 Hi, how are you going? My name is Tech. Welcome to my channel Bootlossophy and today I'll be reviewing the Soto Odessa Western Boot. This is going to be a short review because I really can't find out too much about this boot. If you've watched my other videos, all been following me on Instagram, you know that while I've owned boots before, I really started getting into quality boots in 2021 and since then I've amassed a big collection of mostly good year-welded boots. This Odessa boot by American company Soto was an early purchase, way back in the pre-Bootozoic era of early 2020, March 20 to be exact. Now, a little history of me and boots. The first boot of mine that I remember were a pair of kickers in the late 1970s, a very trendy French-made chocoboot with a wedge sole and in fire engine red, they came in a lot of psychedelic colors like red, blue, green, rock stars like Elton John, Rod Stewart and David Bowie wore them. Then at Christmas 1978 I was hitchhiking my way through Spain when in the back streets in Madrid I stumbled on a small shop that sold cowboy boots, again fashionable in the late 70s due to movies like Midnight Cowboy. Through a dramatic play of poor Spanish and mime and lots of no no ocho es mucho largo, I eventually bought a pair of plain suede cowboy boots and I wore them for years after. Since then of course I've had other boots. My Timberland boots were an early buy. I've done a review of the classic yellow Timberland boot and I'll put a card up there if I know how and I'll certainly put a link in the description below if you want to watch that review. And of course, being Australian I've got my RM Williams when they gave me my citizenship papers. I've also done a review of my RM's and I'll link to it up there as well and down below. That's a longish story to say that while I've owned boots for a long time I really didn't know what I was doing. It wasn't until early 2021 in the midst of some COVID enforced online shopping that I discovered Goodyear World at Boots, specifically with my purchase of my Thursday captain boots. Yeah, I did a review of that also. It's up there. So you forgive me for reviewing a boot that I don't know too much about because I got it before I was properly educated. I did however, I did want to include some boots that maybe enthusiasts might sniff at, but others might take an interest in and I think they'd like to know. Now I bought this pair from Amazon because I had a hankering for another cowboy boot after my fond memories of the Spanish pair. These cost me 255 Australian dollars on Amazon, but I noticed they aren't available on Amazon at the moment, so I'll put a link to the Soto site itself below in the description. Now let's talk about Soto. From what I can gather the people behind Soto have owned a shoe store since 1991 and hearing what customers wanted over time it seems they decided to make their own boots and in 2001 in order to meet customer demands for value they made Soto boots. They call themselves a vertically integrated company and by that I mean they make the boots and sell them direct to consumers, thus avoiding the middlemen. They sell online direct to the customer on their website and also in original shoe stores that they owned. Okay, let's take a look at this boot. As you can see it's a pretty traditional western or cowboy boot. It has a 13 inch shaft and a rounded toe to me a little less aggressive than the really pointy toes and some. I have no idea what leather this is except that it is bovine and it's in what they call crazy horse. I think crazy horses sometimes used when people mean distressed. I'll talk about crazy horse leather in a minute. On this boot it's a pretty ordinary leather nothing bad about it quite supple and yet holds its shape but nothing particularly outstanding about it either. There's western style stitching on the vamp and up the shaft and while it is contrasting it's not shouting out in a really different color and most of it is under the pants leg so I can live with that. My Spanish boots had no decorative stitching at all and I was looking for something similar. This will do. The boot is fully leather lined. Again no idea what the leather is inside but it is soft and comfortable inside. The insole is leather not a lot of shock absorption. It has two inch cowboy or riding heels pretty nice in my opinion and it's on a leather outsole. Now in my research I found that cowboy boots were generally either good you're welted or hand welted. Hand welting is a kind of similar to good you're welting except that the rib is not sewn onto the insole but is actually carved directly on the insole. A rib is a piece of material sewn onto the up as an insole which is then sewn to the welt in order to make the construction. I don't know which these are. You can see the welt, you can see the stitching on the welt, you can see the stitching on the outsole but that doesn't necessarily rule out non good you're welting. Some of them are fake. The other boots though