Polishing Product Video Overview

Leather Shoe Cleaning – Conditioning – Polishing Product Video Overview – Real Men Real Style Q&A

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Hi. This is Antonio Centeno with Real Men Real Style. And today I’m going to be answering a question from a reader. He came back and he asked, “I recently invested in a pair of Allen-Edmonds, and I couldn’t be more pleased. To keep them looking fantastic, I’m wondering about shoe care products. Do you recommend any particular brand of condition and polish and perhaps any other kind of tools I’ll be needing? I’m fairly sure I want a cream versus a polish wax. I know Allen-Edmonds themselves sell these products, but I’m unsure as to where I can get them and how I should be using it.”

All right. So I’m quickly going to go over a general overview of how to take care of your shoes. I’m not going to be showing you exactly, you know, how to shine them and everything. That could go on for – spend quite a bit of time doing this. And so, this is a general – because I find there are lot of confusions between what is a, you know, why use saddle soap or why use a conditioner or what’s between a polish and a wax. So, again, quick overview, let me go ahead and – first thing, we’ve got a couple of tools in the tray.

This small brush right here, when you’ve seen this, this used for putting on a polish. And I’d like to have multiple brushes like this because I find that, you know, they – it’s hard to clean them and it’s actually cheaper and I think easier just to have multiple brushes. What you don’t want to do is mix up darker cleaners or darker polishes with lighter polishes. And that’s why I like having multiple brushes like this. A brush like this can be used to polish or can be used to clean. This is made from horse hair and it’s a bristle that isn’t going to be really abrasive on a shoe but it’s going to be abrasive after we remove the dirt.

The key is you want to have two of this. You want to have one that you use to polish or shine and then one that you use to clean. And the reason you want the difference – and I like them actually when you’re having different sizes. Mark Onen who wants a cleaning brush, he wants a polishing brush. The reason being one of them is going to collect dirty, the other one is going to collect polish, and you don’t want to mix the two. You don’t want to be rubbing small bits of sand into your shoe. That’s going to actually damage the leather overtime and it’s not something you want. Another great thing polishing tool is a polishing mitten. This is specifically made for polishing shoes. I love – whenever I travel to hotels, I always get this for free and I pick them up. But if you don’t have a mitten, simply an old shirt or something made from cotton or really a nap cloth is what you want something that’s going to absorb a little bit of polish or moisture and be able to get a really nice shine on your shoes.

Okay. So those are the tools. Now, let’s get into the polishes or – and the cleaners and the conditioners. First, cleaner that you’ll see out there are the ones that, you know, gets a lot of air play is saddle soap. And this is by Fibbing’s or – I like butchering that name. I like that they’re made here in Wisconsin. And I’ll have a link to them down below. Now, saddle soap and what its use. Saddle soap is a cleaner. Notice the word soap is in there. So, you should be able to use, you know, you can use a mitt like this or just – I would use just, you know, a piece of an old rag or a t-shirt and you can actually get it in leather. And then you’re going to use that to clean the shoes. It’s not a conditioner. It’s not a polish. Saddle soap is soap. And it is used on, you know, tougher leathers usually. You’ll see, you know, saddle soap used on saddles, used for, you know, really cleaning up a lot of dirt ground. And that’s what you want to use saddle soap for. So if you’ve got a pair of shoes that you haven’t cleaned for a long time and they perhaps got a waxing build up for a multiple layers of polish, that’s when you want the saddle soap.

You don’t have to use saddle soap every time you clean your shoes. And in fact, it just give me an idea, on a shoe – pair of shoes that I wear, let’s say 20 to 50 times a year, I will maybe use saddle soap on them one time a year. And I do that whenever I want to go with a deep cleaning. But if you’re going to start with anything and you need to do a deep cleaning, saddle soap is a way to go.

There are also all-purpose cleaners and conditioners. So this is a combination of a cleaner and a conditioner just like it says. The difference between, you know, something like this. Actually, I want to bring the soap made by melatonin. The difference is the cleaner conditioner is actually going to be putting a bit of moisture back into the shoe. It’s not going to be as good as saddle soap when it comes to cleaning, but it’s more – it’s gentler and it’s something that I would recommend for more normal use if you’re going to be – you know, this is something that I know you could use it pretty much maybe every fourth or fifth time that you’re cleaning and polishing your shoes. This should be one of the first things that you apply. It’s going to nourish the leather a bit and it’s going to go in and moisturize.

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So leather – it’s skin and it needs to be moisturized because what happens, it’s basically number of these fibers and they’re all – okay, so you can imagine a protein-based fibers, they go over like this. And that’s what makes leathers so tough. And these fibers been – but overtime, kind of like your skin, think about putting a – you know, a lotion on your skin during the winter months. I know my skin gets cracked. That same thing happens to your leather. Whenever the moister leaves, that’s when you can damage and destroy the leather and that’s why conditioners are so important.

And in fact, if you use saddle soaps, you have to use a conditioner afterwards because that soap is going to dry out a little bit. It’s not as abrasive or hard as detergents or any of these other soaps that we use on our clothing, but saddle soap does pull a little bit of moisture out. And so, you want to be using a conditioner. I recommend – again, this melatonin all-purpose cleaner is something I would recommend probably more than the saddle soap because for most men, you’re not clogging through, unless you’re wearing, you know, boots that you’re going out and going through mud. I mean, you don’t have a lot to clean.

