Leather Honey Review: Does It Cover Up Scuffs?

Leather Honey is the number one selling leather conditioner on Amazon right now. If you are searching for leather conditioner or even, yes, boot conditioner, Leather Honey comes at the top of the list.

It’s surprising because Leather Honey isn’t really marketed as a product for high end footwear. The label lists its uses in this order:

Auto, Furniture, Apparel, Shoes, Bags…

It seems closer to Lexol than Saphir, which is to say that it’s positioned more as a no-frills product for car seats than the best conditioner for the best shoe leathers.

So does a product being the number 1 leather conditioner on Amazon mean it’s the best leather conditioner for your boots? Here’s what I found when I tried Leather Honey on my Mile 85 boots from Santalum.

(That’s an Indonesian bootmaker who’s now out of business, but check out our list of other Indo brands if you’re curious.)

Leather Honey Pros & Cons

Here’s a quick summary of what I found when testing out Leather Honey.

What I liked:

• Penetrates deeply
• Inexpensive
• Long lasting

Downsides, not dealbreakers:

• Hard to apply evenly
• Sticky
• Hard to polish over it

Leather Honey Ingredients

• Ingredients not made public
• Has no solvents or silicone
• Not for use on suede or vinyl

When I first heard about Leather Honey, they didn’t reveal the product’s ingredients, which is actually very common for these products. (Since you’re not eating it, companies are allowed to be a little secretive.)

But now they’ve made the ingredients public:

1. 1-Propene, 2-methyl-, homopolymer
2. Light mineral oil
3. White mineral oil

A lot of guys will be happy that there are no solvents, silicone, or petroleum — all ingredients that have their uses in products like these (cleaning, waterproofing), but they also have their detractors. (Petroleum might dry it out, silicone might make it less breathable, etc.)

If you read our article about the petroleum controversy, you’ll quickly learn that the science isn’t exactly settled and that the “pro” and “con” camps both have their points. But I think I can say Leather Honey is widely used and free from controversial ingredients.

[Learn more: Does It Matter If Your Leather Conditioner Has Petroleum?]

How to Use Leather Honey

The safety data sheet notes that it may cause skin irritation, although on their site they swear it won’t, so I decided to:

1. Use a lint free cloth to apply it, especially given the texture. It is indeed sticky and honey-like, not a cream and not an oil.
2. Use thin, even coats. It penetrates the leather pretty deeply and Leather Honey tells you that “while applying too much won’t be harmful, try to apply in thin, even coats without over-saturating the leather.”
3. Apply, then return to it two hours later to wipe off any excess.

Leather Honey Results

• Applies unevenly
• Decent at removing scuffs
• Best for use on older oil tanned boots

After a couple of hours the leather had lightened up and I was pleased to find that it didn’t dramatically darken the leather overall. However, the effect is a little uneven; because of the consistency of the Leather Honey it’s tough to distribute uniformly and some areas of the boots wound up a little darker than others.

These boots are a few months old and what I found was that they wound up looking like well loved old boots — a plus for many consumers — but they still looked a bit older than they actually are. This is an effect I would enjoy on, say, my 4-year-old pair of Red Wing Iron Rangers, but I didn’t love to see on newer shoes.

The product is also good, but not great at removing scuffs. If that’s your goal, I’d sooner recommend Venetian Shoe Cream or Cobbler’s Choice.

[See my full review of Venetian Shoe Cream here!]

Leather Honey Price

This costs $18 for 8 ounces, so about $2.25 per ounce.

That’s pretty cheap. It’s not as cheap as Bick 4 or Lexol, but it’s cheaper than Venetian Shoe Cream ($3-ish per ounce) Cobbler’s Choice ($5/oz) and Saphir’s Renovateur ($9/oz).

[Buy Leather Honey for less here.]

I think this is a decent product for older footwear that needs to be brightened up a little, I’d specifically recommend it for oil tanned leather boots. It’s decent (but not amazing) at covering up scuffs on chrome tanned leather, and I wouldn’t recommend it for dressy footwear as it’s hard to use it as a base for polish. If you’re using outdoorsy oil tanned boots, I think Leather Honey works fine.