NEW SHOES SHOULD BE SHINED FIRST! MY CASE FOR WHY YOU SHOULD SHINE NEW SHOES BEFORE WEARING THEM

good morning everyone it is monday morning november 11th so happy veterans day for those living in the u.s i get a lot of comments from uh veterans who love mirror shining their shoes and some of them are really really good at it so thank you for your service in today's video i'm going to be making my case for why you should shine a brand new pair of shoes before wearing them for the first time now i did a video about this a couple months back but i'm just going to revisit it because there i still see uh people going back and forth about whether it's necessary or not so i'm gonna be making my small case for why you should and i'm gonna be shining a brand new pair of shoes personal shoes that you've seen already in other videos but that i haven't shined or worn yet so let's get started okay so this pair of shoes is unworn unshined you maybe saw them in another video i did but i haven't worn them since then so i'm going to get a chance to shine them up and make my case i've got messages asking me where i get my shoe trees this tree was made by steve at beeto's leatherworks but a good a good cedar shoe tree can be bought from woodlore.com they make really good shoe trees and they're really affordable so if you're looking for shoe trees these are the epic twin tube trees they're really fantastic and since i have a wide foot they're really great for filling in wide shoes so always use a shoe tree it's probably the most important thing i can recommend for shoe maintenance it absorbs sweat and the most important more importantly than that it maintains the shoes shape and extends the life of the shoe i can't tell you how many times i've gotten messages from people with light-colored tan shoes or in walnut who have spilled vinegar or ketchup or barbecue sauce or oil or something on their shoes and have completely ruined them so once uh tan leather gets a dark spot in it like from oil or something like that it is next to impossible to remove so i always tell people mitigate that problem by protecting your shoe with cream and wax so if there is a layer of wax polish on your shoe dust water droplets even oil will have a much harder time penetrating the leather than if the leather is just bare from the factory so if nothing else protect your shoes from dust debris and unwanted stains using shoe polish and wax and wax is especially good at making sure your shoe is protected from nicks and cuts and that's why i always mirror shine my toes if there's uh 10 to 15 layers of wax on your toe for a mirror shine nicks and cuts will crack the mirror shine they'll scuff the mirror shine but they won't scuff the leather i get a lot of repairs from shoes with nasty nicks and cuts right here at the toe and you want to avoid problems like that because even though they can be fixed it's really never the same so protect your shoes using shoe cream and wax so that's probably the main or my first argument for why you should always shine and protect your shoes before you wear them for the first time oh and i almost forgot be really careful when opening doors a lot of people put their toe next to the door and when it swings open as they open it they get cuts and nasty gouges right here i've seen it a lot of times i've done it myself i was in a hurry my foot was here the door open and boom you get a nasty cut and wax polish can really help in that area so just be really careful and make sure your shoes are protected and ready for whatever you're going to encounter remember your shoes go on your feet so they're always going to be in the thick of it okay so first off you want a a really stiff brush like a pig a pig bristle brush it's a tongue twister right there and uh you're gonna want to make sure that you get off all the dust and debris from the factory or from the store i notice there's always a lot of dust in the welt right here no matter where you bought them from or if they're new so you can just make sure to get all that stuff off um you don't want it mixing with polish or the mirror shine or anything like that so just give them a just a quick brush with these stiff bristles and you'll be fine make sure to go along the welt it's right down there get all that stuff out and you're gonna be set okay so leather is literally skin and some shoes have not been moisturized since the tannery companies get leather pieces they cut them out they stitch them together they punch the whole the broguing and that's it the shoe hasn't been touched i mean even in a year so you need to moisturize the leather and make sure it's hydrated and good to go i've got a lot of questions about what's a good alternative a less expensive alternative for leather conditioning you can use big four by bickmore it's really great it's it's affordable it just doesn't penetrate as well as renovator and part of its selling point is that it will not darken leather so this is a great alternative if you don't want to darken your leather not that renovator darkens leather at all but big four is a really good option it smells like vinegar so some people don't like the smell but it's another option another good option is a saphir leather lotion it's really similar to renovator it's just less expensive but it doesn't shine as well so it's also a good alternative you've got saphir renovateur which does everything really really well it penetrates the leather it moisturizes really well and it shines really really well as well so it's my go-to you can use whichever you'd like i recommend renovator though and remember to use less than you think okay but make sure that leather is hydrated as you can see it's already doing a really great job at getting the leather uh moisturized so it's like skin you got to make sure to put lotion on your skin you got to make sure to put a lotion on on your calf skin and it will be really beneficial in the long run so don't skip out on this step at all and unless you're buying really high-end or best spoke shoe companies are not in the business of shining shoes they're not in the business of moisturizing or you know giving every pair they sell a hand polish so it's really important that you do that that you buy the shoe and you realize that the factory finish might look amazing the shoe is presentable and that's that's the the company's job is to make the shoe attractive and beautiful but your job is to get in there and to make sure the leather is ready to wear and that it's protected from the elements from dust and dirt and whatever else so make sure to do that it's really important just take five minutes before you wear them and if all you want to do is add a moisturizer and brush i think that'd be better than nothing but going all the way is always your safest bet you can tell this area right here is dry i mean you can just see it and feel it it looks really dull and uh conditioner is really going to help just to make the area look great to make sure the leather isn't isn't too dry [Music] so make sure to always get these hind quarters right here by the by the ankle okay so just wait five minutes and give the shoes a good brush you'll notice that moisturizer leather lotion is enough to make the shoe look much better okay so just a good a good brush just wait five minutes make sure to brush and you're set okay now you can apply shoe cream with a horsehair dauber but i don't personally like doing that i like using my fingers it's better for control and use less polish so it'll last you a lot longer now there are different color shoe creams you can use on a pair none of them