shoe is this leather on the inside and then you polish the outside.
You can take Bick 4 on your finger and rub it on the leather on the inside of your shoe and you can condition it from the inside out and then you can polish the outside and not have to worry about conditioning the outside of the leather. OK. So it's like a big advantage in an unlined boot that you can condition the inside and the outside with it if you want it to. OK. Yeah, it's great. And it won't darken them.
So if you have, let's say, a tan color pair of dress shoes that you want to stay nice and it's more natural and you're not going to polish them, you can keep them that color and still condition them and they won't crack and they'll be nice. OK. Yeah. Bick is a great product. I have also used it on patent leather. So the patent leather's got a layer of plastic on the outside, right? That's why it's so shiny.
You can rub it on the inside of that and it'll condition the leather on the inside and it'll go bump because you can't condition patent leather on the outside. Obviously, it's got plastic. Well, yeah. Yeah. Or painted leather like a pair of Doc Martens. You can't condition Doc Martens because they're painted. But you can rub Bick on the inside and condition them from the inside out. And it dries nice so your socks won't get ruined.
If you put wax on the inside of Doc Martens, your socks are going to get ruined. But not with Bick, right? Yeah. So it's a great product. I highly recommend anybody that has several pairs of leather shoes or if your significant other has high heels or something that she doesn't wear very often or whatever. Bick is great for many applications. So and like I say, people use leather milk. I've never used it. Is that similar to the Bick stuff or is it kind of different? It's very similar.
Different brands. Different brand. Yeah. Bickmore started off like Thebings. They made tack products. So stuff for leather saddles and chaps. OK, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They're like an old school company. Very simple packaging, but I like it. Yeah, it's good stuff. So for my work boots, I use waxes and there's several products on the market for waxes. I use two. Two of them. I use two of them.
And basically every wax on the market is a copy of these two products and they cost less, but you might as well just buy the original as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. So for my winter stuff, I use Snow Seal. Have you heard of Snow Seal? No. Well, they sell Snow Seal everywhere. It's made by a company called ATSCO and it was made for ski boots in the 1933. And it's beeswax that has an emulsifier blended in and it's in a can that's sealed.
You open the can, you take the beeswax or this product, you spread it on the leather real quick and then you recap it and then you take a heat gun or like a hairdryer, you melt it in, all the emulsifier goes away and then the beeswax is left. And then basically you just impregnate the outer layer of the leather with beeswax and it makes it very, very impervious to water and it stiffens up the leather a little bit. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So think winter leather boots that you want to make impervious to salt and snow and you want them a little stiffer because you're going to be walking in like snow shoes or something, you know? Yep. I'm going to put that on my car. On your car. So the snow seal doesn't condition. So if you mix snow seal on the outside with a little bit of Bic on the inside, you get your waterproofing and then you get your conditioner both.
Okay. You see how you use these products together and then you get the whole job done. Yep. And for example, like I have winter work boots that are insulated. Yep. I only maintain them once a year. Every spring I'll put Bic on them, let it dry out. I'll seal them with snow seal and they'll be good for the whole winter. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a once a year thing.
It takes me a couple hours once a year and then they're good for the rest of the, you know, they'll be good for the whole season in the winter. Yep. More or less. And the company says that snow seal allows the leather to breathe. I don't know if it's true or not. Okay. Did you go down to your boot with an oxygen meter to see if it was breathing just fine or you did some CPR? Yeah, no, I didn't. One thing to note is that it does make the boot look chalky.
I mean, it looks like you have beeswax on the outer edge of your, on the outer layer of your boot, you know. Because you do. Because you do. So it's not something you want to do to like a pair of nice looking boots that you want to go about on the town in. Yeah, but if you're out in the snow and you want dry feet, it's what you do. And it doesn't harm the leather, right? No, if anything, it's good for it. Yeah, it beeswax doesn't rot. And as you move it, it will somewhat condition it.
So it's good, you know, it does stiffen it up a little. So like I put it on my I wear LL Bean boots in the wintertime pretty much every day when I'm going out and about because I tuck my pants into them, go into the bowling alleys. Yep. And I want the leather to be stiffer. So it holds up, you know, in a cone. Yes, it works great. I put them on my sorrels and my steel toed winter work boots. It's really good stuff. Are they pronounced sorrel or sorrel? I don't know. I don't know either.
We've always we always called them sorrel boots growing up. But I also call them potato ole's too. So I may be way off base stuff to say. I mean, I'll be honest with you. I don't really own a pair of sorrels. I own like bath and boots. OK, bath and boots because they're steel toed. Yeah, yeah. But they look like all good sorrels. Everybody knows what I mean when I say a sorrel boot. Oh, for sure. Well, everybody, everybody here in the Midwest knows. I don't know elsewhere, but for sure here.
Right. Yeah. And if anybody ever worked construction, they know what a bath and boot is. I rock the what the hell are they called? Like Thunder Bay, Canadian made bath and boots. OK. Yeah. So how are those? They look exactly like a sorrel boot and they're just as comfortable. I guess they're fine. They're not like super comfortable, but they're warm. OK. Yeah. They sit behind my behind the seat of my van. And if I have to walk out in like a big drift of snow, I put them on.
Yeah. I avoid I avoid wearing them if I can, other than snow blowing or something like that. But yeah, where you need warm feet. Yeah, exactly. It's not something that I would willingly wear all the time. Yes. They're a very practical boot for specific circumstances. They're not like, I'm going to wear this boot because it's comfortable. Yeah, it's stylish. Even though the ladies have stylish winter boots now. I see. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We could, too, if we wanted. I suppose so.
