Calf Skin: Leather Shoe Care Tips & Techniques

Series Summary

Our feet do an amazing amount of work. It is estimated that each foot carries several tons of weight over the course of a day; multiply that number over a lifetime and imagine just how much our feet do for us. Yet, often we find that our shoes don’t look or feel special… that we don’t care for them, as important as they are. We tend to expect our poor footwear to do its job consistently and quietly. We often neglect to give our shoes some much needed TLC from time to time.

In this free shoe care video series, learn how to care for your footwear and your feet. Our shoe experts will give you tips on how to buff and shine leather calf skin shoes, protect walking shoes from stains, revitalize your old boat shoes, and clean your well-worn Birkenstocks. Also learn about important shoe care products, like polishes and brushes. Finally, discover how to use arch supports and insoles to help your shoes hold your feet in place and give them extra cushioning. Make walking fun again: take care of your shoes.

Video Transcript

" Hi! I'm Bob D'amicantonio and I'm here with my brother Lou and on behalf of Expert Village, we want to talk a little bit tonight about shoe care. Shoes are an expensive investment today and we want to make sure you have the right product for the right shoe. Lou, you want to explain a little bit about this nice calf skin loafer? You spend a lot of money on your investment on a nice pair of calf skin shoes. Now you want to really think about taking care of them. The best thing you could invest in right off the back is a good pair of wooden does trees. Good wooden shoe tree will keep the shape of the shoe and above all, will draw perspiration left behind and that consequently saves the inside of the lining. Next you will want to polish your shoes. Here we have a real soft calf skin; which for soft calf skin leathers you want to use a nice soft shoe cream. Here we have one that matches exactly. Basically all you have to do is get an applicator, take a little bit of polish; a little bit goes a long way, scrub all over your shoe and by the time you get done, reach for your horse hair polishing brush, just give it a little elbow grease, it won't take much and you will be amazed how well it will look again. The polish is not only going to make it look good but that is actually going to help repel stains. So it is something you really want to do and do often. This is a calf skin shoe also but is a little bit heavier leather and heavier leathers require a little bit different polish and on that we recommend paste polish. It will bring up a little harder shine and a little more protection. This is an excellent polish for a good quality shoe and we also have an edge dressing which you can run right around the edge and really make your shoes sparkle and make them look good. Next we have a beautiful suede shoe and suedes are very delicate and we do recommend spraying them right out of the box. A couple of light coats will go a long way to prevent salt stains and other spotting. Just a good thing to do from time to time is to brush your suede shoe with a suede brush. There are different ones; a wire, a nylon and even kind of a rubber one. It kind of depends on the type of suede as to what brush you want to use. Your more delicate suedes you want to go with a softer bristle. Your rougher suedes you may want to go with the wire brush. Here's a real nice two time shoe and a deer skin leather. Here we have a unique shoe in such that it is two different colors. It is a little more time consuming but you can take your time and do the blacks separate and the browns separate where you can just reach for something clear like we have here that is called delicate cream being that this is a deer skin leather and with the delicate cream you can rub it over both colors because it is clear and just it apply with a rag or again a dobber and get yourself a polishing brush and soft cloth and buff it up to a shine. With the holidays fast approaching, everybody is going to pulling out their patent leather shoes out of the closet and probably find a little bit of dust on them and a little bit of scuffs or what have you, but this is an excellent patent leather cleaner. It's an aerosol, shake it up, spray a little bit on the shoe and it will foam up. Get a soft cloth or even an old T-shirt, wipe them up and they will sparkle and you will be ready for New Year's Eve. "