Tarrago Leather Brown Renovator 057 – 250ml Suede Spray for Two Tone Boots

Description

Tarrago Leather Brown Renovator 057 – 250ml Suede Spray for Two Tone Boots – the honest middle brown that puts a worn toe back in step with the boot

Brown boots almost never fade all over. They fade in patches, and always the same patches: the toe, which rubs against everything; the outside of the heel, which scrapes past door frames and car sills; and the ball of the foot, where the upper flexes all day. Meanwhile the quarters and the tongue stay as they left the factory. You end up with a two tone boot nobody designed.

Shade 057 is Tarrago’s leather brown, which is a plain description. It is the middle brown that most brown boots actually are, sitting between tan and chocolate without leaning towards either. Our supplier attribute just says Leather, which is not a colour so much as a shrug, but the swatch is a clear warm middle brown and the live name gets it right.

What Tarrago put in the can: a quarter of a litre of renovator, shade 057, for napped hides.

Why choose this tarrago leather brown renovator 057?

• It fixes the patches without changing the rest. You can lay two extra passes over a bleached toe and leave the quarters alone entirely. That control is why a spray beats a cream here. Cream goes on wherever the cloth touches, which means deepening the parts that were already fine. Cream cannot manage that.
• A genuine middle brown, not a compromise. 057 sits in the gap that most ranges skip, where the choice is usually pale tan or near chocolate. Because it is the shade most brown boots actually are, it disappears into the upper instead of announcing itself. Nobody notices a thing.
• Softens the hide while it evens the colour. Conditioning agents go in with the pigment. The toe and joint dry out first as well as fade first, so the two problems live in exactly the same spot and it makes sense to treat both at once. One product, two problems solved.
• Gets into stitching and punch holes. Broguing collects dust and loses colour faster than the panels around it. A mist reaches into every hole in one pass; a dauber skips over them and leaves the shoe freckled with pale dots that catch the eye. Pale dots read from across a room.
• Water beads instead of drawing a tideline. Every treatment lays down a light repellent film. On a boot that already has patchy colour the last thing you want is a rain mark adding a fourth tone, and beading water never gets the chance. Rain marks are permanent enough.
• Plenty in the can for years of upkeep. A pair needs a few seconds. There are 250ml here at £11.99, which across a decade of autumn boots amounts to very little. I would rather you bought one can and used it properly than three that dried out.

How to use the Tarrago leather brown renovator 057

This is a repair job as much as a maintenance one, so look at the boot in good light first and decide which panels actually need the extra pigment on them.

1. Unlace the boot and open it right up to the throat.
2. Lift the nap everywhere with a crepe block, toe included.
3. Rub the shiny worn areas until the crushed fibres stand up properly again.
4. Shake for sixty seconds so the heavy brown pigment mixes right through.
5. Give the whole boot one pass, then the worn patches a second one.
6. Leave it twenty minutes and brush the pile up once more.

My tip as a shoe specialist

Count your passes out loud and give both boots exactly the same number. This sounds like fussing, but the eye is genuinely unable to compare two browns when one of them is wet, and wet suede always looks a good two shades darker than it will finally dry. What happens otherwise is that you spray the first boot, decide it looks marvellous, go lighter on the second, and discover the mismatch the following morning when both of them are dry. Counting takes judgement out of the equation entirely, and judgement is the thing that lets people down here.

Specifications

The specifics

• Aerosol: 250ml can, even fan spray
• Shade: 057 Leather Brown
• Also listed as: Leather 057, mid brown
• Formula: Pigmented, with conditioners
• Designed for: Suede, nubuck and velour hides
• Never on: Smooth calf, patent or any gloss
• Ready in: Around twenty minutes
• Made by: Tarrago
• Price here: £11.99

Frequently asked questions

Can I really just do the worn bits?

You can, and often that is the smartest approach. Feather the edges by keeping the can moving past the patch rather than stopping on it, and once everything is dry give the whole boot one very light pass to tie the work together.

What does the attribute Leather actually mean?

Nothing useful, which is why I go by the live name instead. The swatch is a warm middle brown, and Leather Brown describes it properly. I have flagged the attribute so the shade name reads sensibly in future.

Does nubuck take this as well as suede does?

It does. Nubuck is the outer face of the hide sanded down, rather than the flesh side, so pigment sits on it perfectly happily. Nubuck often finishes smoother too, since its nap is shorter from the start.

Where can I buy the Tarrago leather brown renovator 057 in the UK?

Here at Shoespecialist.co.uk, where the full shade card is stocked rather than special ordered. Order before 5pm and it goes out the same afternoon, there is no carriage charge past £50, and 60 days covers you. Ask me if you are unsure.