I guess for those guys who have significant others who do have stylish ladies winter boots, they should be conditioning those boots, especially if they're a little beans, because you can resole it as being so another wax. And this is a big one. And this is what I use on my winter work boots or not my winter work boots, but all my work boots that are not specifically winter oriented. Obanoff's heavy duty LP. Have you ever heard of that? Nope. Well, you've heard of it now.
Yes. I feel like this is the the two or three episodes where I was like, Mike, have you ever heard of this saying or where's this saying from or this idiom or have you ever heard of this like Mandela affected? You're like, I've not heard of any of these things. And you got kind of cranky with me. So I'm just going to go up and say if it's not the kiwi polish in the little can, I haven't heard of it. We are coming up to kiwi polish, I promise. OK. And we're going over.
I'm trying to explain their uses as we go. Oh, no, this is super interesting. But you know, like you asking me, have I heard of it? I'm just going to give you the blanket like, no, I have not. Sure. So Obanoff's was invented by a guy in Idaho for upland firefighters. OK. Yeah, and I was introduced to this by some Idahoans when I was working out west and I fell in love with it. I think it's if I only had one product for my work boots, it would be Obanoff's. It's great.
OK. It's a it's beeswaxed based, but it has other oils in it and it's got a carrier agent. So you rub it on your boot and then you take a hairdryer and you melt it into the leather. And unlike snow seal, it actually penetrates deeper and softens the leather a little bit and it makes it easy. It's kind of like mink oil where you soften your baseball glove. Yeah, this stuff will soften that thick leather and it stays impregnated and the heat from your leg will cause it to condition the boot.
Oh, OK. Yes. And it's heat resistant. And that's why a firefighter made it is that you can take a blowtorch and put it on your boot and you can see the Obanoff's bubble and protect the leather. The conditioner itself will will bubble and protect the leather from the fire. OK, it's super cool and it's waterproofing. It's kind of a great product all around. You can have you seen like the greasy leather Doc Martens? You remember those?
No, no. OK, so Doc Martens, there's the patent leather or the plastic and then they have the leather like greasy leather, which is like kind of got like a layer of oil on the outer edge of it. You can create or maintain that greasy leather look on your docks with Obanoff's and it works great. Yeah. And it smells like honey. So it does smell. You will smell the honey. OK, then it's really cool. Big problem is it darkens your leather. I mean, it will darken it three shades. It's going to be brown.
Yeah, it's it's you're putting wax into the boot like it's going to darken it. So dark leathers only. But it works really good. And then there's a bunch of products. There's clone products that various companies have made to try to compete with Obanoff's. And I don't know if they're good or not. I just always buy Obanoff's. I don't mess around with that game. Yeah. So we're going to get into sprays. Those are the polishes or the oils and the creams and the waxes.
And that's really for your leather leather sprays. You can use on new bucks and suede's. You can also use them on canvas shoes and your tennis shoes and stuff. OK, so Kiwi makes a shoe spray. It's only there to act as like a little thin layer to wear when your tennis shoes or whatever get dirty. You can scrub them off easy and then respray it. So it makes it easier to clean them. OK, so if you get like white tennis shoes, you can go get some Kiwi shoe spray.
It's kind of like a little layer of silicone on top. They get dirty. I'm a take a brush. Yeah. I was going to say I'm a dad, but I'm a dad, but I'm not white tennis shoes, dad level yet. So I don't wear white tennis shoes either with my with the shin, the shin high tube socks. Yeah. And just running around with my my grilling tongs. I'm sure that'll be in my future, but it is not yet today. Sure. So you're not wearing the three stripe white Adidas anymore? No, ever did. I never did. I never did.
I always grew up wearing like New Balance, but this is back when they were still manufactured in the USA and then they then they offshore those. So now I don't really wear tennis shoes. I wear I've got some spare. What are they? Spare like boat shoes that I wear usually. And then, you know, just my flops in the summer.
And I got a pair of like tennis shoes, but they're just kind of like some kind of generic thing that I just got because I just wear them if I'm going to do like something kind of active and I sweat in them and I don't care because it was like a twelve dollar shoe, you know? Sure. So it's not really something I'm going to upkeep, but the spares I would. But well, you're so you can take this.
Yeah. Yeah. So your canvas shoes, if you took the shoe spray and you sprayed it on them when they were clean, it'd be a lot easier to get them clean again with a brush. Basically. OK. Yeah. Because it's just it's like a layer of plastic over the top of it. And you just wipe that dirt off real quick. It makes them look nice for longer. OK. Mm hmm. And it's a good product. How far are you in your cigar, by the by? I'm a little bit less than halfway. I'm right around the halfway mark.
How about you? Yeah, I feel I'm about halfway. Well, what are your thoughts? It's way better than the last one. Yeah. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say 91, but I'd say 87 for sure. Yeah. I'd say maybe like 70 ish would be kind of like being nice to it. But it's not it's not bad. I mean, like what the high score is 100, right? Like this. That's like top level. So like it's totally not a 91. Like there's no way there's no there's no chance ever that I see giving this a 91.
Let's say that a LaGloria Cubana Series R is a 93. I would put this at I don't know what it is. Why don't you know what? I'm going to look. You like the Series R? Mm hmm. OK, here we go. It's a 92 rating. So the Series R is a 92 rating and they're putting this thing and I don't mean thing like necessarily in a bad way. They're putting this stick at a 91. And in my mind, this is this is it's good.
It's it's but it's it's got this like and it was fine the first half, but I got about halfway and it kind of got I got like one puff of kind of like sour and you know, and maybe it's just because I've traumatized from the the shade. But it's not this isn't one where I'm like I would smoke this one any time. This is kind of a one where it's like this is fine. It's it's doing what it's supposed to do, but there is nothing really appealing about it to me outside of that. It doesn't taste bad.
