Cleaning Your Danner Boots with Christy Soles with a "Magic Eraser"

We received such a great response to our How to Clean and Condition Your Red Wing Boots and Christy Soles post where we cleaned the soles with a plastic scrub pad and and a bit of Shout, that we decided to do an update using melamine foam cleaning pad (more commonly known as a "Magic Eraser").

Lot's of people have had great success using a melamine pad to clean their Christy soles, so we wanted to test and compare the results for ourselves. The one risk with a melamine pad is that it is an abrasive that acts as super-fine sandpaper, so over use can actually remove material.

(Danner Mountain Light Overton boots, after-top and before-bottom)



These Danner Overton's spent a decent amount of time trekking around Whistler one season when there was a lot of red clay/mud. I tried cleaning these with water and a little bit of soap, but the clay stained the Christy soles pretty deeply, and I just couldn't get them clean to my liking. After hearing that a melamine sponge may be the answer, I decided to give it a try.

My supply list was simple...

A melamine sponge/pad

A dish of water

Dove dish soap

Paper towels

The process was fairly simple. In all steps, take caution to not get the booth leather wet or soapy as it may change the finish.

Step 1 - clean away dirt and debris with a damp paper towel or rag.

Step 2 - Scrub soles with a melamine pad dampened with water and a small amount of mild soap. In this case I used Dove liquid dish soap. This step will take some time and effort, I kept scrubbing until the soles were as clean as I could get them without being too abrasive (They're Christy soles so they won't be perfectly clean, nor would we want them that way).

Step 3 - Wipe them clean with a damp paper towel or cloth.

Conclusion - I really like this method, and generally prefer it over using a plastic scrub pad, especially if the soles are particularly dirty. However, the melamine sponge gets absolutely shredded and is quite messy, which requires some extra time for prep and/or clean up.

Step 4 - Reseal the soles with protectant of your choice (testing Kiwi Boot Protector on this pair because of it's easy availability).

(Finished cleaned Danner Mountain Light Overton Christy soles)

