 G'day. How are you going? I work on budget country and I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land. Today, I'm not actually reviewing a boot, although I'm going to show you some of these boots. I'm going to talk about chrome excel and in particular natural chrome excel. So these are three of the boots I own made up in natural chrome excel or natty CXL. This is my oldest pair of natty CXLs, the Parkhurst Spaulding Boot. I've had them about 15 months now. This is my second oldest one here, the Oak Street Bootmakers Trench Boot. This one here is my most recent buy, only four months old, the Whites MP boot, a bit of a grail boot for me. They actually look quite different in colour, don't they? But they're all the same leather in the uppers and that's a Horween Leather Company's natural chrome excel. I'll talk about the differences and why they look different, but first let's talk about chrome excel generally. I'll go into more detail soon, but basically it's a combination tan leather that uses both chromium salts and vegetable matter re-tanning to give a supple yet tough leather. The key difference with other combination tan leathers is the hot stuffing process that chrome excel goes through to impregnate the leather with oils and waxes to give it the pull-up effect and the oily waxiness that packs this leather. Natural chrome excel is just the colouration or more accurately the lack of colouration. Because of the tanning and hot stuffing process, I understand that chrome excel is primarily dyed in the brown end of the spectrum. So you get black brown burgundy called colourate and this sort of undyed natural skin colour. There's a lot to unpack, so I'll take you through what chrome excel is, who all we Horween are and how you wear and care for your natural CXL boots. Horween is based in Chicago in the US and is a fifth generation family-owned company. It was founded by Isidore Horween in 1905 and the current president of the company Skip Horween is his great-grandson. Skip's own son Nick is the vice president and thus represents the fifth generation of Horweens who have owned and run the company. Believe it or not, chrome excel was initially developed by Horween for mechanical users. At the time in 1913, leather seals were preferred over rubber seals in engines and mechanical parts because leather broke down more slow and in steps than rubber. In fact, I remember in my early 20s working with my old MG car that still used leather seals, probably chrome excel in all of its hydraulic seals. Chrome excel was particularly well suited for seals because it was so imbued with oils and waxes in it that it self lubricated and took even longer to break down and get hard. I'm told that a mechanic or even a driver can actually feel or hear the seals starting to fail, which gives them a better heads up than a one-off catastrophic failure of rubber seals. During the First World War at least, and I think also during the Second World War, chrome excel was used extensively in military vehicles as seals in big trucks, jeeps and tanks. It is such a beautiful leather that it clearly became a choice for people who made shoes, bags and belts. It is the original pull-up leather which are leathers so infused with oils and waxes inside them that when you fold and flex them the oils move around inside to cause a shifting in tones and shades. Chrome excel is made in a Halloween proprietary process that includes a secret artisanal hot stuffing recipe of oils and waxes to create a very rich looking leather. It follows 89 separate processes over 28 days and some of those individual processes are done entirely by hand. Some of them go around the clock and the whole cycle uses all five floors of the Halloween factory. The base tannage is a chrome tannage and during that process it's then re-tanned with bark extracts. The chrome tannage makes it soft, supple and very durable while the veg re-tannage makes it feel tough and allows a really wicked patina. After re-tannage it's hot stuffed using steam mills to impregnate the height with a blend of oils and waxes. This secret blend includes the best greases such as food grade beef tallow and cosmetic grade beeswax. In fact once upon a time whale oil was used but that's been replaced a long time ago with another marine oil that's less at risk. The final step is hand finishing the hide with coats of aniline dye and neat foot oil which is the oil made from the shins of cattle. Neat is the old English word for cattle. The hot stuffing process is what makes the hide lighter and accrues that pull up effect due to the displacement of the oils impregnated during that process. Chromic cell is air dried to finish unlike most other leather tannages which allows the fibres to shrink back into itself which decreases the yield but gives the leather a tougher characteristic and a very tight break which I'll explain next. So what are the characteristics of Chromic Cell? It's an ever so slightly corrected full grain leather. Instead of being sanded or buffed like other top grain leathers it's actually corrected by being