A Complete Dye TRANSFORMATION: Natural Crust Leather & Sole Dye Patina Tutorial-Carlos Santos

welcome to the elegant oxford we specialize and offer premium shoe shines dyes and artisan patinas for quality men's brands and help others to learn the art of shoe shining visit the elegantoxford.com for all of your shoe care and saphir madaya door needs hey everybody welcome back in today's video i'm going to be dying the pair of shoes that was given to the winner of the 150 000 subscriber giveaway now this video is going to be a little bit more relaxed i'm not reading from a script like i usually do i'm just going to be narrating this um in real time so the shoes are natural crust leather meaning that they haven't been dyed they're not white they're they're natural so that the leather just is just looks white but i'm going to be using burgundy because that's what the winner wanted the winner is going to give the shoes to her brother and he wants a burgundy shade with some black burnishing so i'm really going to be diluting at first this purplish burgundyish color now as you can see right here it was a little bit too dark still so that i didn't want it that dark so i had to come back and dilute the solution even more and you can use rubbing alcohol to continue to dilute dye now as you can see here you can see the reddish tint and then it goes gray which is what i want so it's so diluted that you're just seeing the rubbing alcohol going into the leather so it just looks wet but as it dries you're going to notice that purplish pinkish hue and it's going to start coming in but that's what i want i'd rather build layers up slowly than have to you know try to remove something that's too dark that's really hard especially on natural crust now if you haven't already please make sure to like and subscribe my appears only eighty percent of you are watching my videos but you're not subscribing so if you if you enjoy these videos please make sure to subscribe and to support my channel it really just helps me to continue to make videos so at this point i'm just adding more layers and it's really important just to be patient i think one of the biggest mistakes people make when they're dying shoes is that they get scared they add a layer and it doesn't look perfect so they start to panic they try to remove they try to add just be patient let it dry and then you can get an accurate picture of what it's going to look like when it's done use a hair dryer or a heat gun to speed things up just be warned if you're going to use a heat gun be really really careful heat guns get extremely hot upwards from the 800 degrees to the thousand degree they can strip and burn right through a shoe so be very very cautious and here i'm adding another layer just to darken it so this is really just about being patient and to just make sure that nothing is rushed and especially when it's a client's shoe or the shoe is going to somebody i want it to look as best as they can so i'm just adding this darker layer first kind of like a base and then i'm going to continue on and add more color again a special thanks to herring shoes for you know partnering up with me for this giveaway they provided these natural crust leather shoes by carlos santos from their portuguese company i think they make fantastic shoes they're goodyear welted um so herring you know uh was really gracious to provide these these shoes for the giveaway so right here i'm just darkening uh the shoe a little bit more and as you can see this is what they look like when they're dry they're still kind of light they have that purplish shade but i'm going to be i'm going to keep adding layers so what i found was that the shoe would look really dark it would dry and then it looked way lighter than i thought which is a good thing i kept going back and forth and every time i would add a layer i would add a drop or two of dye just to darken the solution so that every time i'd go back it would look better now under false light it looked purple but you know in natural light under the sun they looked a lot more burgundy than i thought which is a really good thing i didn't want a purple shade i wanted a burgundy shade so here they are under artificial light and they look really purple so don't be tricked make sure to look at shoes under different lights just to get an accurate picture of what they're going to look like this is really an art thing i mean i'm not saying i'm an artist at all but it's really it just takes that kind of like that artistic eye so at this point i was adding i decided to add red by saphir so it's an alcohol-based dye it's really it's actually just red and i diluted the solution with rubbing alcohol again but what i wanted was a base that's darker and then red on top and it actually would when you do that it leads to this really cool effect where the shoe looks really red but under you can see streaks of dark burgundy kind of gives it a deep and complex look and that's just exactly what i was looking for so i wanted burgundy but i wanted it to look cool and i wanted to look you know different than than the norm so that was kind of something i tried it was a new strategy i've never done it before but it turned turned out