Lesson learned on how to care for leather brogues!

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I have accidentally ruined a pair of my favourite brogues by over caring for them! I have polished them regularly with a tan polish, good quality, proper wax stuff with a good polishing technique. But over the years this has coloured the embedded pattern on the leather which is the primary feature I loved on them. So much so, that I have now bought a replacement pair, and will only ever use a 'neutral' polish on them! On my original brogues, a pair of Loakes 641T, I have tried using a Q Tip with all sorts on it (various solvents) to remove the 'colour', but all to no avail.

Just thought I would post here in case anyone else wants to maintain that nice brogue contrast of the contrasting hole colour against the tan upper!

loake comparison caption.jpg
 
Will probably keep them as they are now for second best, and will maintain my new ones with clear polish. If I wasn't this fussy, none of this would matter LOL

Fussy ? You must surely mean, discriminating, as in, "A man of the most excellent taste and discrimination. ". Speaking as one who polishes the insteps of shoes and treats the welts and sole edges as needed.

Johnny "Shiny boots ... Shiny mind" O. o/.
 
OK, I'll go with discriminating! :)

 
I may of course be missing the point here, but there are substances on the market that will restore shoes to their natural colour so that they may then be re-built up. I would perhaps sugest that you start to look at Saphir Medaille d'Or or similar range. You could then remove all of the old wax polish and then start to re-build with the same range of shoe cream, with a finish of wax if required. The same process could be applied to the brogue (holes) in respect of removing the wax polishes, with pergaps a small terminal flat head screwdriver covered with cloth or similar. It would obviously take some time and you would need to take care, but I'm sure you could sucessfully restore the shoe to however you would like it to look.
 
I actually popped the shoes into my regular cobbler (who makes shoes as well), and he advised that they could not really be successfully rescued. You can go from light to dark, but not the other way round. The dye in the polish has permeated the 'holes' so the only way would be to re colour them 'dark'. Like I said, I now have a replacement pair which will never have colour applied to them. My original pair are nice & shiny, well protected from the elements, and for most, would be just fine LOL
 
Normally, between polishings (after 2 or 3 usually), I use a cream that will clean and remove wax/polish:

.creme-essentielle-grison-150ml_m.jpg

You should try it (this one or the Saphir equivalent), and as aforementioned, apply superficially some darker Saphir cream in the holes. The solution might be a combination of cleaning, applying darker tone cream, cleaning again, then applying the matching tone Saphir cream, until obtaining the desired result.
 
It happens but I can't say it bothers me - my shoes take new character as they are worn. I only use neutral polish on most shoes but the 'holes' or brogues (the term for a hole in leather, in my part of the world anyway) have lightenened on my Otterburns which are now nearly seven years old. I'm just not bothered and still love the shoes. I do like those brogues of yours @StephenShave.
 
Same here; I have some Edward Greens, probably 18 years old, have now gone a deep chestnut colour, have been re-soled once; beatiful shoes (model Falkirk; I'm not Scottish; just liked the brogue design) and agree with Gairdner; Stephenshave, you have two fine pairs of brogues there!
 
Hello Rob, I have used the time and tested Sharpie on the backs of some Cheaney slippers and it is very effective, but if StephenShave would like a real renovation product, perhaps the renovation solution by Saphire or another may be the best way to proceed.
 
Hello Rob, I have used the time and tested Sharpie on the backs of some Cheaney slippers and it is very effective, but if StephenShave would like a real renovation product, perhaps the renovation solution by Saphire or another may be the best way to proceed.

Oh, absolutely, I agree, which is why I said if all else fails. But I was being mostly flippant, tbh...
 
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