What happened to my nice leather shoes?

Hi,

I'm writing in with the hope that I can find out what happened to my rather new leather shoes --- and of course, how I can restore them?

I bought these shoes some months back, and within a couple of weeks of use I moved from the tropics to the cold winter of europe. A quick exposure to some of the snow and sludge, I suppose, but they developed a white discoloration as shown in the photos.

These shoes are new, and I'd much appreciate being able to get these stains off the shoes.

Also, I'm interested in learning what happens to the leather when the moisture changes, or pH changes. Could it be the salt in the water that they use on sidewalks? Links to forum posts would be nice.

Cheers,
Arjun

These white stains are mostly foreign salt residue that resurfaced during the wicking process.

The other white composition is most likely the fatty spew that has break bond with the protein fibers.

The pH of leather is between pH 3 to pH 5 and when the pH of contamination is above 7 it cationize the protein fiber below its iso-electric point shifting the pH of the protein fibers anionic.

Leather constituents like dyes, preservatives, tanning agents and fatliquors (anionic (-)) that make up leather are hydrogen bond with the protein fibers (cationic (+)).

When protein fibers shift from (+) to (-) it breaks bond with the other (-) chemistry in the leather structure (like poles repels).

And white stains is usually from fatliquor ( negative (-) breaking hydrogen bond with the negative (-) protein leather fibrils if there are no salt contamination).

The reason for leathers that stiffen up from wet to dry is the leather fibrils becomes stick together.

To rectify the stiffness is to hydrate so as to separate these stick together fibrils and introduce fatliquor to lubricate it prior to drying.

See what fatliquor from this link is to soften up leathers and suede.

http://www.leathercleaningrestoratio...ead.php?t=1772


Here is my recommended sequence of Suede/Nubuck Cleaning and Rejuvenating process.

Identification:
The reverse side of Suede (skin of smaller animal) is smooth leather.
The reverse side of Split-Suede (hides of larger animal usually bovine) is suede.
The reverse side of Nubuck is suede.
The nap of nubuck is the finest also known as “velvet suede”.
Split-Suede is coarser than suede.

Cleaning Procedure
Step 1] Removal of salt residue – use suede Brush-3 (fine brass) or nubuck Brush-2 (stiff nylon) to brush off the salt residue (suede brush on nubuck may cause scratches).

Step 2] Leather Eraser-4 and Nubuck Eraser-5 may be use to exfoliate to restore new nap.

Step 3] Clean soak with Cleaner-3.8 and rag extract.

Step 4] Acidify rinse soaks with Rinse-3.0 to stabilize leather chemistry integrity and extract until rag shows clean.

Step 5] Inspect if the suede/nubuck has a squeaky feel, otherwise acidify further with Acidifier-2.0.

Step 6] Rejuvenate the suede/nubuck with Fatliquor-5.0 (Hydrator-3.3 is an option when the stain areas shows stiffer than surrounding areas).

Step 7] When dry, remove wick up residue as step 1 and 2 and finished off with either Leather Scent-S for nubuck or Leather Scent-W for suede.


Products mention description can be found in this link:

http://www.leathercleaningrestoratio...read.php?t=360

Roger Koh
[email protected]