Shoe care nonsense - there is no need to condition leather

[shoepoo]

Hi all - a provocative title, but bear with me: There are loads of articles of how to keep leather shoes in tiptop conditioned shape. However, there are some huge logic gaps in all that (in my opinion) nonsense advice:
1 Is there any scientific comparison of eg a shoe that has been conditioned/polished vs just cleaned?
2 Most leather shoes have a polymer coating (like car seats) and this protects the leather and stops conditioner getting through. Patent leather is an extreme form of this
3 What oil/creme is good for leather anyway? The closest thing to leather oil would be lanolin as that's produced by the skin, but that isn't in most polish/conditioners
4 Suede/nubuck/analine leather does not need conditioning (just nap cleaning) and they seem to fair perfectly fine with no conditioner - ergo, why would a leather with a protective coating on top need conditioning?
5 Leather sofas get much more flexing in use than a shoe and need no cremes and potions to make them less prone to cracking.
Polish and other potions are there simply to keep the leather protected, they have little or nothing to do with 'nourishing' or 'feeding' or 'conditioning' the leather.
As an aside, this is what Clarks put in their Matt Leather Restorer: water, acrylic resin, silicone and fragrance. I.e. no conditioning, just some stuff to make them waterproof and smell nice.
Discuss!....

 

[GBR]

An odd first post, what prompts you to save people from themselves in this way?

 

[Purplelabel]

Yes it does. For previous experience, I’ve left my shoes unconditioned and only polished for a month and that caused the leather to not look as rich in colour.

I don’t use shoe conditioner, but every now and again I’ll use post shave moisturiser and then polish. Works a treat, especially on the leather that creases the most; stops it from drying out.

 

[Muerto]

Coming from an equestrian background I would beg to differ. Leather does need conditioning in order not to get dry, hard and crack. Perspiration, heat and outside moisture really does affect the leather. It might not be obvious on cheap shoes with painted on finishes though.

Re sofas. Furniture benefits from regular care too. However for obvious reasons it is preferable to keep furniture you sit on dry and clean... http://oxdenmarq.com/materials-maintenance

 

[MrUnderwood]

An odd first post, what prompts you to save people from themselves in this way?

I agree, but i actually like the idea of challenging the norm. Especially since cleaning products are very expensive.

My own experiences are very similar to those of @Purplelabel - it revitalize the shoes.

Where i do agree - in theory - with the OP is that less is better; dont just buy a thousand products and use them all, rather try slowly and test which one works to your liking.
An example; i am not fond of heavy mirror shine hence i do not buy and use specific products that provide that feature.

 

[shoepoo]

Odd? Yes, I just don't buy the standard practice, becasue it defies reason when it comes to the care of shiny vs mat leather - i.e. same material but one should be conditioned to survive whereas the other shouldn't... now that is odd !

The other thing to consider is this: in the old days when most people wore leather shoes that could be rehealed / soled, they probably only ever used shoe polish (eg my dad's generation). They didn't have lotions and potions, though they would have kept up a respectable shine. Shoe polish protects leather from the elements, but doesn't, as far as I know, do any conditioning. However, these shoes would go on and on being resoled many times without the care often claimed nowadays.

So, the logical conclusion is, leather should be waterproofed to last (ie waxed shoe polish), but doesn't need fats or oils or creams.

The house tack claim is interesting though, but I would say that that tack is oiled regularly not to make it last longer by 'feeding' it, but simply to make it flexible and not crack (becasue its so think). So, translated to shoes, that logic would say: if your shoes are dry or at risk of cracking, oil them. If not, then don't.... there would be no need to regularly do this.

 

[shoepoo]

I don’t use shoe conditioner, but every now and again I’ll use post shave moisturiser and then polish. Works a treat, especially on the leather that creases the most; stops it from drying out.

OK, so why doesn't nubuck or suede dry out inside a month and fall apart ?????

 

[Caustic Man]

No leather would dry out and fall apart in a month. Leather is a remarkably resilient and tough product. It does require some care, of course. But aside from that, suede DOES wear and dry out like other leathers. It's just that you can, essentially, re-distress it to lift up fibers that have been matted down or sheered off. And because it's a different kind of leather, that comes from a different layer of the skin, it behaves differently as it wears. But suede also can, and should, be conditioned in its own way.

I have had shoes that I've "nourished" with leather oils and ones that I have not. You only start to notice a difference between the two after more than a year (in my case, about 2 Chicago winters). The leather sometimes gets stiffer and less flexible, but especially because of the salt and snow on the ground, little surface cracks can begin to appear. After another year or two you'd begin to see deeper cracks if you continue to wear them regularly. It's a long process, even in the harsh environment of northeast Illinois, and it's a process not only of drying, but of continual flexing as you wear them. And in places that are less harsh it might take even longer. But when you buy good shoes you're in it for the long game. You want your shoes to last 20 years, not four or five. If you only wear cheap shoes for a year or two you might not even notice that leather does this.