You know what I mean? Yeah. You think it's a little bland? Yeah, it's just it's it's it's there. It's better than the bin Maduro that we had. I would say this is better than a Dark Shark. That's not 91. I'd almost rather smoke a Dark Shark, to be honest. Really? You like those dark sharks more than I do, though. The dark sharks are fairly bland. I'm not going to I'm not going to lie, but they're very consistent and they're never sour and I'm just I don't know.
I've got kind of weird like I don't know if it's a weird aftertaste on this one, but I mean, you and I both smoked the last one the same amount of time ago. So if it was any residual holdover in our like mouth taste or mouth feel or whatever the fuck it's called, it'd be the same for both of us. But I don't know. I just tell it though. The whole time I was I was getting that whiskey on my tongue and letting it sit. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't really drinking the whiskey.
I was like letting it kind of permeate my mouth. You had the cigar in your mouth, but you didn't inhale. Mike, is that what you're is that what you're saying? Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't get any fractals. I mean, yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't want to be too hard on this one because it is apparently like people like it, but I'm just not I'm not seeing what all the hype is about. There's a bunch of other Maduros we've smoked that are the equal or better than this.
I mean, I would say like an MX two is better. Yeah, it's it's good for a five dollar cigar so far. Oh, you know, I'm not I'm not saying it's not good. I'm just saying it's like a 91. Right. You know, and I mean, I don't know how they do the ratings. Like for me saying it's like a 70, like that's a compliment. Like that's a stick I would smoke again, you know, where the the shade was probably like a 12. You know what I mean? Like I would I would give the shade a 12, maybe a 20 tops.
But you know, like a 70, that's good. It doesn't have to be like a cigar you like or will smoke doesn't have to be an 80, 90, 100. It can be a 70. It can be a 68. You know, like it's not a big deal. It's just there's other cigars that are Maduros that I'd rather smoke than this one. But this one's fine. It's serviceable is kind of what's been going through my head on this one. Like it hasn't really been stand out to me, but sure. Given that all the glory Cuban is a 92, I'd give this an 80.
I wouldn't give it a 70. I'd give it an 80. You know, I just I guess my 70 might be in retribution for the 91, you know, like is this law of averages? So if you get if you get a whole bunch of people rating it 91, I'm going to rate it like a 65 just to balance it to where it should be, which, you know, could be an 80, you know, like I'd be OK with an 80. Right. Like the Kim Kardashian effect or something. I don't know what that is. It doesn't have any Botox. So right.
I I've always found it humorous that people found that Kim Kardashian became a sex symbol. And when I look at her, I just I'm like, she is like a freak show person. What does she really do with that? I don't want anything to do with any of the Kardashians. No, it's it's bizarre. It's bizarre. But that has nothing to do with the topic of the show or the. No, no, no. I just wanted to do a cigar check and I'm smoking it. I'm like, it's fine.
But it's not bad because like we haven't really talked about it. Yeah, yeah. It's you know, like it's not like if it's if it's if it's fine. And sometimes even if it's like a really good cigar, we don't talk about a whole lot unless it flavor changes, you know, and then we're like, wow, that was like a great cigar. But you know, this one's I'd put it like kind of average, you know, like a little bit better than average, probably. But yeah, you know, I'd smoke it again.
So I don't know why you're so against the dark sharks. They're not phenomenal, but you know, I'm not against the dark sharks. There's just nothing to write home about. As far as like a bin cigar to have in the humidor, they're good. Yeah. That's typically what I use them for is like, I'm like, I want to go out and grill, but I don't really want to like have a whole cigar experience. I'll just grab a dark shark because they're consistent and I know what I'm getting.
Right. They're kind of like I use them as a baseline. So yeah, the dark shark is as unremarkable as a cigar can be and still be good, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Without being like offensive or like weird tasting or whatever. Right. Like it's the dark shark is going to be better than I said, the dark shark is better than the bin Maduro we smoked. Oh yeah. Because that was like kind of just puffing air. Like there's a little taste to that.
But the dark shark, it's not super flavorful, you know, but it's not bad. It's just, I agree with you. I'm not going to say, Hey, you should smoke a dark shark instead of a La Gloria Cubano. Like I'm not, I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying. Yeah. I think the dark shark is, it's, I was going to make the comparison to a, a shrew because I'm a shrew guy, but a shrew is not for everybody. Yeah. You know, that is not everybody's thing. You either like them or you don't. Very true.
Back to shoes. Did you say back, back to shrews or back to shoes? Back to shoes, back to shoes. Yeah. I'm teasing. I know. So, uh, yeah, the Kiwi shoe spray, uh, it's good. There's other brands. Uh, Bickmore makes one, Ovenoft makes one. Uh, it's kind of one of those things where if you just go with the big brand, you're not going to be, you're not going to go wrong. You know, you can get Kiwi shoe spray at Walmart and it works perfectly adequately. Uh, you can put it on suede shoes.
You can put it on a pair of Converse if you want to clean them up, you know, and keep them looking nice longer. And it works pretty good. Can you put it on, can you put them on a blue suede shoes? Probably, probably. Okay. Uh, the next category is actually suede protector because suede shoes of course have special suede protectors. Uh, yes. And uh, some of them made out of silicone. Some of them are, there's a lot of variety in the suede protection game. Uh, suede's very easy to get dirty.
