Hello all,

I recently bought my first pair of decent leather shoes and am having problems with general care. There's so much varying information to be found so I decided I'd find a forum and post so that hopefully someone could help me.

Here's a breakdown: I bought these shoes, then took them to what seemed to be a high end shoe store to ask about how to take care of them. The guy sold me cedar shoetrees, a "traditional dressing for waxy leathers" which is a white cream, a decent cloth to apply the cream, and a general spray to protect them. When I asked about shoe polish, he said that it was a waxy leather and the the cream was all that was needed, and showed me how when he ran his finger on the inside of the shoe, the outside changed to a lighter color. Thus, he said, demonstrating that it is a waxy leather.

So I applied the cream and spray and they were looking pretty good at this point. I then wore them when I went out on New Year's Eve and in the morning noticed a few stains on them from the night. So I used water and a sponge and washed the spots out. Which from what I've been seeing was probably the first mistake, since there seems to be cleaners that one should use instead. Well, that left some unpolished looking smudges which I then proceeded to apply the cream to, thinking it would return to its original state. But instead it just looked worse. After that, I used the sponge and water again and a bit of hand soap to go over the front, because I figured maybe I just didn't clean them very well. Well now the entire shiny coat is gone and it looks rather terrible.

I took them to a shoemaker today, and he tried applying a wax, then a brown polish of some kind, but neither did a thing. He just proceeded to tell me that there was nothing else he could do. But from what I've heard leather is pretty strong and I can't imagine something like soap and water permanently ruining the shoes.


So right now, I have that cream and some clear leather dressing/wax - the stuff the guy put on at the store today.

Here are pics: http://imgur.com/gCZEZz6&OqQTlMT&EDS...SLGX&2zUALRp#0

First three are before the incident showing before and after I first applied the cream. Second three are after the incident after washing the shoe again and applying the wax, hoping it would fix the situation. I left a part of the shoe below the tongue untouched after washing, so you could see what it looks like with nothing applied.



Please let me know what I've done wrong, what I need to do to fix this, and anything else that's glaringly obvious that I need to learn about basic leather shoe care based on this story and the pics. I would greatly appreciate any help I could get as I am living abroad right now in a small town where I don't speak the language well enough to tell the situation as detailed as I have here.

Best regards,

Matt