Shoes... ruined?

[agp]

I have had these pair of Magnannis for a year, and wore it occasionally but never in the snow or rain. However, today I noticed that when I lightly rubbed the lighter areas of the shoe, dark brown/black flakes are coming off and sticking to my fingers. I do maintain the shoes every once in a while - cream, polish, wax. The shoes always have AE shoe trees in them. Does anyone know what might be wrong?

 

[deveandepot1]

Do you have a pic of the flakey area?

 

[agp]

The flaky areas are the ones with the crease, and the lighter areas. The original color of the shoes are the same as my avatar. But now some dark burgundy/brown have become almost a walnut-like brown (such as the band of discoloration between the right-most two creases in the top picture).

Here's a picture of the flaky/patchy spots up close. To me the shoes just look dry, but I don't know why, and I don't know how to fix it.

 

[koolhistorian]

Clean the layers of cream and polish that were accumulated over time.

 

[agp]

I will try this. But why are the shoes losing their color though?

 

[Chows Tuddon]

They look completely normal to me. It's leather with natural tanning.

If you rub creased leather, bits of polish and associated pulp will come off, especially if you haven't thoroughly buffed them 24 hours after a polish.

If you "clean" them with a leather cleaner, you'll find that even more colour comes out.

 

[agp]

How long are you supposed to wait to buff after polishing?

 

[Chows Tuddon]

repost mistake

 

[Chows Tuddon]

How long are you supposed to wait to buff after polishing?

If they're a truly beaten pair, not polished for yonks, I wait 24 hours before buffing. But with a normal polish, I'd wait an hour to several hours and then buff - BUT - 24 hours nonetheless, I still do another buff when the remaining polish is hardened and easier to flatten and/or remove (instead of being just rubbed around on the surface of the leather when it's softer).


Also: if you use a leather cleaner like Saphir reno, be sure to leave it for at least two hours before buffing it off if you are applying it to full-grain leather. The product guide says to buff it off after 3 minutes, but that makes more sense for top-grain or corrected leathers. If you don't let it completely dry up on full-grain, you'll remove polish and dye along with the reno when you buff.

 

[agp]

For cleaners, I just use a little bit of Meguiar's leather cleaner (yes the car product), which works surprisingly well. So cleaner - leave for a while, polish, wait 24 hours, buff? No wonder my shoes never shine, because I don't let my polish sit long enough.

 

[Chows Tuddon]

Have you tried Meguiar's wheel brightener?...

Re buffing. One normally does it twice. An hour or two after, then a day a later.

If you want a shine, you have to flatten and then layer the polish again and again. This requires mostly water and handwork. Only tiny amounts of polish. It's a real pain *********** and you have to use high quality polish - not Turtle Wax.

 

[agp]

Yes, those things are awesome. Same goes for most Meguiar products.

I didn't know getting your shoes to shine was that hard... I guess I wasn't cut out for that line of work.