Uh, I don't use any protector on my suede shoes. Uh, suede's a lot more, suede is a lot more surface area. It's got a lot more surface area. It's super easy to get dirty. Uh, and it looks terrible when it gets dirty. Yeah. Like it's a, it's a double whammy. Yeah. I'm not wearing my suede, my red suede shoes to a beach. No, absolutely not. Yeah. I had a pair of red suede and new balance.
Uh, and I, I wore them on a hunting trip and I stepped in a puddle and my shoe was like permanently black and I had to throw them away. Like just from a puddle. Like it's, yeah, they're, I, I don't recommend suede shoes to people. Nope, nope. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole, it's a whole commitment. Like if you, if you want to pull off the look, like more power to you, but it's a whole thing. Like it's a whole thing. Yeah. You have to be very fucking careful.
Uh, if you want to keep them looking nice for a long time, it's kind of like wearing white tennis shoes. Like they're not going to be white very long. Yeah. First time you walk through some grass. So, and there are legitimate suede protectors. I don't really know how good they work. I don't use it. Uh, I just think it's pointless. You know, I clean it with the suede brush. I use a sneaker eraser on them and I just brush the dirt out and I try to keep them clean.
Yep. And it's a lot easier to maintain. So if you want to keep them good looking longer, you know, that's just what you do. Or you can oil it. So if you oil suede and new buck, it will create like a napped suede and it, it looks okay. It's a different look, but it looks okay. Okay. Yeah. So you can put like open offs on suede and it'll make like a nap suede. Uh, and it's a lot easier to maintain. I'll tell you that. Yeah. It's kind of like a waxed, uh, canvas, uh, that kind of look.
Okay. Yeah. Uh, we're, we're talking sprays here. So Bic makes an exotic spray, uh, for reptile skins and ostrich. Uh, and, uh, you basically just spray it on real thick and you let it absorb for a minute or two and you'll wipe it off. And all it's supposed to do is rehydrate the, the surface of the, uh, snake skin or the ostrich, uh, without dying it. Uh, snake skin is really hard to maintain.
Like it is not a long-term product, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen like old snake skin cowboy boots, but they don't look good for 20 years. I'll tell you that. Yeah. I've seen some in like, in like the antique stores and stuff. And it's always like, why would somebody buy that crusty ass pair of whatever? But do they have, and I suppose they probably do like down under, but do they have any like emu leather boots or something? I've never seen it, but I'm sure they do.
Okay. Cause they're, they're kind of like an ostrich almost. Yeah. And ostrich looks cool. Yeah. Yeah. You can use Bic on ostrich. I'm pretty sure I've seen ostrich leather, like wallets and things. So that's pretty neat. Oh, sure. I, a lot of ostrich cowboy boots, stuff like that. Um, which I don't own a pair of cowboy boots, but why not? You're far enough south. I guess so. Yeah. Far enough south of yourself, a Canada, you can wear cowboy boots. Yep. Oh yeah.
So, uh, now we're going to get into more specific products. I got three big products left. Uh, one is called Kelly's cork renew. And for those listeners, if you have Birkenstocks and you don't have Kelly's cork renew, uh, press pause, go on Amazon and put it in your cart. Just to be Kelly's cork renew. It is a must. Uh, it will darken the cork a little bit with time. That's kind of like a glue and it protects the cork and it makes that cork last forever.
Uh, a pair of Birkenstocks can last you basically for the rest of your life if you take care of them because you can resold them for 40 bucks and, uh, there's no reason not to. Uh, and, uh, yeah. How expensive are Birkenstocks? Depends on the very within, I know it depends on the, the inflation and yeti, all this stuff, but like on average, like a pair of Arizona's, I think it's 120 bucks for the standard version.
Um, if you get a more exotic version, so I have a Horween leather Birkenstock and I think those were 170 originally and they only made them for like three months. So you can't get them again. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So like, I don't know if this matters, uh, to anybody, but all of the dress shoes that I've bought have been like, I don't know, less than $80. Um, but I usually typically only buy dress shoes from Nordstrom rack, you know, so they're kind of already discounted a bit, but I don't know.
Like is it worth it to spend over a hundred dollars in a pair of dress shoes? Well, so here's the deal is like, okay, here's the deal. I have two pairs of dress shoes, one or black and one or brown. The brown ones are a real leather naked on the inside. They are real lasted. They have a cork bottom, a smooth cork, and they have a leather midsole. They're extremely comfortable, broken. Uh, they'll last me until I'm dead. Undoubtedly. Even if I wear the bottom off, I'll get a resold.
I can put leather bottoms on them. I can put another smooth cork. There's a nitrile cork. So it's like a compressed cork rubber bottom. Extremely comfortable. The other pair I got, uh, they're like Italian leather, but they have like a plastic layer on the outside. I'm gonna have to get rid of them. If I wore them more often, they'd wear out because they have the plastic and that probably go get a similar shoe to my brown ones and they're not as comfortable. My brown leather, uh, dress shoes.
I wear those like they're nice enough to where I just wear them with jeans out and above. Oh yeah. They're nice. Like that's interesting because like my brown pair is way more comfortable than my black pair, but it's like a real soft, supple leather. So um, it's really nice and supple. I had to earn the break in dessert, like very high quality. Uh, I think they sell for like 350 now, something like that. Um, but I've had them for a long time.
I've had them for over 10 years and they look brand new and they're warrent and they're, I wear them like they are comfortable. And they're not pointy. You know, they, they're more versatile in their look. You know what I mean? And they're comfortable. Cause that's the other thing with like, yeah, with the dress shoes, you know, like if you get the, um, the wing tips, then they've got like a lot of extra extra tooling and like designs and stuff.