fixed in burnishing rather than sanding. That means you can still see the imperfections and pores and so on unlike a corrected top grain leather where all the marks and imperfections have been buffed off to make it really smooth. This and the Chromic Cell tanning process means that it features a natural grain under the aniline dyes. It has a bright luster and can be polished or left unpolished for a more matte finish. As I said earlier the oils and waxes inside the leather create the pull up effect creating shades of in the leather and it retains the softness and colour for decades. In fact it will age in patina beautifully and as it ages it will both darken and lighten scuff and soften to look vintage without being cracked and fragile. Because it is air dried as I explained just now and the fibres are denser it shows a very light break as it creases so that any creases from where are very soft rolls with very fine sugary breaks. You can see the lines of crystalline tracks instead of big deep gouges in the creases. Some people say there is a Chromic Cell lottery and you can get some examples with loose grain. I've seen pictures of some pretty bad examples but I've never had it in any of my boots. Chromic Cell is aniline dyed using soluble transparent dyes that are absorbed by the leather rather than painting the top of it with a pigment coat of colour. So what you get is a porous looking smooth effect that clearly shows the underlying texture of the whole hide. I think that's why with a natural honey brown base Chromic Cell is usually dyed black or in brown shades which takes us to natural Chromic Cell which is not dyed at all. Natural Chromic Cell is literally the skin after the tanning with no dye applied. When new and unexposed to the sun and elements it's a light honey coloured light brown colour. As it ages and as it's exposed to the elements it will darken and as it patinas it will turn into a deep mid brown that's tonally shaded in in different parts and it even sun tans. Well it's a natural skin I suppose. If you left your natural Chromic Cell boots in the sun by the end of a sunny day you will see an appreciable tanning or darkening of the skin. All of this combines to make natural Chromic Cell a really attractive leather that looks better and better as the patina gathers. So let's look at my three examples. I think the first thing you notice is how different they are in terms of colour. Let's look at my oldest NatiCXL the Parkhurst Spaulding. Nearly a year and a half old worn regularly but not frequently. They have darkened considerably from the other two models. You can see the shades in the patina rather than an even darker colour all around and I don't know if the camera will pick this up but there is a depth to that colouring you can look almost into the leather and see the surface and the oils underneath. The creasing is across the vamp and is definitely showing this is two mil thick leather but the break the actual little lines are still quite crystalline like fine crystals across the track rather than deep wrinkles and gouges. The next one is the Oak Street Bootmaker's Trench Boot. This is just under a year old again worn regularly but not frequently. I have a lot of boots in my rotation as you can see it's not as dark as the Parkhurst boots showing that the darkening processes age and wear related. I haven't worn these any less harder than the Parkhurst boots just less overall because it's six months less use. This is still closer to that honey colour it started out as even after a year. I do want to say though that the also two plus mil thick leather has stood up better over the 12 months than I remember the Parkhurst at 12 months. It's not as dark at that time and the creases and breaks well they're a lot finer in fact there are no creases just a very fine tight crystalline break across the vamp. It may be because Oak Street Bootmakers are Halloween's neighbours in Chicago or near-neighbours and they can you know walk over and choose their hides themselves or they may just be the luck of the draw in the batch or hide but this leather on this boot feels like a finer quality finish. In fact you can compare this to the even newer boot the White's MP Sherman boot. This leather is over two mils thick. I bought this about four months ago and when I first got it it was a pretty light honey colour similar to the trench boots when new. It has darkened slightly bear in mind it's only four months compared to the 12 months of the Oak Street trench boots but already it's almost as dark lighter than the Parkhurst but that's a year and a half old and look at the rolls and the break it's showing the roll at the vent not wrinkles and the breaks while still crystalline are not as fine as the Oak Street trench boots. Now definitely the Oak Street model has had the better leather out of the three. How does natural chrome excel wear? No different from brown or colour eight or black chrome excel they are comfortable there is a stretch in the leather so that it starts snug and the boots will relax. You don't have to be especially