They Bloomed! How to Clean Your Hunter Boots

I had always noticed that my Hunter boots had a bit of a white-ish film on them. Strangely, I kind of liked it there. 

I like the character that something old and weathered has, like my great grandfather's ring I wear on my right hand that I never want cleaned. Like, it earned the dirt it acquired over time. And since I've had these boots for about 7 years now, I enjoyed knowing I was kinda ahead of the trend and actually using them functionally for commuting via public transit in nasty Chicago weather. 

But lately, my boots had just been looking plain sad. After wearing them in a recent post, Amy commented that they looked green. The reason for that was the white film had now turned yellow on my navy boots and well, yellow and blue = green. Gross!

I found out that character-laden film means they "bloomed," which is an adorable term for something kind of ugly.

I did a little research and ordered this hunter boot cleaner online from Shoes.com and gave it a shot. I've also read that Armor All works but I haven't tried that... yet. 

Here's the step-by-step, with pictures:

The tiny little spray bottle

The sad condition my Huters started in

I tossed them in the kitchen sink under running water per the instructions on the bottle.

Letting them air dry

My first spot to attack

Spray on some buffer spray and wipe immediately.

You can see the difference. The back one is clean the front hasn't been started yet.

The final product! Not bad for 7-year old boots! Definitely less green than before!