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benhour

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my 2cents on the subject ! Most of the time i wear gloves and use a dabber when i am applying polish on my shoes! i Dont wear gloves only when i am going for a mirror shine or using dubbin (i am used to do it this way! )!
 

Munky

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my 2cents on the subject ! Most of the time i wear gloves and use a dabber when i am applying polish on my shoes! i Dont wear gloves only when i am going for a mirror shine or using dubbin (i am used to do it this way! )!

Yes, that sounds like a good plan, Ben! I had never really thought about gloves but I will get some.

On a boring theme of mine, I am still trying to find the ultimate polish that does not upset my nose, throat and chest. Collonil is certainly much safer on this issue than Saphir but it still causes me some problems. I am now thinking that I need more ventilation. I tend to clean and polish my shoes in a very small room. Presumably, it would be better to consider doing all this cleaning outside of the house. The only polishes that I find 'chest neutral' are those sort of solid ones: Renapur, GlenKaren, Brush Up and so on. None of them give you a great shine but that is not a problem for me. What they do seem to do is to be absorbed into the leather. With early season's greetings, Munky.
 

Christian GV.

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Hi Munky, a great question in my opinion! GlenKaren recently changed their name to Pure Polish Leather Care and updated their formulas along with the change. Their new polishes have an Orange fruit scent to it instead of that well-known turpentine odor found in Saphir, Collonil etc. As you probably know Pure Polish are non-toxic, natural only. The new polishes are certainly worth a try.

On a side note, Pure Polish also polishes faster for a high shine, though it is overcome by Saphir on the mirror gloss. A great option for regular, everyday polishing.
Best regards, Chris
 

Munky

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Hi Munky, a great question in my opinion! GlenKaren recently changed their name to Pure Polish Leather Care and updated their formulas along with the change. Their new polishes have an Orange fruit scent to it instead of that well-known turpentine odor found in Saphir, Collonil etc. As you probably know Pure Polish are non-toxic, natural only. The new polishes are certainly worth a try.

On a side note, Pure Polish also polishes faster for a high shine, though it is overcome by Saphir on the mirror gloss. A great option for regular, everyday polishing.
Best regards, Chris

Hi Chris, thank you for this. I know that Glen, of GlenKaren, passed his business to his daughter and that the product is now known as Pure Polish. I didn't know that the formula had changed, though. Having serious chest problems, at the mo, I dug out a jar of GlenKaren burgundy polish. It seemed to have dried out quite considerably and seemed to be a lighter colour than I remember. But it all worked very well and I ended up with a pair of boots that I had put away for the summer, that looked really good. Yours, Munky.
 

Chowkin

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Hi Munky, a great question in my opinion! GlenKaren recently changed their name to Pure Polish Leather Care and updated their formulas along with the change. Their new polishes have an Orange fruit scent to it instead of that well-known turpentine odor found in Saphir, Collonil etc. As you probably know Pure Polish are non-toxic, natural only. The new polishes are certainly worth a try.

On a side note, Pure Polish also polishes faster for a high shine, though it is overcome by Saphir on the mirror gloss. A great option for regular, everyday polishing.
Best regards, Chris

Unfortunately it has stopped business

IMG_8241.PNG
 

Luigi_M

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@benhour, you put me in serious trouble! :eek:
I've always been doing manual jobs - any job, not just shoe cleaning - without gloves, because I like to have the best feel possible of what I'm working on.
E.g., I wash dishes and cloths, french polish furniture (I'm just an amateur at this), make gardening etc, all bare handed.
Maybe it's because i had been wearing spectacles since I was six, so I had to rely on other senses (touch, smell ...) to supplement a quite weak sight.
Now I hear that an expert I highly respect uses gloves. That means to me that this is the proper way to do the thing. Ok, one's never too old to change habits! :cool2:
@Munky, you have by sure more experience than me on using GlenKaren products, so you already know that they respond well to frequent brushing, i.e., after the application and first two rounds of brush, even in the following days they get shinier every time you brush your shoes. I liked very much their High Shine Paste too, though I'm still experimenting at ther moment.
@Chowkin thanks for the heads up, but sorry for the news. Months ago, when I started reading this Thread from page 1, I liked very much the passion and dedication that the founder glenjay put on the research and creation of his new product and it's sad that he - or his daughter - haven't had the right reward for their effort.
Best wishes to them, anyway - and to the Thread. Luigi
 

PParker ESQ

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@benhour, you put me in serious trouble! :eek:
I've always been doing manual jobs - any job, not just shoe cleaning - without gloves, because I like to have the best feel possible of what I'm working on.
E.g., I wash dishes and cloths, french polish furniture (I'm just an amateur at this), make gardening etc, all bare handed.
Maybe it's because i had been wearing spectacles since I was six, so I had to rely on other senses (touch, smell ...) to supplement a quite weak sight.
Now I hear that an expert I highly respect uses gloves. That means to me that this is the proper way to do the thing. Ok, one's never too old to change habits! :cool2:
@Munky, you have by sure more experience than me on using GlenKaren products, so you already know that they respond well to frequent brushing, i.e., after the application and first two rounds of brush, even in the following days they get shinier every time you brush your shoes. I liked very much their High Shine Paste too, though I'm still experimenting at ther moment.
@Chowkin thanks for the heads up, but sorry for the news. Months ago, when I started reading this Thread from page 1, I liked very much the passion and dedication that the founder glenjay put on the research and creation of his new product and it's sad that he - or his daughter - haven't had the right reward for their effort.
Best wishes to them, anyway - and to the Thread. Luigi

I wouldn’t say that, what I mean is there is no “right” way in relation to this. Polishing technique is personal and if at the end of the day the results are what you require then it’s a job well done. I don’t see any benefit to using gloves vs not in the overall scheme of things. All it will save you from is perhaps, messy hands. So the real question is, does it bother you that much?