are good you're welted so I'm going to stick my neck out and say these are good you're welted. The soles as you can see are leather and they came oily so I suspect they may be waterlocked soles. Waterlocked leather soles are treated with oil infused really so that the leather is protected, made to feel soft and reasonably wear resistive. I happen to like leather soles shoes they're comfortable to me and these were not particularly slippery especially after a few wears and they got scuffed as you can see. This Odesa boot is made in Mexico and from what I can see wearing them in these last couple of years there's not that much in the way of QC issues. There was some loose stitching I can't remember where now I think it might have been on the shaft but it wasn't particularly bad and it did only cost me 250 Aussie dollars. My message to all boot buyers you do get what you pay for. Don't expect a Mercedes when you buy a Toyota. So on to leather care. Now before I go on I hope you're liking this video. If you are do me a favor and click on the like button below and I will be adding more boot reviews including those of my 40-50 pairs of good you're welted and heritage boots. So if you don't want to miss those how about clicking on the subscribe button as well. On to leather care. How do I talk about leather care when I'm not quite sure what leather this is. Well it's a distressed bovine leather. They call it crazy horse and it is similar to my Chippewa service boots in Crazy Horse. So let's go with that. First Crazy Horse leather is not made from horse hide. It's called Crazy Horse because it was used to make horse saddles. If it is Crazy Horse leather it would be full grain leather, smoothed, some say corrected, a bit like newbuck and then waxed unlike newbuck. This treatment makes it tough, resilient to nicks and scuffs and gives it a smooth but matte appearance. It can look distressed right from the get-go. In caring for Crazy Horse the advice is not to use detergents to clean it. Just wipe with a damp cloth. You can use a suede brush to brush off some deeper scuffs and marks. Conditioning is best with a leather balm avoiding very waxy products like polishes. My go-to Venetian shoe cream is probably not the best here, a little too waxy. In this case I've used RM Williams' saddle dresser to no bad effect. I think you can also do something like Renapur leather balsam. I'll put a link to both products in the description below. Let's take a look at how they fit. On the Amazon site most of the reviews say to size down. That's true, these are size large. I bought a US 8 which is my usual size for American boots at least lace-up service and work boots anyway and I'm an 8.5 US 2 to size on the Brannock device. I think I could have got away with a 7.5 because these are big and they're wide to I didn't have any break-in issues. The leather was supple and soft enough. The last suited my foot shape with a little insert and a slight cork padding on the insole and the waterlock leather soles and the insert gave me enough shock absorption. I'm pretty sure there's a shank in there that gives me enough arch support. All in all a pretty comfortable boot. Now usually at this stage I'll talk about what outfits might go with the boot. All I can say here is to quote Homer Simpson. It's a cowboy boot and it's in distress leather. I know you can wear cowboy boots with a suit but surely only if you're in a smooth leather or some impressive crocodile or something. You cannot wear this with a suit. What can you wear it with? Jeans. Enough saying. Let's take a look at the value. They're $250 Australian dollars. On the Soto website they're shown as sold out but they're listed at US $150. Now if you've come here from a shopping centre or the mall and you're comparing what you saw there in a shop there with these they sound expensive but take my word for it as a good year well-toed boot made of full-grain leather that is not expensive. In fact they're pretty cheap and so you get what you pay for. These are not Tachovas. They're not Lucezi. They're not even Ariad. Those are good boots but at a different price point you get what you pay for. If you can get them are they worth 150 US dollars? Yeah I'd say so. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear from some cowboy boot experts out there. So there my review of the Soto Odessa cowboy boot. In one sentence they were kind of what I was looking for and at $250 yeah I'm okay with them. Hey listen I hope you like the review. As I said not the usual type of boot I'd review but I have them. Others might want to buy them so I'll put this review up. But next to some of the good stuff next week I'm going to upload my unboxing of the Grandstone diesel boot in Tan S6 and after that I'm going to review my Thursday boot company Wingtip Boots in Dark Oak. I've been wearing those for a year now so I'll let you know what I think. Don't miss that one. Click on the like and subscribe buttons below and stay booted. I'll see you soon.