 

[DWFII]

There is some truth in what you say but how you got there is beyond me, unless it is just a synthesis of other people's opinions. It is an odd first post not so much for the points you make but because it is so adamant and even slightly confrontational when you seem to have little or no first hand experience with leather (correct me if I'm wrong) .

Perhaps I can clarify some things for you or at least put them in context from the POV of someone with extensive experience with shoes and shoemaking, feet and leather.

In the old days there were indeed such things as conditioners although most of them were fat based. Simply because in the old days most all leather, even veg tanned leather, was veg tanned. Such conditioners provided some water resistance and perhaps maintained the slight acid balance that leather has. Long experience and Tradition suggests that applying such conditioners on a regular but infrequent basis was beneficial. Generations of grooms, equerrys, stablemasters, and bootblacks, etc., bear witness to the efficacy of conditioning leather. Such wisdom cannot be dismissed, if only because it spans hundreds of years of careful observation.

Polishes (waxes) alone will not waterproof leather for very long. In wear, perhaps several hours. They don't really penetrate the leather and will flake off the surface when the leather is flexed.

The main reason conditioners work, in my opinion is that they keep the grain surface of the leather supple and replenish natural ***** acids and introduced fat liquors that do nourish the leather. The fibrous make up of the grain surface is vastly different from the fibrous make-up of the corium or the flesh surface and incidental layers. The grain is relatively thin but it is also relatively stiff compared to the flesh.

To some small degree conditioners may also allow fibers to slide past each other without tearing.

And that suggests an answer to your query about rough-out or suede leathers. I have observed the same thing. But it is not that such leathers will not crack, it is simply that the flesh side of the skin is so much looser and less dense than the grain surface. [And I'm speaking now of "reverse calf", not the much inferior "split" suede which is far more common esp. in lower grade shoes.] When dirt gets on the grain surface of a leather, or it loses suppleness (waxes can contribute to that loss), it cracks as much because it is so short fibered, rigid, and so dense, as from the grinding and abrasive action of dirt in the creases...although such dirt is a big, big factor not only in cracking but in the leather drying out.

Simply turning the leather inside out--putting the fleshside to the outside--protects the grain surface (and the nutrients that keep it supple), and any grit that is picked up is lodged in a fundamentally softer and more yielding matrix than if it were on the grain. We don't ordinarily condition or wax the fibrous fleshside, not because it doesn't need it, but because doing so would alter the appearance of the "suede"...which is what is usually wanted.

That said, historically (and even as we speak) there were highly prized leathers that were waxed or oiled on the fleshside.

So it is not "cut and dried." The "waxed calf"-- a veg tanned leather that was "stuffed' with lanolin and fish oils, blackened and sized, and lasted fleshside out and then, historically, waxed and polished everyday--that I have used has shown itself to be near-as-nevermind equally resistant to cracking as the more conventional "dry" rough-out leathers.

Bottom line is...and I think this is really the main point of your post...conditioners should be used sparingly; waxes don't confer nearly the protection that most attribute to them; and the, bar none, very most important thing you can do to your shoes is keep them clean--brush them often, daily even.

 

[Patek14]

2 Most leather shoes have a polymer coating (like car seats) and this protects the leather and stops conditioner getting through. Patent leather is an extreme form of this

Car seats yes. Corrected grain leather yes. But the Shoes approved on this forum? Doubtful. My shoes are very different from my lexus.

 

[DWFII]

Car seats yes. Corrected grain leather yes. But the Shoes approved on this forum? Doubtful. My shoes are very different from my lexus.

In fact, a lot of high end shoes, esp. coming from the continent, are vegetable tanned "crust"--no finish at all coming from the tannery, much less acrylic or polymer.

 

[TheForeigner]

This is an interesting discussion, so thanks to @shoepoo for initiating it and thanks to @DWFII for the insights.

I would love to see an experiment when someone wore a pair of shoes regularly for years and only conditioned one of them. And I’d like for someone to do the same with shoe trees.

Actually, buy two identical pairs and condition only the left from one pair and the right from the other pair. And do the same with shoe trees with another two pair of say a whole cut model, maybe the C&J Alex (the idea being that whole cuts crease more). Wear all four pairs once in four-days rotations for two years and show us the results. Now that would be interesting.

Of course I guess no one is gonna be willing to risk their shoes in that way, even for science.

 

[Patek14]

One thing Ill say - I love my car like my shoes and I self detail it was all the best products... most non-OTC, just like my use of saphir in the shoe world;

I use a mix of products on my car seats from companies like Optimum, Griots, and others. The products have UV protectants/polymers in them. Some of the car leather products dissuade the usage of natural oils specifically due to the coating! Thus you dont even want to use shoe care products on your car seats!

 

[GBR]

Car seats yes. Corrected grain leather yes. But the Shoes approved on this forum? Doubtful. My shoes are very different from my lexus.

No such thing.

 

[Patek14]

No such thing.

so all you rich people reject everything other than cleverly and JL London bespokes now?