really well so i'm happy with how it looks so here it is um as you can see there's just you know some lines here and there it looks like a streaking a dark streaking look i mean if it was brown it'd look a lot like wood but you know it looks kind of like mahogany i just really like the look and it was it was exactly what i wanted and it worked now you can add burnishing using a brush or a sponge or your fingers but i found that an airbrush really helps me personally now i've got a lot of messages i think the misconception is that an airbrush makes everything really really easy but in fact i found that the airbrush requires a lot of skill and a lot of finesse so if you're not super super precise the airbrush can mess things up and i also found that the dye from an airbrush it gets sprayed on but it may not go directly into the leather it might just sit on the surface and that's not good because when you begin to shine the the let the dye just basically disappear so make sure you know which tools to use and remember these are just tools one isn't objectively better than the other and they serve different purposes so for me for this job the airbrush really helped for this burnishing effect it just lets the burnish look really even and it doesn't look streaky or anything like that but just to make sure that you practice with brushes with sponges with your fingers you never know what job will require which tool so use the proper tools don't let the tools use you i know there are some patina artists who think the airbrush is not an appropriate tool but you know the airbrush is a tool that normal painters use on the canvas now so you'd be foolish to disregard the airbrush off you know because you believe somehow you have this misplaced idea that it's not a real artistic tool when it absolutely is and you can use it in different ways so that that's the final result here the burnishing i think looks exactly how i want it to look not too dark but i want it to be there for sure now it's time for the shine and i want to use the most gentle cleaner i have so i used saphir napa cleaner it's a water-based conditioner it's it's very very gentle and it's used for exotics so it really doesn't shine very well but i'm using it i'm using a lot of it just to get that leather hydrated because i know it's just been sitting there for a long time so if you ever have a shoe you're just not sure about use napa leather conditioner it is really really really gentle it doesn't shine as well as run of a tour but it's you know it's a lot safer in case you're not sure what's going to happen so it was a really good idea just use that napa conditioner and just to apply it to apply a lot of it all over the shoe and then i went switched over to hermes red which is probably my my favorite cream polish of all time it's just really really deep deep blood red almost and i made sure to apply black where it needed to be applied just to kind of add some depth to the burnishing you don't have to do this part but i really found that it helps now i recommend using your fingers just so you have precise application just really helps me now when i start brushing you'll see a shine start to develop pretty quickly and that's what i love about the square mdo jars by saphir they contain really high amounts of pigment and they shine really really nice just with brushing so it's really going to help the shoe look really great before i move on to the mirror shine now i have various tutorials explaining how to do a mirror shine but you do need wax polish in a tin that is absolutely necessary i'm going to start off by adding multiple sequential layers with my fingers you really have to build up that wax and there are many methods to doing a mirror shine so this is not the only one but i found it's absolutely the fastest and you'll see in a moment that i produce a shine in under a minute once i start to buff so add layers of wax one or two around the whole shoe but make sure to add you know 10 to 15 to 20 on the toe area just keep going back and forth let it dry and then add another layer keep going and going and going you really want to build a really strong base or i just found the shine just takes a lot longer so keep adding layers i know it can seem annoying you might question and be like wait is this too much it's not keep going keep going keep adding layers and you know you don't have to wait long between layers add a layer wait 5-10 seconds add another one and just keep going and then once you've added the layers you feel are necessary let it dry for a minute before you start buffing now when it comes to starting the actual mirror shine water mixed with rubbing alcohol is probably my secret weapon it's the most essential thing i use for the mirror shine and then just some normal room temperature or cold water it really doesn't matter and a good shine chamois is probably another really important part of the mirror shine i just use cotton that's been cut up from a shirt or whatever and i use the rubbing the water with rubbing alcohol and i put it on the on the chamois and then i start to buff back and forth and the rubbing alcohol melts the wax and it begins the process of the shine so i add you know a little bit