Shoe Care 101: Make Your Shoes Last Longer

[Music] hey I'm Kyle from the Distilled man so this channel is all about providing actionable advice for the everyday gentleman so guys if you're not taking care of your shoes you're basically pissing money away there's no point in buying nice shoes at all unless of course you're one of those people who like lives on a private yacht or sleeps in a bed of money but assuming you don't have money to burn taking care of your shoes is a very good move so in this video I'm gonna share five ways to make your shoes last way longer real quick I want to give a big thanks to Beckett seminar for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel number one use shoe trees now if you haven't seen shoe trees the name is a little confusing because they really looked nothing like trees although the good ones are made out of wood shoe trees help physically hold the shape of your shoe while you're not wearing them but even more importantly they absorb moisture which is gonna help keep the leather from breaking down over time so this right here is kind of a standard shoe tree I made out of cedar wood and most people swear by cedar wood for shoe trees because it has the added advantage of sort of helping combat odor in the shoe kheh cedar is so fragrant but I have read that theoretically any kind of wood wood wood wood would work as long as it absorbs moisture how many woods could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck how many Chuck's could have all that said in a pinch one DIY trick for shoe trees is actually to use rolled-up newspaper and so depending on how tightly you roll those things it can't actually help preserve the shape maybe not quite as well as wood but it will certainly help absorb the moisture number two dust bags are your friend the dust bags are basically what they sound like cloth bags that you can put your shoe in to keep the dust off but wait there's more dust bags can also protect your shoes from scrapes and scuffs that they might get just by kind of being jostled about in your closet if there are your other shoes or items and they're great if they're in a sunlit environment you're worried about the leather fading dust bags are perfect for travel too so I don't know about you but when I pack I don't like the idea that dirty soles of my shoes rubbing up against like my underwear and like other clean undergarments they're also great for keeping the shoes from getting scratched in your luggage from like like buckles or zippers or anything else that might scratch them one thing to remember you want to get dust bag that are breathable because if you use a synthetic material or a plastic bag that doesn't breathe that's actually going to trap the moisture in with the shoe and over time that's actually gonna be worse for the shoe now a lot of nicer shoe brands like our sponsor Beckett Seminole and will provide dust bags with their shoes so if you have that you're set but if you need dust bags and you don't want to buy them or they didn't come through shoes one DIY trick is to just use old pillowcases and you can just take a little bit of ribbon a little bit of string or whatever tie it around the end and voila you got yourself a dust bag number three stop treating your shoes like crap yeah that's right you know what I'm talking about no actually to be honest most of us when we get a new pair of shoes we're actually really Precious about them and we try really hard not to get them scuffed or messed up or get stepped on when we're out and about in the world but one thing you might not realize is that the way you put your shoes on and way you take them off might actually be damaging them first if your shoes are a little bit snug you'll definitely want to use a shoehorn when you put them on if you don't you may wear out the inside back of your shoe over time so I'm sure you've seen shoe horns before this is kind of a smaller one but they do have longer ones that you can use if you have trouble bending over or trouble reaching your shoes just put the shoehorn in the inside of the back of the shoe and then use that to gently guide your heel into the back of the shoe now again some nicer shoe companies may actually give you a shoehorn with your shoes but if you don't have one one trick I learned from Antonio Centeno over at real men real style is to use the end of your belt now it's not gonna work quite as well as a proper shoehorn but in a pinch it can work the other thing is the way that you take your shoes off and so first you should never be lazy and use the toe of one shoe on the back of the other shoe to take it off also you should never grab the inside back of the shoe to take it off proper way to take your shoe off is to first make sure the laces are completely on lace so that there's no resistance to taking your shoe off and then to grab the shoe by the bottom and then grab the heel and then pull directly off and over time this is really going to help you avoid unnecessary wear on your shoe number four shine your shoes regularly okay you knew this one was coming and as far as how often to shine your shoes it really depends on kind of how often you wear them so if you wear your shoes every day then maybe you should polish your shoes weekly but if you should wear your shoes only occasionally then maybe every three to six months is going to be okay now here's a quick refresher on to shine your shoes first set down a newspaper or an old towel or just something so that you don't get the mess