wary of it in care it will scuff and show it but itself repairs fairly well and if there is a much lighter scuff the heat of your thumb or the horsehair brush or a little conditioner will pretty much remove it. One thing though in my opinion they patina faster than dyed chrome excel perhaps with the exception of the trench boots look at the Parkhurst sportings you can't get patina like that in brown chrome excel within a couple of years unless you wear them particularly hard and frequently. In time all three boots will show their wear with elegance and darkened to a deep medium brown with the creases and scuffs that came with wearing them enjoyably in your life. How do you care for natural chrome excel? There are quite a few theories but I'll give you my thoughts chrome excel itself is a usually low maintenance leather because it itself is pumped full of restorative oils and waxes often a really good vigorous brushing with a good horsehair brush will restore the luster and give it a reasonable polish brushing it long and hard will heat up the oils and waxes inside the leather and you won't believe how it just wakes up the leather and reinvigorates it just from the brushing. I usually wipe these off after the third or fourth wear and give them a hard long vigorous brushing if you really want to condition them and I grant you as a boot collector it is a very therapeutic and almost meditation process if you want to condition them make sure that they do need it you can usually feel the waxes and oils are still alive in there or if they're really starting to dry out you can over condition your boots and not only will it darken the leather over but you can also in extreme cases weaken the fibers so that's the overall conditioning idea but let's go through the whole process now firstly I'm really not trigger happy with saddle soap I think sometimes boot hobbyists soap their boots a little far too often we can draw up the natural oils and waxes and actually dry out the leather more so that they then really need conditioning when they normally don't so when I talk dirty I mean you walk through mud or clay or sticky sand or they have stains from maybe grass or oils and paints or sometimes even just a deep city grind the secret I find is to wipe off the soap not to rinse it off and get the whole boot soaking now if you're a bit worried about saddle soap because it can dry out the leather you can use a spray on cleaner red wind makes one I'll put a link to it below but I'm used to using the RM Williams spray cleaner this has given me pretty good results in the past now a word of warning if you're using a pump spray cleaner like the red wing one or the RM Williams one as the droplets get onto the leather it will spot in dark splotches if you're not expecting this it can give you a bit of a heart attack but it's okay I promise just follow the instructions spray some on it will splotch and then clean with a damp cloth or spray it on the damp cloth and use that to clean the boots if you let them dry within an hour or so all that spotty darkening will have gone and the boots will definitely look cleaner once the boot is cleaned and dry make sure you let it dry and dry naturally not in front of a heater once it's dry then you can think about conditioning let me start with I would not use the condition natural chrome excel you can use needs for oil in fact since that's how Halloween finished chrome excel a lot of people recommend this on the other hand in my experience needs for oil can darken light leathers and if you want your natural chrome excels to darken naturally maybe leave out the needs for oil or any mink oil out of your care process for natural chrome excel if you want to darken them a little unnatural that's fine I think needs for oil or even mink oil would be okay for the darker chrome excels like brown and black you can also use sephir greasy cream that's also recommended I understand sephir will not darken leather and the greasy cream will replace the oils as they dry out I personally have never used sephir partly because it's hard to get in Australia and partly because it's pretty darn expensive my personal recommendation for natty cxl is vanishing shoe cream I find that it doesn't darken the leather but it will be absorbed quite deeply so it will replace the oils inside it does brush up to a luster not quite a shine which is what I like and it's super easy to apply I'll leave a link to where you can buy it in the description below so there you have it everything you need to know about natural chrome excel it really is one of my favorite leathers I tend towards the tans and browns in my selections anyway but the feel and comfort of chrome excel is something else never mind the distinctive smell that I love and in the natural colorway it's a living thing that you can see evolve with age hey as you close the video don't forget to click on like and subscribe it will help me to grow my channel thank you and it will help you to get recommendations from youtube similar to videos like mine until the next time take care and I'll see you then