i buff and then i start going back and forth a little bit of wax and buffing and then water there i add a drop or two and i start to buff again then i go back to the wax the water and i repeat the process back and forth back and forth but as you can see it's only been you know 30 seconds and already you can see a shine starting to develop so if you keep going for you know if you really want a glass like finish you can do it for an hour but i found that the best thing to do is to make it really really shiny and then you'll find that there's a point where it won't get any shinier that's when you stop shining you come back the next day and then you keep building layers once the wax has had time to settle and you can keep building and building and building and building and you can get an incredibly shiny finish just doing that remember i also sell everything you're seeing me use in this video so if you want to buy some saphir wax or cream polish or napa conditioner visit the elegantoxford.com and support the channel i know that really really helps me so i would appreciate if you could watch the videos and then if you ever need wax to consider the elegant oxford it just really helps so you can see there that's it it looks really shiny and now i'm going to be adding a special detail and that is i'm going to be uh adding some dye to the sole now this is purely cosmetic as soon as the person starts walking it it gets ruined but it's kind of just a fun touch that i like to add on some pairs now i'm going to be using red as the base and you don't have to really prepare the sole or anything like that it's just ready to go add a base layer of red and that's gonna you know help once i start using the acetone to really give this space starry cloudy look with different colors so make sure to use a good bright color as the base first okay now in time for a little bit of color you can see my sandal my slipper there in the background it's a jack skellington slipper you can just see it so i'm adding some blue and then using a spray of acetone and that kind of makes the dye bloom it kind of explodes kind of looks like an explosion like marbling that's kind of what i want and right now it doesn't look very nice but as i start to continue to add color i added some purple and blue and some acetone back and forth you start to see the the tan layer underneath it gives it a really complex and deep look and um i don't know how i discovered you know the process i just i working on a sole is a lot easier than working on leather the leather doesn't go directly into the into the sole right away and you can start to add different shades and using the acetone it kind of gives it a really nice look so i know right now it doesn't look very nice but once it dries i think it looks a lot better but you can just go not crazy but you can really let your artistic side you know really shine here in this part of of the process of dying a soul and it's just for fun i mean as soon as a person wears the shoe it's it's over but it really gives it a unique you know cool look for pictures and whatever so here i am just dabbing it with a brush stippling making sure everything looks right and then i'm using a heat gun and the heat gun is super super hot and it just dries in seconds but it really lets everything cure correctly so it doesn't bleed once the person starts to wear the shoe and then after you can mirror shine the bottom using wax and look at this really beautiful glass like appearance and it's just really pleasing to do it looks really cool and i love to do it so it's really fun all right here's how the shoe started naked leather and here's the end result all right so uh i hope you like how this shoot turned out i'm glad the color turned out okay and that you know i hope the owner loves him as well i really like how the soles turned out kind of looks like i don't know kind of like an abalone shell maybe space there's a really nice look to it so thanks for watching i hope you enjoyed the video as always just be patient when dyeing shoes be brave but also be kind of cautious and i think your shoes are going to look great when they're done so thanks again i want to thank everyone who entered the 150 000 subscriber giveaway thanks for supporting the channel it's been great and i hope you enjoyed the video i'll see you next week [Music] thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and share for more content in the future visit the elegantoxford.com if you'd like to purchase any of the shoe products you've seen me use make sure to check out my other videos as well if you'd like to learn more about the art of the shoe shine don't forget to look for me on facebook instagram and twitter at the elegant oxford remember to care for your shoes so they'll last you for years to come always put your best foot forward the small details matter most so don't forget to hashtag shine your shoes i'll see you next time

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 655,126

Keywords: carlossantos, herringshoes, saphir, leatherdye, patina, giveaway, mirrorshine, spitshine, shoeshine, transformation, theelegantoxford, tutorial

Id: RjXd8AvL3cE

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020