Love ’em or hate ’em, Uggs have a magical way of keeping your feet toasty warm, and living in the Midwest, the whole LIY team has them. Boots, slippers, socks, Ugg speaks our cold weather love language. But with cold and snow comes salt and wetness, which can hurt our beloved Uggs and the way they look! While the proactive thing to do would have been for us to spray our Uggs with a protective spray when we first bought them and repeat continuously over time, it’s a little late for that now. So figuring out how to get them cleaned up was our number one priority.

We’d heard that there were some DIY methods using products you probably already have in your house, and also knew that there were some Ugg specific cleaners out there, so we figured we’d give them both a try to see which gave us the best results! One thing to note: our shoes had both salt and dirt stains on them. If you have only waters stains you don’t need to go through this whole process. Basically just wet them down evenly and stuff to dry. But if you have something more intense like grease/oil, you’re going to want to do some more researching to understand the best route for your shoe situation.

For the purple Ugg slippers, we followed the step-by-step instructions of the Ugg cleaner, and for the brown Ugg boots, we used products from our kitchen cabinets! Read on to see which method we found to work the best, and what we’d recommend trying at home!

Method One: Ugg Cleaner

 

If Ugg created a product specifically for cleaning their products, it has to be good right? Well, maybe. To test this method, here are the steps we followed:

1. Using a suede brush, wipe off any excess dirt or grime.
2. Lightly moisten the overall shoe with a cloth or sponge.
3. Apply a small amount of Ugg cleaner onto the sponge, and gently scrub the shoe.
4. Remove excess residue with a cloth or sponge.
5. Stuff boots with paper towels and allow to dry 24 hours out of sunlight or direct heat.
6. Brush with a suede brush to even out material.

Here are the visible results we saw by using the Ugg cleaning product!

Before –

After-

While there are some dark spots around the stitching and the tongue, the shoes overall look cleaner and brighter! We either may have missed these spots, or they were just too far gone in those areas.  But overall, the Ugg cleaner did a good job at cleaning them up!

Method Two: Vinegar & Water

To test this method, here are the steps we followed:

1. Using a suede brush, wipe off any excess dirt or grime.
2. Mix a 50/50 solution of water and vinegar in a bowl.
3. Using a dishcloth or sponge, apply evenly on salt covered areas.
4. Wet boots evenly with a cloth or sponge dipped in water.
5. Blot dry.
6. Stuff boots with paper towels and allow to dry 24 hours out of sunlight or direct heat.
7. Brush with a suede brush to even out material.

Here are the visible results we saw by using just vinegar and water!

Before –

After –

The one boot could use another round of cleaning, as you can still see some salt stains near the toe, but the other boot looks SO much better than it did! For using products we had in our cabinets, we’d say we’re pretty happy with the results of this method. It just may take an extra round or two to make sure you get it all!

Overall thoughts:

The DIY method using vinegar and water seemed to do just as good of a job if not better at cleaning up the Uggs than the actual Ugg cleaner. We may give the boots another round of cleaning to get the spots we missed, and then try the Ugg cleaner as a last resort for a final freshen up. If you already have vinegar in your cabinets, why not give that a try before buying a cleaner, since the results are pretty similar!

PS If you have Converse shoes, you’ll definitely want to check out our post on How to Clean Your Converse! What should we try cleaning next?