Shoe Shine Sunday: Part II
After cleaning the Grensons with the Saphir Leather Cleaner, you can see how much darker they are because they are wet.
After the shoes have dried, you can see how dehydrated the leather is after cleaning with the Saphir Leather Conditioner. They look terrible. Completely dry. Water breaks down the oils and waxes in the leather, leaving it dry. If the leather is flexed repeatedly while it is dry, the leather can crack. It is essential to condition one's shoes after they are shampooed.
This photograph is of the same shoe after just one coat of Saphir Renovateur. You can see why we call it "liquid gold." The leather is completely rehydrated. Regular conditioning of the leather is essential to keeping it supple and preventing cracking. I went on to apply a few more coats of the Renovateur, massaging it into the leather with a chamois to ensure maximum absorption. The shoes look great just with this one product. Almost as though nothing else is even needed.
After I applied the Saphir Renovateur, I then used a Cognac #10 Cream Polish for these shoes. I applied several coats of the polish to the entire shoe to build up the base finish.
You can see here what a difference it made. The damage to the front of the shoe is almost completely concealed just by the three coats of Saphir Pommadier Cream Polish.
Shoes looking beautiful. As a final step and just to add a little bit of extra depth, I applied Mahogany #09 Cream Polish, which is darker and has a little more red than the Cognac #10, to the front area of the shoe. I think it adds a subtle antiquing to the leather (subtle - if I wanted something more obvious, I could have used a Dark Brown Cream Polish or even a Black or Navy).
This picture in the sunlight is a little better, although still not great. However, the shoes look great and I'll be wearing them tomorrow!