Now, there are specific conditioners. And this is leather, honey. This is a product that’s fairly new, although actually it’s been around for 30 years, but I’ve spoken with the – it’s a family-owned business. I really like their product as of the viscosity of the liquid. I mean, it’s really thick. It almost looks like – it’s clearer but it almost adds viscosity of motor oil. I really like it though because it goes in and it penetrates. It’s also waterproof. It does a great job conditioning. And how do I know this, because it slightly does change the color of the leather. This isn’t’ happening with all conditioners, but I really like how this goes in there, and you can just see it penetrate. It’s thicker. It goes on really well. But this is not so much a cleaner as a conditioner. Although they’ll probably say that you can use it as a cleaner as well, I’d like to think a leather, honey, more than the conditioner. The difference between melatonin and leather, honey, I’ll talk about later.

But let’s talk quickly about mink oil. You hear this thrown around. Now, mink oil is for, I think, tougher leathers. I don’t recommend it for shoes. And the reason being is that it normally does change or darken a leather. And any of these products I’m talking about, you make sure to test them. I mean, you need to always test. Don’t go by what they say. I mean, good luck trying to get, you know – they end up darkening your shoes and in your mind ruining them trying to get money back from one of these companies. They’ve got lawyers which protect them and they’re very clear. Always test a small part of your shoes. So take your shoe or you put a little bit on the tong where no one is going to see it, and make sure that it has the effect you expect to have.

So we’ve cleaned the shoe, we’ve conditioned the leather, the next part would actually be polishing the shoe. But before we get to polishing, there are these things called creams. And this is Cole Haan shoe cream. I’ve also got melatonin. It makes a great neutral cream, which I love because in this neutral cream, you can use a wide variety, you can use it on black, you can use it on browns. It doesn’t really matter what color your shoes are. Although another reason I love melatonin products is they’ve got a wide variety of colors. So, you can actually get a brown cream or a black cream or walnut cream or – all these other variations of the colors.

The difference between creams and – creams are kind of like a hybrid. They’re not a polish but they’re also not a conditioner. They are a little bit of both. So, you can match it – they’re conditioner that has polish in them. And they do provide some conditioning, but they’re – like any hybrid, it never, in my opinion, does the best of both. But I like creams because if you’re travelling and then you only want one thing, use a cream. This is if you’re travelling to an airport, usually this is what the guy there is using because he only wants you there for five minutes. He does a good solid cleaning of your shoes in which, you know, you go from cleaning to polish. It’s usually going to take you anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. By simply using a cream, you cut that down to a couple of minutes.

Now, the cream, you’re never really going to get is good of shine as you never going to condition the leather as well. But if you’re going to – if you’re lazy, if you want one thing that you’re going to use on your shoes, I recommend the cream. And that’s simply because, you know, it does do both. And for most men, we’re not out wearing out shoes in an extreme weather. And the cream will take care of your shoes for a long time, although it does not replace a wax with shoe polish – shoe polish wax. This is the last thing that you’d be putting on a layer.

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And this is not meant to condition. This sets on the outside of the shoes and it forms a waxy layer which gets you that super shine, if that’s what you’re looking for. Now, I don’t recommend this for something like western boots. And the reason being western boots, they have leather that’s really soft and is meant the sole over in multiple spots. But for most men’s dress shoes, like the Allen-Edmonds we’ve talked about, if you want to get a really nice shine, using something like the mitt, you’re going to be putting on layers of wax. And those layers of wax are going to form a film, and that film is what gives you the really sharp shine. In addition, think about it, you’re forming a layer of wax, wax repels water, so you’re getting – you’re putting out a layer of protection. The thing is that once that layer is gone, you need to reapply it. So wax needs to be reapplied pretty much after every time you wear your shoes.

And even the wax, they’ll probably – and that’s why you get buildups because you apply it on so much. But wax is pretty much – there has to be a seal. There has to be that layer. And anywhere that you don’t have that seal, obviously the wax cannot protect. And that’s one of the things like, you know, water and stain protector, you know, again, this one is made by melatonin where these things come in really handy because you can spray them on areas of shoes, especially if you’re going to be in increment weather, you know. When you’re in Seattle, let’s say and you know you’re going to be walking through paddles, you’re not wearing a pair of glosses, you know, this is where – this is going to become really useful because it’s going to really be above that layer.

You’ll see a few other products out there. And I’ll talk briefly, this one is made by Torego, and this is an instant shine. You’ll see a lot of – I know a lot of coddlers use this. This comes out in Spain. So, harder to find off the rack. I’ll try to find a link to it. But this is something where you can apply it on to the shoe and it gives an instant shine, no buffing required. So, that’s a little time-saving. You’ll see that a lot of guys are doing shoe polishing for a living or working with shoes. They’ll use this. It’s a quick shortcut. It’s a good product, but it never provides the same level that you get from using all of these products together.

Well, that is an overview of shoe products. And I’m going to get…

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