 Ah, brown chrome excel! It's brown leather everywhere. Is it too boring? Welcome to Bootlossophy. If you're new here, my name is Tech. I acknowledge the Wajik people, traditional custodians of the lands that I live and work on. Today, I'm taking a deep dive into one of the most ubiquitous leathers in the bootworld. Especially interesting in 2024, I think, when rival tannery Seidel's double-shot tannage, tanned very similarly, seems to be taking on the mantle of a versatile boot upper, suitable for a tough boot and also suitable for a dressy boot. Of course, I'm talking about chrome excel, and in particular, brown chrome excel. And talking about this, I've put up my examples of brown chrome excel boots. The Viberg stitch-down service boot, the Alden 403 Indy, the Allen Edmonds Higgins Mill, and the Knicks Parkhurst Collaboration Falcon-based boot. I can't believe I only have four brown chrome excel boots. But first of all, because my viewers span all types from dedicated boot nerds to people new into the world of heritage boots, let me talk about what chrome excel is. Chrome excel is a leather made by the Horween Leather Company, based in Chicago in the US. It is highly regarded for its supple quality, durability, and distinctive aesthetic characteristics. Although recently, I sense a rising opinion that it may be boring with the advent of other newer tannages like Seidel's double-shot, that may show some more aggressive patina for people looking to wear and show hardware in a boot, hoping perhaps to win the stitch-down patina thunderdome patina development contest. The story of chrome excel begins over a hundred years ago, when the Horween Leather Company sought to create a leather that combined the best qualities of chrome tanned and veg tanned hides. After research and development, Horween introduced chrome excel in 1913. It said that it was developed to be used as an engine or mechanical seal. Apparently a tough oiled leather was preferred over the rubber of the day, because supposedly its failure was progressive, whereas rubber was fine one minute and suddenly blew the next. Drivers and mechanics apparently could tell when the seals were going to go and fix the seals when needed. It was used as seals in the trucks and tanks of the world wars. Chrome excel gained popularity amongst craftsmen, bootmakers and leather goods manufacturers because of its durability and versatility and its ability to develop a beautiful patina over time. Despite its durability, chrome excel is also supple and pliable, making it easy to work with and comfortable to wear in a boot. Chrome excel will stretch slightly, which increases the comfort factor when you put on a new pair. Chrome excel colours range from a light honey natural that darkens and deepens over time to most shade of browns and tanned black and navy that do the opposite, enlighten or tea cores over time. Each colour dye being aniline develops a deep rich colour that turns into a beautiful patina. Said to be full grain, it's actually lightly corrected. This is one of the difficulties of describing leather, because there is no industry standard in how you describe different types of leather, so that beginners are taught to seek only full grain leather, whatever that actually means. And they don't understand and they'll then miss out on the characteristics of other types of leather that may or may not be actually good leathers without necessarily having a totally uncorrected hide. I've had people commenting on my videos about reviews of rough-out boots saying they like the boot, but it's a shame it's not full grain leather. It is full grain, it's just turned inside out. That's the state of confusion. Okay now, how is Chrome excel tanned? The tanning process for Chrome excel involves several stages over the famed 28 days, using all of Halloween's Chicago facilities. The exact details of the process are proprietary to Halloween, meaning it's a secret, but we think we know what the general stage is involved. The hides are first chrome tanned, preserving them in a chromium salt solution. Chrome tanning is quick and produces soft supple leather with good colour fastness and resistance to water. The hides are then re-tanned in the vegetable re-tanning process where they're immersed in a vat full of natural vegetable extracts, such as oak bar with a high tan in content. Vegetable tanning adds depth to the leather's colour, as well as enhancing its suppleness and durability. Then the hides are hot stuffed in a heated drum filled with secret blends of oils and waxes and different greases. This step helps to lubricate the fibres of the leather, giving it a distinctive waxy feel and improves its water resistance. The hides are then fat-liquid, a process that involves the application of additional oils and