And really like the more, I don't want to say like, it's not, it's not really plain, but like the more unadorned, you know, like the simpler goes with more things so you can wear them fantasy occasions, semi-formal, like, you know, business casual. Um, you know, you can wear them anywhere where you're not really supposed to be wearing like tennis shoes or sneakers or something. Exactly. And Brown, you can get away with the more traditional. You can do all sorts of stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense to invest in like a Brown boot style, high quality dress, shoe-ish, bootish thing. Cause you can wear those for many occasions. Yes. In my opinion, the black is less. So you know, that's more formal. Yeah. Yeah. I wear a Brown more than black shoes. So sure. Yeah. So do I on purpose too. Yeah. Yeah. And I like wider shoes and dress shoes tend to be narrow. Yup. I'm not a big fan.
Yeah. I've found, um, you know, I've got size 13 feet and so I found, um, a lot of the shoes that I like the look of, I like the cut of their jib as it were. Uh, I can't actually wear because the toe box is so narrow. Right. A lot of that in my feet are, what's that? I said a lot of that has to do with the lasting. Oh, so if you get like an Alden, uh, which is like the Indiana Jones boots and Alden, they have like a banana last.
So they're longer, they're longer and they're shaped like a banana, but because they're so long and they don't look weird, but they're whiter than, so your size 13 gains like two inches on the end. So they look boy. Oh, got it. Yup. Yeah. Yeah. But it's all personal preference, obviously. Oh yeah. Yeah. But they don't really teach a whole lot of this stuff for, for men. You know what I mean? No, it's not. It's not.
Unless, unless you're, unless your dad, you know, knows it and like passes it on to you. Like they don't really teach a whole lot of like dress shoes stuff or, um, you know, the maintenance and upkeep of that stuff anywhere really. Like even, um, even with a lot of the weird stuff that I learned in the boy scouts, like basket weaving and leather work and stuff like that, but there's not really like a, a dress shoe upkeep or you know what I mean?
Like, it's just not something that's really kind of taught anymore. I think. No, not really. And it should be, I did all the maintenance of my dad's dress shoes. Uh, cause my dad didn't want to do it. So I had to do it as part of my chores. Got it. My dad had a dress shoes for his job, uh, that had to be spit polished. And uh, so I gained an interest in it as a youth. Yes. Back before the internet. So yeah. Yeah. And I have two, uh, two quick ones.
Uh, once polishes, I have Kiwi on there is everybody can access Kiwi polish. Generally it's just black and brown. Uh, I think they have like a champagne too. Yeah. Well, they have neutral. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I forgot to mention, uh, back in the creams. So I'm going to creams are coming back in the polish section. Okay. So for a brown dress shoe, you should probably not use a polish because a polish does not condition the leather and a brown dress shoe does not have to be sparkling shiny. Right.
It's less important. So if you use a kid, a cream, you can actually match the color of the leather. You can put the cream on, let it soak in, and then you can take a brush and polish the top and it'll have like a mat. It'll still polish, but it's more matte colored. Okay. Yes. And also with the cream to know just like the polishes, they make a neutral colored cream.
So if you have like a natural colored dress shoe, so like a very, very light colored shoe, you can put neutral on it and you can still polish it and it'll be like natural leather colored. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So polishes, I mean, Polish is really meant for combat boots from 1980. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's just not like I want to see my reflection in this boot. Yeah. Huh? So with the drill Sergeant, I want to see my reflection in this boot soldier. Yes. I polished a lot of those boots.
Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. That's really more like, that's really more like busy work than it is taking care of your boots or shoe. It looks great for like three seconds. Yeah. It looks really good. It's kind of like patent leather. It looks really good until you get a crease in it and it starts to fleck off. Yep. Yep. And then I'm going to talk about one more product because people will buy it and I've never used it, but I know people that do.
They make shoe stretch spray for when you get a new shoe and it's too small. And for some reason you don't want to get a different shoe. For some reason, you don't want to go back and get the right fucking size. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to talk a little bit of shoe break in here. So the shoe break in process is important. Isn't that, isn't that like a shoe horn? You get like the cedar, like the shoe thing. There's not a shoe horn. It's a tree, a shoe tree. Oh, yeah. Okay. Shoe tree.
Yeah. Yeah. So you can, yeah, you can put a stretcher spray on it and then you can put it, you can either put your foot in it with a bigger sock on and stretch it with your foot or you can put a tree on it and they have like screws and you can stretch them out. And the individual person that I know who does this is a woman who has a size six and a half ish foot. That's wide. Who wants to wear? Who could it be?
Who wants to wear ridiculous high heels that they only make in B widths, you know, and she wears like a E with shoe or doubly. And instead of just buying appropriate footwear, she wants a six inch heel. That's a B and then stretch it out. That doesn't make any sense to me, but nobody can do what everybody wants to do. Right. So for those guys out there who are going to buy a brand new pair of like, let's say work boots, bring a sock that you're going to wear with the boot.
And my suggestion is pick a sock that you're going to wear. So if let's say you want to wear, you know, brand X sock, darn tough hikers, mid weight hikers, let's say you bring that sock with you, bring it in so that you're going to put in it, wear the insole with the sock. It should be wide enough to fit your foot and comfortable. And then you bring it home, you take open offs. I would suggest open offs, rub a little bit of open offs into it unless it's already heavily oiled.
You know, you have to look at the leather. Sometimes the oil, the leather will already be heavily oiled and then you don't need to do anything. If it's a little drier, then you have to put open offs in it. Yeah. Something like a thorough good boot already oiled and tumbled. You don't need to oil it. But something like a logger, like a heavy duty logger, you're going to want to oil it and then just wear it until it breaks in and it'll bend around your foot.