Personally I don’t use gloves, if I’m worried about getting polish on me I just double up the cloth a little more, or use a brush applicator if I don’t require a mirror shine.


Either protect yourself, or don’t and look at the dirt and think, “you know what, that’s the result of some damn good work”. Revel in it my man.
 

shrink1061

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Anything to be done about this?

View attachment 873946

This happened to me on a pair of my crocketts, and usually happens because the underlying leather gets either too wet, or loses its top layer of protection, and for every layer you try to add, you're just making it wetter, and rougher.

Lesson for me, was to leave it alone, brush excess cream and polish off, and let the shoe dry out completely.

Then a thin layer of pommadier to re-colour the toe, allowed to dry thoroughly before brushing to a dull shine. Then another coat of pommadier to bring further shine, but again, left for at least an hour to dry before buffing off.

Then I applied wax dry without water, and buffed off quickly. Moved on to a little wax and water, but only applied a small amount on one shoe, moved to the other while the first one dried out, and continued with small amounts of wax and water. The lesson to be learned is not to rush it, don't let the shoe get too wet, and don't use too much product at once!

result, the shoes were returned to their original shine:

rOYJSa6l.jpg
 

Michael81

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Very impressive. I ended up doing something similar after meeting with limited success using the @j ingevaldsson method. It worked reasonably well, although the result was not quite as good as yours.

Then again, C&J's leather is of a better quality than Yanko's, which probably makes restoration a little easier.
 

right_hook

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...Having serious chest problems...
There are two possible ways. The first is to stop using dangerous products. The second is to try to protect oneself from their influence.
After enjoying (or suffering, it may be a more appropriate word) the after effects of using renomat, acetone, white spirit, leather dye etc I bought myself respirator mask with organic vapors filter. You may want to think about this option. "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad...", you know :)
Regards,
Andrew.
 

Munky

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There are two possible ways. The first is to stop using dangerous products. The second is to try to protect oneself from their influence.
After enjoying (or suffering, it may be a more appropriate word) the after effects of using renomat, acetone, white spirit, leather dye etc I bought myself respirator mask with organic vapors filter. You may want to think about this option. "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad...", you know :)
Regards,
Andrew.

Thank you for this, Andrew. What you say sounds drastic but I think you are probably on the right track. Having dismissed Saphir as being too damaging to my mucus membranes and my chest, I stocked up with Collonil. While not so damaging, Collonil seems to be an irritant too. I think I may have plucked out of the air the idea that it was necessarily turpentine that was the offender - although there is plenty on the net to suggest that turpentine is an agitant. Perhaps other contents play their part. The only product that I 'know' doesn't give me problems is Renovateur, which is water based. But I can't manage my polishing routines based on this alone. :cloud:Best wishes, Munky.

PS Sorry, I missed the point about not using dangerous products. Do you have experience of any really benign products that might fill the gap? Thanks.
 

right_hook

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Thank you for this, Andrew. What you say sounds drastic but I think you are probably on the right track. Having dismissed Saphir as being too damaging to my mucus membranes and my chest, I stocked up with Collonil. While not so damaging, Collonil seems to be an irritant too. I think I may have plucked out of the air the idea that it was necessarily turpentine that was the offender - although there is plenty on the net to suggest that turpentine is an agitant. Perhaps other contents play their part. The only product that I 'know' doesn't give me problems is Renovateur, which is water based. But I can't manage my polishing routines based on this alone. :cloud:Best wishes, Munky.

PS Sorry, I missed the point about not using dangerous products. Do you have experience of any really benign products that might fill the gap? Thanks.

Yes, it might sound drustic, but in the end it's worth it. Especially when it's a question of health care. And we're not talking here about something overhelming like chemical defence suit :) It's just a face respirator mask. Little, comfortable and cheap device.
I referred to your difficulty finding an appropriate shoe care product. As I understand it, it turned out almost impossible to find safe options for you. In this, there is an obvious need to find "answers" and solutions to this problem elsewhere.

P.S. I'm not a native speaker, so I may use wrong terms and definitions, as well as incorrect grammatical constructions. I hope you understand me.
 

Munky

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Thank you very much, Mr Hook. You are right, health comes first. Thanks, also, for searching for some 'safe' products.

Do you know of any masks that would be suitable and readily available? Is there one, for example, that I could buy from Amazon? Thanks, again, Munky.
 

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