emulsifiers to further lubricate and soften the leather and then finish with the application of an aniline dye, which penetrates the leather fibres at the surface, like a wood stain, to give a rich deep colour while allowing the natural grain and texture of the leather to show through. Finally, the leather is hand polished, apparently with gallons of Venetian shoe cream to enhance its luster and smooth out any imperfections. Chrome XL has several rivals today, some claiming to be so, even though they are combination tan, and some using the same basic process, but often in less than 28 days to save on time and cost, and all of them without the exact same recipe, secret recipe, of oils and waxes as used by Halloween. For example, Thursday Boot Company uses Thursday Chrome, and even though some fans think it's Chrome XL, it's actually their version of a combination veg chrome tanage developed with Lafargue Tanry. And I've already mentioned Seidel's Double Shot, which is now being offered by Whites in the CMP Sherman MP Boots. Their standard, stitched down version of the traditionally hand sewn rolled, welped, more expensive MP boot, which is predominantly offered in Chrome XL. When new, brown Chrome XL is a shiny, waxy oily leather that's soft and shows an even colour, like those on these fairly new Nix Falcon Boots. They're built in Parkhurst 602 last, and you can see my review up there. As you can see, it's an even waxy brown with, I don't know if the camera picks this up, a depth of luster coming from underneath the surface. It's far and away a standard brown shoe leather, but because of the oils and waxes pumped into it, Chrome XL can show a life in the leather as a pull-up leather. Pull-up means that if you apply pressure on the leather, you can see the leather change shade as the oils and waxes move inside it. It's then easy enough to just rub the area with your fingers to redistribute the oils and waxes again to repair the shading. Being soft and supple and unlike cheap shoes with shiny, cheap leather, it's not coated with anything protective, which means that new owners of Chrome XL boots will suffer heart attacks when they inevitably scuff their boots against desk chairs or car pedals. But again, because it's so full of oils and waxes, which is why they scuff so easily, it's just easy to rub your thumb over the scuff and kind of repair it with the heat of your thumb. And if that only partially fixes the scuff, you can apply some conditioner like Venetian shoe cream and brush it off. One of the criticisms of new Chrome XL boots is the purported Chrome XL Lottery. It's said that Chrome XL can show loose grain, and that when you buy a pair of Chrome XL boots, you buy a lottery ticket as to whether you get loose grain on your boots. Loose grain is the excessive wrinkling that's more than just a creasing of wear, particularly at the quarters, because that's where boot brands try to hide their not-perfect leather pieces. Loose grain can happen anywhere, but it's actually a partial delamination of the layers of fibres so that the grain side, that's the smooth side, separates a little bit from the under- or fibre side in the leather. It's generally not structural, but on rare occasions it can be where the leather actually delaminates so badly that they kind of split between the two layers. In understanding loose grain, you need to understand cows. The leather came from a live animal, and us had tight-toned parts of the body and other parts that saw a lot of movement and hence got wrinkled up in life. Take a look at your elbow joint. The skin there wrinkles and puckers up to allow you to bend. Take a look at some taut tone part of your body where it's muscular and smooth. So loose grain likely happens in the looser parts of the cow hide. At the belly, take a look at your own, at the neck and so on. The good taut parts like the butt or the back are usually areas where the skin is tight and firm. So that's where a bootmaker can choose or click parts of the boot pattern from the wrong parts of the hide in order to save money and they populate the myth of a lottery. At the clicking stage of leather piece selection, the lottery's already been won and lost. And the reason it's lost if it's lost is because some bootmakers click all parts of the hide to save cost. The more expensive bootmakers can build the lottery win into their boots by selecting only the best parts of the hide and discarding the rest. But this means you use less of the hide, which means the average cost of each piece selected is more expensive. But this is not always true. This Knicks, for example, uses a thick piece of chrome excel well over 2mm thick. There is hardly any wrinkling, let alone loose grain. Compare this to an expensive viber. Let's look at my full review up