are going to be a perfect match but you can decide to accentuate different shades so unless you're using neutral to really you know not add any pigment at all because you don't want the color to change at all you can decide to accentuate the light browns the yellows while with a color like cognac you can decide to accentuate the ambers and the browns and the maybe kind of the reddish hues even so i'm going to stick with light brown this time i like the shoe at this color so we're going to be fine now i found that sometimes leather looks kind of pale from the factory um and if you want to add that little bit of color that little bit of pop make sure to use shoe cream so just put a tiny bit just rub it in like that okay take your time this is why i like using my fingers especially on brogue shoes because i don't want polish getting inside the holes the broguing people ask me how come i always get polish in the brogues it's because you're using a little too much just use a tiny bit use your finger or a tiny rag and just be patient put it in there be especially careful around the broguing that area is prone to getting cream and pigment inside and then it doesn't look great okay now let's say you accidentally get some cream polish inside the broguing on purpose i'm gonna do that on purpose here so let's say you accidentally get some in here and you can see there's some inside right there just get a stiff brush and just go over kind of stippling it'll come out okay so don't worry if you get some in there just use a stiff brush and you'll be completely fine and you can let the cream stay on for five minutes or even overnight if you'd like there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that if you really want the shoes to look great so just be patient and make sure you get that cream in there and it'll look way better than if you just didn't touch them alright so you can always tell the shoe is ready when it looks really foggy and when you start to touch it it'll shine a little bit and now you know it's ready to brush so get a good brush [Laughter] and you should notice an immediate improvement [Music] all right we're doing great just keep brushing push harder than you think you might have to [Music] just to get that friction in there and make sure the shoes look great [Music] okay now if that's all you wanted to do that is still better than doing nothing so using cream polish and moisturizer alone is way better than just leaving the shoe untouched from the factory okay so now let's get on to the next step okay now it's time for some wax polish even if you don't like mirror shines you should at least put one layer of wax polish and then brush it off for a protective layer i'm almost out of this but i think i can scrape by so just get a little bit like that and just go over the shoe and wax polish takes a lot less time to dry so you can just wait a minute or two and this is uh kind of like you're doing a traditional shoe shine with just wax if you go to like a little stand somewhere they might just use wax polish which is totally fine and i tell people all you can of all you can find or a ford is kiwi that's fine i just prefer that you clean wax and protect your shoes rather than nothing so use whatever you have i like this really nice tan cream by by sofia okay just put a little layer like that and then you move on to the next shoe just circular motions and this will give it a really you know that will give it the highest shine those waxes do a really good job giving it a high shine and then you wait a minute or two and then you brush it off and we'll go from there okay we're set to brush [Music] you'll see right here the shoe looks really really shiny wax did its job that's just one one layer of wax polish you can do two or three and just keep brushing and the shoes will look fantastic if you want to stop here i know some people don't like mirror shines you can absolutely stop here this is already way better than just not touching the shoe from from the store okay but i'm gonna go full on and do a mirror shine on the shoes because i'm always paranoid about scratching and i also i also happen to think that a mirror shine looks really great and impressive okay so i'll start that once i'm done brushing these two shoes [Music] [Music] see it looks really great i'm happy with how they look oh just slip that slipped out of my hand but i just uh was done already so let's get that mirror shine started okay so i'm actually um uploading a video right now it should be up tomorrow it's just really long and i mentioned that it's over an hour long and in the video i do a complete mirror shine from start to finish and the video is over an hour and the mirror shine portion is 35 minutes it's uncut from start to finish so i'm not gonna do or record the entire mirror shine on this pair because it takes a very long time but tomorrow you'll get to see that video and if you ever need help with mirror shine you can always email me or message me but i have other videos too where i show you know the mirror shine process so i'm not going to film it all [Music] but of course you always can start off by getting a little bit of wax right then rubbing it in to the toe cap for the first layer this actually seems to help people you put the first uh layer of wax right then you wait a couple of seconds one second let me grab my water i forgot it okay so here's some ice water get a little tiny droplet and you put it on like that just less than you think and you start to buff again okay and you repeat that process for 35 minutes or more sometimes it takes it can take you up to two or three hours to get that mirror shine okay so just keep going and you'll be fine [Music] since mirror shining takes uh longer than everything else i usually just sit down on my couch and i have this little foldable table that i bought and i just watch a movie or watch netflix or i listen to a podcast mirror shining uh just requires patience and it requires cold water and a good a good rag around your fingers and a good technique so be patient and if you need help uh learning how to mirror shine i have a lot of other videos you can check out where i go into depth about how to how to achieve this look now if you want your shoe to be shinier you can just come back the next morning and keep going but for this pair i was happy with the results it took me about an hour and everything i think looks great for what i want for these shoes so i hope you like the final result and i think you'll see a difference [Music] okay here's the before bare leather untouched and here is the after so as you can see the shoe just looks better all around the leather is nourished there is cream polish to add pigment and there is also wax to protect the shoe from all types of uh problems that can result from wearing shoes on your feet so that's my case for why you should shine your shoes before you wear them i hope you like this video and stay tuned for tomorrow's video thank you so much for watching if you've enjoyed this video please like subscribe and share you can find me on instagram and facebook at the elegant oxford links to my pages are in the description of this video remember always put your best foot forward the small details matter most so don't forget to hashtag shine your shoes see you next time

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 286,736

Keywords: allenedmonds, saphir, shoeshine, shoerestoration, mirrorshine, spitshine, strands, walnutstrands, allenedmondsstrands

Id: RTwNVzZTmBw

Length: 18min 3sec (1083 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 11 2019