But make sure it fits before you leave the store or if you order online, return it. Don't stretch the leather. That's a terrible idea. Nothing but misery right there. Yeah. Is that so? Is that like buying this the smaller one or whatever? Is that kind of like a peer pressure kind of thing? Like so that somebody could say, well, I wear a size whatever instead of like the actual size that you wear. Like is that even a thing with like the size of the feet?
Like I know with like maybe cup size or waist size, that's a definite thing for men and women. But like, is the shoe size even a thing? Like I don't know what the reason is. So because I've done research for the topic, right? Certain kinds of shoes like dress shoes or high heels, they don't make them in super wide widths. They usually are narrower than the human foot is. Yeah. So if you have a B with foot, you're probably fine.
But if you have a double E or a triple E with foot, you're going to have a hard time finding dress shoes that fit your foot if you want to spend 80 bucks or if you're going to buy high heels and you don't want to spend $300 on a high heel, you're going to have a problem fitting, you know, finding something. So you stretch them. Why? They just, the industry. Yeah. Like, so like my wife has trouble shoe shopping.
Like it's her least favorite activity because most of the shoes don't fit her feet and most of the shoes that she likes don't come in the right sizes or widths. And it's, but if, if most of these shoes you're saying are narrower than the average human foot, like why, why wouldn't you just make them the right width, the right, you know, like fashion industry, man, like why are dress shoes pointy? Nobody's foot looks like that. There's no reason to have a pointy foot.
No, no. That's one of the best things that happened to men's dress shoes with the square toe dress shoe. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't really like this, the square toe, but like the kind of the rounded, you know, it's just, it's nice and rounded. I don't particularly like a square toe, but it definitely fits my wide foot better. Yes. True. True. Yeah. I like more of like a military round toe. Yeah. Also, you can put more, it's more useful. You know, you can wear that shoe more often if you will.
Yeah. Like I say, I have a pair of red wings, boots that I've doubled as my brown dress shoes and they are polished, right? And they look like dress shoes, but they're just a round boot. That's a polished boot. Very nice leather, smooth on the bottom. They don't even make it anymore. I cannot buy them right now for whatever reason people weren't buying them, but they're like a heritage boot made in Red Wing, Minnesota. They're very nice, but yeah, also they cost me a lot of money at the time.
Yeah. For me, it was a lot of money, but it was worth it. Long-term it was worth it. Yeah. I want to get some Chukka boots. Yeah, dude. What are, do you want them to be super comfortable or do you want it to be super durable because you can't have both? Then I'd go comfortable. From what I understand, the Clarks, which are the original Chukka boot are super comfortable. Okay. I mean, if I take care of them, they're going to be fine, but it's not like I'm going to go hiking in them.
You know, it's just like, yeah, they're just casual. Jim Green makes a really high quality Chukka, but the rubber they use is harder, so they're longer lasting and they're actually true stitched so you can get them resold. Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. They're definitely higher quality, but they're going to be more difficult to break in. Okay. Yeah. Especially if you don't put a custom orthotic or something in them. Okay. I've only ever used like the, whatever the insole is that they come with.
So I don't know. Should I be, should I be doing something different with my life? If your feet are comfortable, no. Oh, okay. I generally wear a Birkenstock insole. Okay. I mean, like I feel like they're comfortable, but I know if I tried like a custom insole, it probably, I'd probably be like, where has this been my whole life? You know, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, I don't know.
Right. Well, I had real issues with my feet when I was younger because I was working like 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I got like super into doing research on shoes and I got hyper specific about what I wanted. And that's why I know all this stuff is because it really mattered to me a lot. Yep. And you know, if you're only working an eight hour day and you're not standing on like razor sharp clay or something like that, it's fine. But it all depends on your use.
Scoria Rock is a hardened clay that is like razor blades, like chunks, big chunks though, anywhere from the size of a bowling ball down to the size of a lighter. But they're like razor sharp. Oh, I thought you're, I thought you're going to say anywhere from the size of a bowling ball down to the size of a bowling pin. No, no, no, no. Scoria Rock is horrible as far as like durability, even your tires on your vehicles. It would just rip the shit out of them.
I had a pair of, I had a set of Wranglers on my truck and I drove 22,000 miles and I popped one. Okay. I got a set of Coopers and I got like 17,000 miles off. Yeah. Like it's just rough on everything. Yeah. So real quick, and I know you still have some stuff left to talk about. I got about three inches left on this cigar, but I'm starting to get like some sour stuff coming through. I don't know where you're at or what your taste is. I have two and a quarter maybe and it's fine.
It's not as good as it was the first half. Yeah. I kind of got a weird like a taste like at the halfway and then it kind of went back like it leveled out again. But I guess I'll let it sit a little bit, but it's just, I haven't really increased my smoking speed, but maybe I just got to slow it down a little bit. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I've been trying to keep pretty smooth and you must've taken a big break there because I'm, I haven't been puffing away.
I haven't been talking to, I can't believe I'm ahead of you. I can believe it. Yeah. I can't believe it. I can. Why is that? Well, you're a big puffer dude. I guess so. I'm a big puffer. You're like, you're like, you're like puff daddy. Puff daddy. Puff daddy Supremo. Oh shit. I just saw ice cube live and that was great. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome, dude. For those who haven't, if you have the opportunity to go see ice cube or one of those old school rappers live, man, they are great.
It's awesome. Are you more interested in seeing like the old school or the OG rappers versus any of the modern ones? Oh, for sure. I mean, every one of the songs he sang, I recognized obviously. Yep. So it's a, it was great. And he did a lot of crowd work, which is always good when you're live, you know? So it was awesome. Awesome, possum. So I've actually covered all the products for shoe cleaning.
