I plan to spit shine my shoes. I won’t use actual spit but rather water.
From what I understand, shoe polish plugs holes in the polished surface so that light is reflected, which results in a shine.
If it’s very well polished, one should expect the surface to be nearly waterproof. If it’s waterproof, won’t it be less breathable? If I apply shoe conditioner to the surface of a very well polished shoe, will the conditioner make it to the leather or just stay on the surface, blocked by the polish?
I only know the answer to the last question. From my experience with other types of leather, you clean it, then condition it, then polish it. You wouldn’t ever try and condition it if it were freshly polished.
My “Parade Gloss” style shoe polish specifies sprinkling water in between buffs. So it obviously isn’t wrong for that style of polish. That type of high gloss finish isn’t the greatest for leather though. The “cream” style polishes don’t say to use water. They don’t buff up as bright.
As Kalypso states, conditioners are not well absorbed through polish. You should clean with saddle soap, then condition, then polish.
What I do once a month is clean it by brushing it and perhaps using some water if the brush is unsufficient, then apply conditioner, wait for a few hours and then apply a little polish. Is this bad for the leather?
If I clean it with saddle soap, is all the polish gone? What I often do when getting new shoes is polish them a lot and then only add a little polish monthly.
Waterproof does not necessarily mean less breathable, if you mean the effectiveness of moisture (i.e., sweat) escaping the shoe. Vapor can get through much smaller pores than liquid can. But clogging the pores (whether with products or simply dirt) can presumably create a vapor lock significantly reducing breathability. I’d recommend cleaning with mild leather soap and conditioning to enhance breathability and water repellency.
You realize that once you do this, it requires maintenance to keep it that way, right? That polish will crack and peel whereever your foot bends, and you’ll need to do upkeep. Spit polish ::shudder:: bad memories of boot camp.
This is true. It would be a lot less work if you limit the spit shining to the toe cap and heel counter where the shoe does not flex.
The last time I spit shined those shoes, I only did the toe cap.
Now, I did a spit shine all over the shoes. I will not try to keep the bendy parts spit shined as that would require far too much time. I noticed that parts which were once spit shined can often simply be brushed, without polishing them, and they look nearly as good as if they were freshly spit shined.
As I stated above, I use conditioner monthly, but I worry about leather drying out because the conditioner can’t get to it through the polish.
I could use saddle soap but then I’d be starting from scratch, polish-wise.
Does the conditioner even make it through the leather’s finish at all anyway?
I mean, what the shoe makers effectively do is sand the leather smooth, then paint it (or something) to give it that smooth, black (or whatever color) finish. Then, we just basically put polish on that to smooth it out further and mask any scratches and scuffs.
I’m not at all convinced, based on my experience, that much really makes it through that finish in the short time that they’re typically on the shoes, be it leather conditioner, shoe polish etc…
On the rare occasions when I get around to cleaning and conditioning my much-abused riding boots, my socks get kind of funky the next ride from the excess conditioner that goes all the way through. Of course, I haven’t polished them in more than a year. I use liquid saddle soap and Leather Therapy conditioner.