**The Official Shoe Care Thread: Tutorials, Photos, etc.**

[aj2603]

Good question. I’ve seen the brand mentioned and looked it up on Amazon.

I’ve been happy to buy expensive Saphir products to support my new shoe collection (mostly AE). All the shoeficionados on YouTube swear by it, and I want my shoes to last for decades. I shy away from other products.

However, not everyone has that kind of money. I’m helping a few friends learn how to care for their shoes, and not every shoe calls for Saphir, and let’s face it, not everyone will spend that money. But they still need products.

So maybe we should build a list of affordable products that get the job done. Products we know we can recommend.

Anyone want to start the list?

— 10EEE

I think this video is worth looking at.




Nick does a good job explaining a couple of popular conditioners and their price range...

He has done a couple of individual videos on conditioners as well

 

[CWV]

That video was what sparked my curiosity

 

[audog]

To me those soles don’t look very worn at all. I think another buyer would take those no problem.

They are not very worn, never been wet, just worn walking in nice weather, admit walking on concrete sidewalks. As I said, I think the guy was looking for a new pair at the extremely low price I am asking. And I'm only selling to free up shelf space for incoming boots/shoes.

 

[SprezzaBox Joey]

What are the essential shoe care items you all use? If you had to make a kit of 3-5 shoe care items, what would they be?

 

[Opethian]

What are the essential shoe care items you all use? If you had to make a kit of 3-5 shoe care items, what would they be?

Given that you keep your trees inside your shoes, I would essentially have the cream/lotion for conditioning the leather, polishing brush and some nice wax for shining the toebox

 

[nikolau]

Where can i get a job lot of shoe trees ?
I have 10 shoes that i have been stuffing with scrunched up newspaper as shoe trees. I can't spend £100's on a load of shoe trees at once so am looking for deals. Any ideas

I buy shoe trees in lots of 2-3 on Amazon, they’re made by a subsidiary of Allen Edmonds and can he had for under 15£ a set, and are of good quality.

 

[nikolau]

Given that you keep your trees inside your shoes, I would essentially have the cream/lotion for conditioning the leather, polishing brush and some nice wax for shining the toebox

Agreed.

 

[nikolau]

What are the essential shoe care items you all use? If you had to make a kit of 3-5 shoe care items, what would they be?

1) Three stiff horsehair brushes(one for cleaning, one for brown and burgundy/mahogany polish, one for black polish). I have them labeled (by etching “clean”, “black” and “brown” into the back) and don’t mind mixing browns and reds, some people do. They’re cheap on amazon.
2) Lexol original leather cleaner, saddle soap, or Saphir leather cleaning soap (I’m not scared to run my shoes under a faucet to get this stuff off because you don’t want to condition over it, and then let them dry on a shoe tree, sometimes slightly oversized tree, for as long as needed)
3) Saphir Renovateur
4) Bic 4 or Cobbler’s Choice leather conditioner (I like Cobbler’s Choice, but it darkens everything and Bic 4- for the most part- does not darken)
5) Shoe cream and/or wax polish to your taste (I I’d recommend Collonil 1909 Supreme, Allen Edmonds own products, or Saphir, but there are a lot of products that work). I use black and neutral mostly.

This list excludes shoe trees and cheap rags, which I hope you have/use.

 

[nevaeh]

Hi all! On one my Goodyear-welted shoes I noticed that the outsole is separating slightly from the welt, indicated by the blue arrow in the attached photo. The pair is original construction from the manufacturer and has not been recrafted. And the outsoles still have about 80 percent of their life left and this is happening, to varying degrees, on both the left and right shoes.

Does anyone know what can cause this? What can be done to fix this, aside from a full resole?

 

[Reiver]

What are the essential shoe care items you all use? If you had to make a kit of 3-5 shoe care items, what would they be?

1) Shoe trees
2) Horse hair brushes and I have boar for my grain leathers.
3) cloth for application
4) conditioner (Saphir Creme universelle)
5) coloured shoe cream and wax polish

I have various other bits but the items listed are most regularly used.

I also have cordovan cream for my shell shoes, use all natural boot oil on my red wings and use renovateur occasionally.

Renomat which I rarely use. Saddle soap for serious cleaning.

 

[JFWR]

Guys, I have a question that maybe you folks can help me with.

I have noticed that when using pommadier cream polish from Saphir, that I will often get a very blotchy result even after rigorous brushing/buffing. This happens with at least the burgundy and cognac creams (the black is harder to tell as I put it on black shoes), where I noticably see splotches. I had to actually more or less ruin a mirror shine as I noticed too late that my burgundy cap toes had a blotch underneath the wax layer from the pommadier.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

Should I EXCLUSIVELY use the pommadier only after removing ALL previous wax/cream on the shoe? Or am I somehow screwing it up somhow else? I have never seen this in any video about using pommadier cream such as by the Hanger Project or Elegant Oxford.

