**The Official Shoe Care Thread: Tutorials, Photos, etc.** - Page 264

I have a hard time believing the absorb much of anything with that glossy coat. I think unfinished cedar should be hard to beat. Am I mistaken?

You can get good cedar trees on the cheap from Jos. A Bank when they run their crazy sales. These are the same Woodlore-made shoes that Allen Edmonds sells. They should also be available at your nearest Nordstrom Rack. Also, though I haven't bought from here, this Cedarville thread has many coupon codes.

I know this might seem an odd question in a thread primarily concerned with "proper" shoes and such, which I do own a couple of, but I would be very grateful if someone could help me understand why this happened and how I could fix it:

These shoes are leather sneakers sold by Marc Jacobs, mainline I believe, so I feel I should be dealing with decent leather, leather that shouldn't seem to scrape off like this.  The horrible angry gray splotch on the left sneaker developed from what I thought was a scuff that I was attempting to clean.   I was pretty wary of putting anything on that might hurt my sneakers, so I researched throughout the Internet and bought what I thought was a safe choice, Jason Markk's shoe cleaner, which advertises itself as "99% biodegradable".  When I went to wipe down the left sneaker the "scuff" only grew larger and developed into that horrific grey blotch you see on the captoe of the left sneaker (rightmost in the picture).  How can I fix this?  What went wrong? I tried with haste to apply some Saphir Reno I had lying around with the fear maybe I dehydrated the leather somehow but it didn't help at all.  I'm pretty pissed that trying to be responsible somehow I've made a problem worse; this is significant amount of money down the drain if I can't fix it.  Can anyone help?

Quote:

Originally Posted by nutcracker 


Among the OTC shoe trees I`ve handled, I think they have the best fit and finish. The parts (tubes and knobs) looked shiny and the whole thing felt quite sturdy.

They have a slightly wide profile with a low instep and I`ve been told they fit English shoes like EG quite well.

IMO, they are better made than my LCA beechwood shoe trees. In Japan, they go for 21K ($230 USD or so?)

Varnished Hardwood vs Unfinished Softwood shoe trees.... I suppose the pros/cons have been discussed before, but I guess it goes down to your own preference?

some other pics I found online

What do you think of these Dunkelman shoe trees available at the Armoury for just HK$400? http://www.thearmourystore.com/shoes/dunkelman-cedar-shoe-tree

That price seems somewhat excessive...