there. The creasing at the vamp is hardly noticeable. Very fine crystalline wrinkles, perfect. It's a little bit less than the Knicks, about 2mm thick. And in this case, there is a bit of loose grain in the quarters. As I said, at the quarters it's hidden because your pants cover it. It's not structural, but take a look at it. It's not pretty. The Higgins Mill, watch the review up there, is a lighter weight hide, just under 2mm much more supple too. But that also has loose grain at the quarters. So it happens to the best. But even then, there's honestly no fear to be had of loose grain. It's mostly not structural, and if you see them as heritage boots and not dressy, calf skin fashion boots, a little wrinkling is not a bad thing. Once the brown chrome excel wears though, and patina develops, that's when chrome excel excels. Take a look at these olden 403 Indie boots. Check out my review up there. They are well worn, and you can see the creases in the vat. But, I hope you can see on camera, check out the variation of the depth of the colour. In some areas it looks almost faded, while in others it's obviously still full of oils and greases, and it's this pattern of wear and variation that lovers of chrome excel look for. Again, because it's packed full of oils and waxes, this pull up effect continues on as the leather dries, but you do need to ensure that you keep the leather conditioned as it gets older. Specifically, not just age, but moisture, and if you live in temperate zones, sleep and snow are the enemy of oils and waxes, and they can leach away with exposure to rain and snow. Caring for chrome excel is not particularly hard. I use a combination of liquid, and liquid oil and Venetian shoe cream. First, I make sure to brush the boots vigorously, as frequently as I remember, perhaps once after every two or three wears. The vigorous brushing with a good quality horse brush removes dirt and dust, which are the enemies of good leather, and it warms the leather and the oils in it. Vigorous brushing will also help to redistribute the oils and waxes to even them out in the leather. If it's really dirty, wipe with a damp cloth, and dry before brushing. Whenever they start to feel dry, rather than waxy to the touch, or maybe three or four times a year, I condition the boots. I apply a thin coat of Liquid Needs Foot Oil with my hands so that I have some sensory feedback about the spread of the oil, and then I let the oil soak into replenished natural oils and waxes in the leather, probably over 24 hours. In my experience, I wake the 24 hours because if the oils haven't fully penetrated, I find a mix with the cream that I will put on, and I can't get a good shine out of them. Once the Needs Foot Oil is fully absorbed and no longer feels oily on the surface, I'll apply a couple of thin coats of Venetian Shoe Cream in neutral, allowing about half an hour between coats. I use neutral because I think that the coloured waxes and conditioners can change the natural patina developing. I mean, look at the difference between the ages. Let the VSC dry to a haze, and then wipe the boots with a polishing cloth to remove any excess conditioner on the surface before brushing vigorously again with a horse head brush. I don't apply coloured wax, but you can. Only I'd advise the thinness of smears because you don't want to overwax the leather and block up its breathability, or let it crack as you move. Conditioned regularly, the Brown Chrome Excel stays lustrous and will reward you with what I described as an elegant rather than bashed up patina. I mean, take a look at my examples. From the newest, the Knicks, to the oldest, the Indies. And they go along in this sort of time frame. They all show a luster under the surface, even though the Knicks probably has the deepest brown. They vary in shade because they've been through different ages and different things, and that in itself is exciting. I am not in the cap that says Chrome Excel is boring and even that Brown Chrome Excel is boring. The way I see these boots is that they are living things and the Chrome Excel they are made of show the life that these boots had, scratches that have been brushed off, differences in shade and colour, aged patina and variation of depth and wear. This is why I get into boots. But tell me what you think. Let me know in the comments below if you like Chrome Excel or is there a leather you prefer and why? And while you're down there, don't forget to click on like and I hope if you haven't subscribed yet, click on subscribe. I'm really planning a huge year where I bring you a lot of new and small boot brands, revisit some growing brands and explore others that I haven't tried yet. Don't miss them. Subscribe and watch as I bring them out. Until then, look after yourself and see you soon.