I could go through the steps of cleaning a shoe, which I thought if we had more time I could do because that's another thing online that people are confused about the process of cleaning a shoe. Yeah. Why don't you hit us with an overview or, you know, like the steps and then, yeah, yeah. So we'll see how in depth we have to go. Yeah. So let's say you have a pair of shoes and they're dirty and they're leather. So the first step. So dirty. So dirty. So the first step is you got to brush them off.
I have like a vegetable brush, a nylon vegetable brush that I bought for like $3. And so a vegetable brush, is it for vegetables? Is it shaped like a vegetable? Is it made out of vegetables? It is for vegetables. It is like, okay, four inches long and three inches wide. And it's got nylon bristles and a handle and it's got a little tiny brush in the other handle and I just brush all the big, heavy dirt off of it. Right. Okay. So for the shade, I have a horsehair brush and it's real horsehair.
Okay. And I brush off the micro stuff with the horsehair brush. If there's like micro dirt. Yeah. If down next step, if it's smooth leather, I always use saddle soap and I clean a section at a time and you'll lather it up. And it's just like a soap, like a bar soap. You'll add there it up. You do a section and you'll wipe it off with a cloth. I typically use microfibers and I wash them and I reuse them for other things. And you can see the dirt just pick up.
If it's suede, I'm typically done with just brushing them. I do have suede cleaner, liquid suede cleaner if there's like oil or something and you spray the hell out of it and then you re brush and get the nap up and then you can dry it off with like a microfiber and then you brush it until it starts to get fluffy again. And like I say, suede is once it gets real dirty, you're kind of fucked. There's just not a whole lot you can do other than to brush out the nap.
It's just too difficult to get stained. And then you have to let it dry. I typically let it dry for 24 hours if you're going to use actual saddle soap. Just let it 100% dry. Then you come in to decide the cleaner you want. If it's a work boot, I use wax and you put the wax on. You melt it in with a hairdryer. I bought a hairdryer. I think it's a Conair. It folds up and it's got a little retractable thing, a real retractable cord. I leave it in my shoe kit and the only thing it does is melt wax.
Nice. And you got to be careful. You don't want to get the leather so hot that it starts to burn. So you have to be careful about how hot you get the leather. It's just like your skin and then you melt it in. Otherwise I use Bic and you just rub it in and you can see it change colors live. The Bic will make it wet. Once it looks all wet, you let it dry and about two hours later it'll be ready to go.
Then with your wax, once it dries and gets back to room temperature, you're done as far as cleaning. If you're doing a dress shoe like your dress shoes, you would take your Bic, if you use cleaner on it. So on your dress shoe, if you use saddle soap, you can put Bic or a different cream on the outside and on the inside and let it sit for a couple of hours and you'll condition it and then you can put your polish back on.
Or you can use your conditioning cream on the outside, let it dry all the way, wipe off the excess and then buff it. And then on the inside you can put like a Bic style cream and you can condition the inside of your shoe. So it's real simple. I can't believe that there's so much issue on the internet, apparently that people have with it. But once you have all the right tools and materials, it just takes time.
Because it does take like, it takes two days because of the drying time to fully clean and oil the boot. Yeah. And you can't... It might be... Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say like, and for like a dress shoe that doesn't get as dirty as a boot, let's say, it's not really going to take it. It's not really necessarily going to take the two days, but it's still going to be a time investment to do it the right way. Which I haven't been doing because...
If your dress shoe doesn't have mud on it, you don't need to use a cleaner. You can just brush it off. Yeah. Yeah. You can just brush the dirt off and you're good to go. Yeah. But you still want to condition it throughout the year, right? Every time you use conditioner, you have to make sure there's no dirt on it. Because if you put a conditioner on top of the dirt, now you're rubbing dirt into the leather. Yeah. And that's what you don't want to do.
So for example, your leather dress shoes, you should condition those probably once a year if you're not wearing them. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just so the leather stays moist. Look at this lotion on your skin. Your skin is going to dry out. Or it gets the hose again. Yeah. Or it gets the hose again. Right. It's just like skin, except your body's not putting moisture back into it. Right? Yeah. So you have to put moisture back into it so the leather stays pliable so it doesn't crack.
Yep. Yeah. And if you have a drier leather, it's even more important to condition it. Not constantly, but you got to monitor. Yeah, for sure. So I have a pair of Cape Buffalo hiking boots. Very nice, but it's a very dry leather and I want to keep them dry. So I have to clean them and condition them often. More often than I do like an oiled leather Danner or something like that, where I only really need to do it once a year. If I even do it once a year.
If you put a wax into it, as long as the wax is still there, it's still conditioned. Okay. Yeah. So like my work boots, I condition my work boots once a year and I wear them year round basically. You have to monitor obviously, but I'm not putting heavy wear on my work boots anymore. So yeah, when I was wearing them 12 hours a day, every day out in scoria dust, I had to do it once every month or every three weeks because they would dry out. So you set to be careful and monitor.
Yeah. Well, the more you pay attention to it, I'm sure the easier it is to kind of like quickly monitor. And it sounds like Mike has to relight his and I had to relight mine too, just recently. So I did. I got about two inches left and it tastes good. Yeah. I mean, it's fine. Yeah. I'm not going to put it down. Okay. I'm not, I'm not a fan of this one either. It's okay, but I'm just, it's, it's, I don't know.
It tastes a little like, it's got a little like sour tinge for me, but I'm, and I'm not smoking it very fast, but I don't know. It's just, you're like, I'm not going to put it down. And I was just thinking like, I would totally like put this thing down right now. So really, Oh, we can be done. I mean, if one of us is done, we're both done, right? Ah, yeah, I guess. Like, you know, what's good for the, the state is good for all of us, right? No, I don't know. I don't know.