I also do not get this result whenever I use the Beaut de Cuir cream polishes from Saphir. I have applied the Beaut de Cuir polishes right on top of waxed shoes (including along mirror glosses on antiqued shoes that were losing some colour) that needed a bit of a pick me up, and the result was splendid, clean, and shiny, but the pommadier seems to leave these blotches that I thought might have been up to a bad batch of saphir, but now that I've used a different colour with the same icky results, I think I might be doing something wrong.

Notably, I don't get this with the pommadier cordovan cream on my cordovan shoes, but again, those are in black--but I've used the cordovan cream before on calfskin with no bad effect, even if it was wasteful. (Oops - I used the cordovan cream instead of the pommadier for calfskin!)

Would greatly appreciate some recommendations on this. I'd like to more effectively use my pommadier polish.

 

[JFWR]

Hi all! On one my Goodyear-welted shoes I noticed that the outsole is separating slightly from the welt, indicated by the blue arrow in the attached photo. The pair is original construction from the manufacturer and has not been recrafted. And the outsoles still have about 80 percent of their life left and this is happening, to varying degrees, on both the left and right shoes.

Does anyone know what can cause this? What can be done to fix this, aside from a full resole?

You could apply a shoe glue to the separation. Given that it is not a very serious separation, it probably will hold for quite a long time and until a recrafting is needed for the soles, which will be able to be removed by the manufacturer (or a skilled cobbler) without much fuss.

Generally, manufacturers replace the welt itself, too, so you wouldn't have to worry even if they had to undo the whole thing.

 

[Keith Taylor]

Hi all! On one my Goodyear-welted shoes I noticed that the outsole is separating slightly from the welt, indicated by the blue arrow in the attached photo. The pair is original construction from the manufacturer and has not been recrafted. And the outsoles still have about 80 percent of their life left and this is happening, to varying degrees, on both the left and right shoes.

Does anyone know what can cause this? What can be done to fix this, aside from a full resole?

I recommend Shoe Goo, $7.50 at Amazon. It has an incredibly thick tar-like consistency, and if you gently prise open the gap you should be able to get a decent coat in there to seal it up. As JFWR said it’s not a serious separation, but you don’t want water creeping in and swelling things that shouldn’t be swollen.

 

[mookjohnson]

Guys, I have a question that maybe you folks can help me with.

I have noticed that when using pommadier cream polish from Saphir, that I will often get a very blotchy result even after rigorous brushing/buffing. This happens with at least the burgundy and cognac creams (the black is harder to tell as I put it on black shoes), where I noticably see splotches. I had to actually more or less ruin a mirror shine as I noticed too late that my burgundy cap toes had a blotch underneath the wax layer from the pommadier.

Is there something I am doing wrong?

Should I EXCLUSIVELY use the pommadier only after removing ALL previous wax/cream on the shoe? Or am I somehow screwing it up somhow else? I have never seen this in any video about using pommadier cream such as by the Hanger Project or Elegant Oxford.

I also do not get this result whenever I use the Beaut de Cuir cream polishes from Saphir. I have applied the Beaut de Cuir polishes right on top of waxed shoes (including along mirror glosses on antiqued shoes that were losing some colour) that needed a bit of a pick me up, and the result was splendid, clean, and shiny, but the pommadier seems to leave these blotches that I thought might have been up to a bad batch of saphir, but now that I've used a different colour with the same icky results, I think I might be doing something wrong.

Notably, I don't get this with the pommadier cordovan cream on my cordovan shoes, but again, those are in black--but I've used the cordovan cream before on calfskin with no bad effect, even if it was wasteful. (Oops - I used the cordovan cream instead of the pommadier for calfskin!)

Would greatly appreciate some recommendations on this. I'd like to more effectively use my pommadier polish.

I can think of 2 possibilities. Pommadier is very heavy and needs good leather to absorb. And even then it requires removal of excess with a cloth after brushing. I have a pair of shoes that just couldn't absorb the pommadier, so for those I use Beaut de Cuir, which is less "greasy." Try wiping the shoes down vigorously with a clean cloth and see if lots of color is removed. If so, you are either using way too much pommadier or your shoes just can't absorb it.

 

[emidyl]

aside from trees and if only 3 things:
-3 brushes light to black
-renovateur
-neutral wax

but thats unrealistic knowing the lot of you, myself included. Saphir up the wazoo in my kit.