how to care for shoes

[kmwrestle]

The most I have ever paid for shoes prior to a few weeks ago was around 50.00. I have started to venture into slightly better shoes. I picked up a pair of light brown AE hillcrests and got a pair of black park aves for christmas. My question is how should I care for these shoes. I have cedar shoe trees but thats about the extent of what I know to do. I want them to keep looking new with regular wearing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Leaveitothexperts]

Originally Posted by kmwrestle

The most I have ever paid for shoes prior to a few weeks ago was around 50.00. I have started to venture into slightly better shoes. I picked up a pair of light brown AE hillcrests and got a pair of black park aves for christmas. My question is how should I care for these shoes. I have cedar shoe trees but thats about the extent of what I know to do. I want them to keep looking new with regular wearing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You're on the right track. Make sure the shoe trees cover most of the vamp area. I find, for most of the shoes that I have, JM shoe trees work best. You will find differing opinions on this but I usually wait about 15-20 minutes after taking off shoes before I put shoe trees in them. Then about 36-48 hours before I put them in shoe bags and box.

You need to get a conditioner. Lexol and AE make good conditioners. You want to polish your shoes (shoe cream or wax) about every 3-4 wears and condition them evey 3-4 polishes.

Some people like to protect the soles from wear and have topy/vibram rubber soles put on. Others, less so though, recommend the toe and/or heal plates to prevent wear.

I'm sure you are going to get more people to chime in there and there is tons of info on shoe care on this forum if you use the search function.

 

[Leaveitothexperts]

You also want to give your shoes some rest. At a minimum this should be 24hours; so you need at least 2 pairs in your rotation. For this reason, I would start with low/mid range shoes, until you get your collection of about 7-8 pairs of good/high end shoes. AE is a good choice for starts.

 

[Charley]

The above instructions on conditioning/cleaning and polishing are very good.
It is also very important to follow the suggestion of giving the shoes at least a 24 hour rest between wearings. Several days would be better, expecially if they have become wet. Allowing them to throughly dry is very important.

That AE Park Avenue is a very useful style. It is also available in brown and burgandy and usually available on eBay for modest prices. Sure, there are a few occasions that require black, but other than those few, the brown and burgandy colors will usually be a better choice. As someone else noted, it does take several pairs of shoes to build a good rotation. Have fun adding to yours.

 

[John Dory]

I used to only use creme, but recently started using creme followed by wax (after reading some SF threads and watching the JM Weston video on their web site). I wonder, for all subsequent applications, is it alright to put creme on top of the old wax (i.e. do I need to remove the old layer of wax before putting new creme and wax on)?

The reason I ask is that wax is more "slick" than creme, and I wonder whether a new layer of creme can be absorbed by the leather if it still has an old layer of wax "blocking" it?