Damn! Ruined another pair. The most expensive shoes I’ve bought yet, and clearly the best looking (and surprisingly comfortable). Ruined, because I failed to look at a weather report and happen to work in an area where the sidewalks are not just salted, but salt encrusted like some fancy French dish.
In my experience, once salt gets on leather shoes, there is no removing it. No amount of rubbing, wiping, and polishing will fix it. It always shows through.
Does anyone here know of a good method where I can restore my shoes back to their original luster and get rid of the salt stains for good?
Sorry. The part that got marked is permanently darker.
If you feel they are already ruined you can take the nuclear option and soak the entire upper in water to even out the stain (remove the laces first). Wear them dry, and then apply loads and loads of saddlery conditioner such as Hydrophane, Lexol ph, or even Horseman’s One-step, repeating the conditioner daily for about a week or until the conditioner stops soaking in overnight. Don’t use neatsfoot oil; it’s acidic and will damage stitching.
A cobbler or dry cleaner could have salt stain remover. You press the bottle on the salt stains, wait for the cleaner to evaporate. Then if the stains are still there, you reapply it.
This will dry the affected surface even more. So use conditioner. Let the conditioner dry for a few hours and polish the shoes.
I got salt on my (burgundy) A&E, (black) Rockport and (black) Florhseim and you’d be hard pressed to tell me where the stains were.
When taking care of salt stains, I think time matters a lot so you may want to do this quickly.
I was picturing brown shoes with a water/salt stain; but I don’t think it makes much difference if you already cleaned the surface with saddle soap and were unable to remove the discoloration. The salt traveled into the leather via the water and embedded itself.
Yes, the leather will contract as it dries; you want to be wearing them so they contract around your foot and still fit (the good news is, at the end they will be essentially custom fit).
Since they are black you also have the non nuclear option: Clean the surface well and polish the hell out of them. You’re just covering up the mark of course and it will not have the original lustrous sheen of quality leather. Use Meltonian/cream polish for a more matte finish; Kiwi/wax polish for a reflective finish.
On the leather contacting: If you use shoe trees of the right size (which you should, if they’re nice leather shoes), that shouldn’t be that much of a problem.
Years ago, in my early days in the Cdn navy, I had the same thing happen, and really badly. What I had to do was fill the shoes with water and let the water force the salt out over a few days. Once they dried I was able to remove the salt (probably with a damp cloth or something - this was a long time ago) and was able to polish them back to an acceptable level. The only leftover affect was the leather was very slightly raised where the salt was but it was not noticeable unless you looked for it.
I tried the intuitive stuff first until I realized that the salt had to be forced out. What were supposed to be black leather shoes had significant coverage of white salt which was in the leather as well as on the surface, hence my methodology.
That is the reason I suggested something similar only if you already consider the shoes ruined and unwearable. There’s no loss then if it goes horribly awry.
USE WHITE VINEGAR. Seriously. We use it in the shop all the time, have a gallon jug on standby. Apply vinegar to cloth, apply cloth to leather/suede. Gently wipe until salt is gone.
Condition (if leather)
Let dry thoroughly
5a) polish leather
5b) brush suede
Is it going to work 100% of the time? No, especially on suede. However, it does work remarkably well, remarkably often.
If color is still affected you can (for leather) use a colored cream polish. Massage it into the leather and allow to dry to a dull finish, then buff/polish.
For suede, the only solution would be to over dye the suede. For that you probably do want to consult a professional. It’s not that you can’t do it on your own, you can, but the results might vary considerably.