everywhere then you want to take out the laces it just makes it a lot easier when you're shining the shoe next you're gonna want to put a shoe tree in your shoe or maybe just some watered up newspaper just to sort of hold the shape of the shoe while you're polishing it and that way you'll be able to get into some of those nooks and crannies really easily or worst case you could just use your hand then you're gonna take a cloth or a brush and try to get off any loose dirt or other schmutz that might be on the shoe next you want to apply some shoe polish to the shoe and then you want to let it dry for 15 to 20 minutes and this is key this is a great time for you to you know practice a musical instrument meditate or you just get back in touch with your yourself so once you've waited now you can take a shoe brush and then gently brush the outside of the shoe and the purpose of this is really to use the friction and heat from the the brushing to help evenly distribute that polish so that it gets into all those crevices and evenly smoothes out over the shoe and then once you've brushed the shoe you can take a soft cloth and really just polish it all over now after all that it's time to get the coveted spit shine and the secret to that is ya know it's not actually spit I mean I mean you could use spit but it's actually water so what you want to do is you want to evenly dab a few drops of water on the shoe and polish it you only want to do it in those areas where you have smooth increased leather like the toe and the heel because if you do in those areas in the middle of the shoe where there are more creases and indentations those creases are gonna show up even more with the spit-shine you don't want that so now that you have a nice spit shine just be careful not to get distracted by looking at yourself and in your beautiful shiny shoes number five so the obvious tip if you want your shoes to last is is to also think about just buying better quality shoes so yes they're gonna be more expensive but they are gonna last you longer first you're probably gonna be a lot more motivated to take care of them let's be honest but also the leather is probably gonna be higher quality probably full grain leather and that top grain or genuine leather but full grain also if you get a quality shoe that has a stitched leather sole usually that means you can have them resold and getting your shoes resoled is like a whole new life for your shoes assuming you've been taking care of the uppers and if you're not sure about where to get a better quality shuh without totally breaking the bank one brand to look at is Beckett Simenon so they make really really good shoes they're handmade but they also have a different business model that allows them to charge really reasonable prices for for what they produce you see the most shoe brands have about a three times markup on the shoe so what you're paying for isn't actually the shoe it's all these other things first they're contracting with third party vendors so they probably have production minimums which means more waste which you end up paying for they also have to have inventory for all those shoes honestly they pay for that and then finally they're they're paying for retail space Beckett Simenon does their own production in-house they hand make their shoes in small batches so there's a lot less waste each month they have different styles available online you just pick out what you want and then you preorder it now it does take 8 to 12 weeks for the shoes to come because again they're being produced on demand and that can't be a deal breaker if you have like a wedding to go to or something like that but if you have the patience you're gonna be pretty happy with the results plus they send you updates during the whole process so you know what's going on with your shoes the whole time not too long ago I did a video review at Beckett Simenon and the shoe I looked at was a black cap toed Oxford this time I got the Valencia whole cuts which are maybe an even more elegant shoe because they're made from a single piece of full-grain Argentinian calf skin from what I've read whole cuts are even more challenging to make if you think about it yet find a larger piece of fine leather without blemishes but also just using a single piece of leather and being able to achieve that right shape is pretty challenging as well so these are pretty impressive and they have resellable blade construction so you can resole these if you need to so these are only $199 with free shipping so I think pretty good value for the money especially since if you take care of these shoes they're gonna last you a very very long time and if you want to check out Beckett Semin on you can save 20% off if you use offer code distilled man at checkout big thanks to Beckett Simenon for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel and thank you guys so much for watching if you like this video please do me a favor hit that like button if you want to subscribe and see more videos like this you can do that by clicking right about here if you want a free copy of my ebook 48 hour gentlemen you can get that by clicking right here and if you just want to watch another distilled man video you can do that by clicking right about here thanks again for watching and I'll see you soon

Channel: The Distilled Man

Views: 93,035

Keywords: shoe care, men's shoes, Beckett Simonon, The Distilled Man, men's style

Id: MDmrwHZ74RQ

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 15 2018