**The Official Shoe Care Thread: Tutorials, Photos, etc.** - Page 79

I'll look into that! However, you want to be careful of using anything with a wax on leather goods. What happens is that the layer of wax can get over all of your clothes.

The Leather Lotion is essentially a diluted Renovatuer and is perfect for leather goods, including furniture. Because it's mink oil-based, you get the conditioning but without the waxes that would get over all your clothes.

Sorry to say, but it must have been a cheap original finish if it came off so easily. You should be able to build the finish back up using cream polishes. You may have to apply several coats to achieve your desired saturation. You should be fine, though, after a little work. And if the finish did in fact come off that easily, then it should be nice to start from scratch.

I'm no expert on Cordovan, but I understand that it's core property is a really tight, compressed pore / fiber structure. Apparently when the tannery is completing the leather, a glass bottle is used to compress the leather.

It is important that the pores not be allowed to expand. This is why Saphir has a specific Cordovan Polish that does not contain turpentine, which is a solvent used to penetrate the pores to deliver nutrients. Saphir's MDO polish for smooth leathers uses a pine-based turpentine specifically to penetrate deep into the leather to deliver the nutrients. However, if this is used on cordovan, it can cause the pores to expand.

Below is a picture of an experiment I did to compare the difference in penetration between Saphir's Cordovan Polish (left) and their MDO Pommadier Polish (right). You can see that Pommadier Polish penetrates much deeper into the paper than the Cordovan Polish. This is due to the presence of turpentine.

A little more difficult to see is that both still leave a layer of wax (but neither as thick as with the Pate de Luxe wax polish).

It is possible that the water caused the pores to expand, which is why the shoe is creasing.

You could use a Deer Bone to try to re-compress the pores and smooth out the creasing. The Deer Bone is specifically used for this purpose - and only on Cordovan (don't try to use it on a pair of calf skin shoes).

Hope this helps.

Sorry about the shoes!
Edited by kirbya - 1/27/12 at 8:55am

I just updated my previous post on the cordovan. Take a look at the picture! Pretty interesting stuff!