It's weird to like, have you like one and for me not to like one. I like the last one more than you did too. I didn't think it was good, but it wasn't after the first half an inch or so. I wasn't offended by it. Like that first half an inch was rough. That was, yeah, that was, I mean, the first, the first like, you know, intro, whatever was totally the worst part of the whole thing, but it didn't get, it didn't really get much better. It got only like a small like percentage better.
And then this one, I just, there's this weird aftertaste and I don't know what it is. I am not a fan of these undercrowns, but I'm probably more excited than you to try the underground shade as a tequila cigar. So I am not looking forward to that, dude. I have to be honest. I, you know what I'm looking forward to it because I want to know how magical tequila is. We have to, we have to find its limit, right? That's true. Yeah. I'm looking, I'm looking at it more as like a scientific like study.
Like can the tequila cigar version of the underground shade make it smokable? I wonder how you got that. I must've given it to you. Maybe I don't know. Of course you gave it to me. It's in my show box. It is in your show box and I have it at my show box as well. Yeah. Yeah. I have to. So I just, I don't know what it is with these, but I don't recommend either of the undercrowns that we've smoked. If you're, if you're forced to choose one, I guess choose the Maduro, but I don't know.
I, I'd be hard pressed to like willingly smoke this again, if I'm honest. If somebody handed me the Maduro, I would smoke it. I would not buy it. I mean, yeah, I would not buy it, but no rarely do I go to a social occasion where I can smoke a cigar or I don't just bring my own anyway. Well, yeah. You know, or if you're at a lounge or something, you know, they have something better than this for the same price. They have to. Yeah. Yes. They have to.
Not every cigar lounge has a shrew, but goddamn a shrew is way better than this. Yeah, for sure. I'm trying to think like, you know, if, if you go and mow your lawn and just roll up a bunch of like yard clippings and smoke that is probably better than the shade. Oh my God. The shade is not as bad as that blood red moon. Oh no, but it's not too far away from it either. Sarah and I went to a party, uh, uh, two weeks ago or something like that. And she grabbed the blood red moon.
Cause I still have a blood red moon in the box in my humidor on the top. And she grabbed it and I grabbed it out. I'm like, you don't, don't, you don't want that. And she's like, you don't want no part of this. Yeah. I'm like, you don't want that. And she's like, what do you mean? And I'm like, oh, it's vile. And she looked at me like heartbroken because she smoked the pipe tobacco. Yeah. I'm like, and the tobacco was great, but this is vile. You do not want this. She looked heartbroken.
They couldn't believe it. Yeah. Yeah. It is just rough. I have it. I'm going to spring it on somebody I'm sure as a joke, but yeah, awful. I don't know if we made it more than a quarter of the way through that cigar. I don't remember how far we made it, but, uh, I know we were complaining about it the whole time. Oh yeah. I think that was the episode just about the cigar. That's bad, bad sign. Yeah. It's not, not a good sign. No. Well, do you have anything else to add on the shoes?
Um, before I read myself of the under crowns until we do the tequila shade. No, no, I don't think so. I think I covered everything that, uh, I hope it was informative and not confusing to people. I wasn't confused at all. I mean, there's a lot of products out there, but I feel you did a great job of kind of walking through when to never use some of them and, uh, you know, why, when to use the specific ones depending on the shoe and the material.
Yeah. I was trying to be helpful and explain like the oils really freak people out and they should cause it's like boiled cow leg. Like what? Yeah. What kind of old timey weird shit is this? Like just use beeswax. Yeah. Are we making a soup or is it a redoing shoe stuff? Yeah. Mink oil really is boiled minks or whatever. Like, yeah, like just use beeswax dude. I don't know. It's fine. The beeswax is better anyway. Smells nice.
So I've never used beeswax directly onto a boot, but I bet it would work. Okay. Probably. Probably. I've used beeswax on canvas. Okay. I've used beeswax on pipes too, but I feel like bees. Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, I feel like beeswax and vinegar are probably like two of the super substances. Probably not, not necessarily all for shoes.
Like I don't know if you'd ever put vinegar on a shoe, but like, yeah, cleaning power of vinegar and stuff, you know, and then like beeswax, like the versatility of both of those things are pretty amazing. Yeah. I covered a salt stain remover and I didn't talk a lot about it, but it's basically a vinegar based product that has additional chemicals in it to help lift the salt out of your leather so you can wipe it off.
Like you put it on and it kind of raises the salt and you take a cloth and you, you wipe the salt off of your shoe and it's mostly vinegar. It smells like vinegar for sure. Okay. Yeah. It just has additional properties in it, I think, to make it not damage your shoe as much and possibly attracts the oil more, but it's vinegar smelling. So yeah. Yeah. And for people who live in Minnesota, that Feebing salt stain remover is awesome. Okay. Great. You can use in your car too. Oh, good to know.
Yeah. Yeah. So you can get a reputable, a reputable boot seller that has products and they will have a Feebing salt stain remover and you can use it on, like your car when you detail it or something. Yeah. Or online, I'm sure too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Go to, go to the internet closest to you and buy some. So I guess that's all for us. Yeah. That's gotta be it. I don't recommend either under crown, but if you had to choose one, I guess go for the Duro.
I will not be buying them again. Mike likes them a little bit more than I do. But I will say, I don't know why you would do this to yourself, but yeah. Yeah. Get a Rocky Patel Fuma or something. Yeah. Literally anything else except the blood red moon and you'll be fine. Yup. So anyway, everybody have a good day. Thanks for listening.