Wax Polish vs Cream Polish - Ultimate Guide

now what is the difference between a wax and a cream polish they're both polishes you can use them both to shine your shoes do you need to use both do you need to use just one which one do you use which order do you use them in it can be a little overwhelming certainly to a beginner and i'm going to answer all those questions in this video [Music] now the short answer the difference between a wax versus a cream polish is of course cream polish they have a lower concentration of those hard waxes are a softer consistency and they do a better job of nourishing and hydrating the leather and also recoloring now recoloring is very important whenever it comes to using a cream polish because it's the pigments in that cream polish that are going to kind of refinish the shoe conceal any scuffs or scratches and really return the finish of the shoe back to its original state now if you're someone that has a pair of brown shoes and are looking to antique them again it's that pigment that's going to help you transform or evolve the color of that shoe in whichever direction you want you only get that using cream polishes but if you're someone that enjoys beautiful leather dress shoes let's say a beautiful high shine mirror shine on the toe you don't want to stop just at a cream polish so let's take a look at the next two wax polishes that saphir offers the pate de luxe it is one of the best wax polishes out there in the world it's going to allow you to provide not only that high mirror shine but also begin to protect the shoe with those hard waxes now the pate de luxe is created from a 100 natural pine based turpentine because a wax polish has a higher concentration of those hard waxes like carnauba and montan wax you need more solvents in a pate de luxe or wax polish so if you apply a little bit of pate de luxe on your shoe it's going to soften the previous coat of waxes and can make it so that it you kind of feel like you're spinning your wheels if you will now what's the difference between that and the mirror gloss well saphir mirror gloss is essentially a very similar formulation to the pate de luxe still made with a 100 all-natural pine-based turpentine but it has a higher concentration of those hard waxes and a lower concentration of the solvents or the pine based turpentine what this does is allows you to apply this and have it dry faster it forms that foundation of hard waxes much more quickly and then that allows you to produce that beautiful mirror shine exponentially faster than just using the pate de luxe alone now i think that it's really useful to use both of them together and we've got plenty of tutorials about how to produce that mirror shine on this youtube channel that's really outside the scope of this video but i'd encourage you to take a look at them now what separates a product like the saphir pommadier cream polish from that of say a standard cream polish that you're going to find out on the streets one of the things that i like to do to demonstrate this is to smear a little bit on a blank piece of paper and you can really see the saphir pommadier cream polish go to work so this is the neutral cream polish now what i want to show you here is one of the most important characteristics of a good cream polish and that is that it's able to actually penetrate the leather to provide hydration if i smear this on a piece of clear paper you can see how quickly it saturates that paper what does that mean it means that it's rich in turpentines and it's going to penetrate that leather to provide that hydration and it does it very quickly and much more effectively than any of the other cream polishes out there and especially any type of water-based cream polish now let's take a look at the difference in pigment now again the pommadier cream polish is available in over 12 different pigments so it's easy to find that perfect match we've got a lot of videos on color matching also but let me show you again the difference in saturation so one of the other benefits of the saphir pommadier cream polish is the concentration of those pigments and their transparency which is actually a feature because a lot of the water-based cream polishes use a type of pigment that really doesn't offer much transparency and so it can very dramatically change the color of a pair of shoes as opposed to kind of nudging and evolving it and so i'm going to put that on here and you can see just how good of a job it does kind of resaturating the color here now yes i get it you're going to say kirby this is a white piece of paper and not a pair of shoes so this is a proxy it's a demonstration but the point remains that again you have a lot of color saturation here and especially you'll see it once i use the wax polishes so the neutral pat deluxe i've got our 50 ml 10 right here has that higher concentration of solvents and i'm going to just break through that surface a little bit and again you're seeing that great penetration of the paper or leather that is helping nourish the leather and then we're going to let this dry and then i'm going to show you just kind of how good the concentration of waxes is now let's apply a black pate de luxe this is the 100 ml10 beautiful beautiful new tin you can see a little bit of sweating of those solvents in there that's completely normal okay we've got this here take a little bit on here so here you can see in the middle again great job penetrating that leather but look at how much more transparent this black wax polish is than the black cream polish this goes back to what i spoke about earlier that whenever it comes to recoloration adding pigment back into the shoe that is what a cream polish does now we have of course different colored wax polishes because they can tint and whenever you're shining your shoes the more pigments you put on top of that leather the better that they're going to look but that said the amount of pigment in a wax polish is marginal whenever compared to a cream polish whenever it comes to the concentration of hard waxes it is much more significant than a wax polish than it is a cream now whenever it comes to the mirror gloss as i said earlier it is a much denser harder polish a higher concentration of those hard waxes and i'm going to demonstrate this in two ways one just look at how i can really push my finger into this really not hard at all because the pate de luxe is a relatively wet wax polish but when compared to the mirror gloss this is very hard you can see that it takes a significant amount of effort to break that up that's because of that high concentration of those very hard waxes that's a really absolutely beautiful polish so i'm going to scrape some of this on my finger put that right here and then we're going to spread that on here now the foundation of any mirror gloss are those hard waxes and so you need to build that up to smooth out the leather you can see it still has a solvent in there it's penetrating a little bit not as much as either of those right here and i don't know if you can see this in the camera but it's quite thick so we'll let that dry and then i'll show that to you in a second next let's take a look at the black mirror gloss again as we go up in concentration of hard waxes the wax is able to carry less pigment so you'll see that this black mirror gloss has even less pigment in it than the black pate de luxe but again it has a higher concentration of hard waxes so whenever it comes to the wax concentration of waxes versus cream polish it really comes down to the hardness really more than anything cream polishes have softer waxes now what does that mean in the shine process it means that you can apply the cream polish to the entire shoe it's going to build up some of those soft waxes give it a nice soft shine but you don't have to worry about the waxes cracking with a hard wax polish like the pate de luxe and especially the mirror gloss if you were to apply it across this vamp and too great of a concentration once it dries it's going to be very hard and then you're going to go to walk it's going to flex the shoe and all those waxes are going to crack leaving a white residue so in shining your shoes i recommend of course you know one or two generous applications of a cream polish to rehydrate to nourish and to re-establish that pigment concentration but normally not more than just one or two coats is really needed and then maybe one coat of the pate de luxe to the entire shoe again that's going to elevate the shine of the entire shoe provide a little bit of protection but again it's not too high of a concentration of waxes that you have to worry about it cracking right here across the vamp but then whenever it comes to the mirror gloss i strictly recommend only applying it to the areas that are hard countered that means that they have a piece of stiff leather in between the upper and the lining so that the leather doesn't flex and that is on the toe cap and really the rear quarter these are the areas that you traditionally build that really high gloss shine so there we are a few questions that you guys have asked on some of our other videos i just wanted to get to here and this is will a cream polish provide the same level of water resistance as a wax polish the answer is no because it doesn't have that high concentration of those hard waxes that you get in a wax polish now important disclaimer you can apply a coat of the pat deluxe to the entire shoe it'll provide a little bit of soft waterproofing but if you really need serious waterproofing i recommend the saphir super invulner that is an aerosol a waterproofing agent that is safe to use on even the highest quality shoes and you can use it on smooth calfskin in addition to suede and textiles so if you're looking for waterproofing i would recommend a product like the saphir super invulner next question is that do i need to remove those wax polishes before i nourish my shoes the next time i shine them with the cream polish now the short answer to that is really no you know here on the majority of the shoe those hard waxes are going to kind of wear down a little bit by the time that you apply your cream polish next also the solvents in that cream polish will help soften those waxes so that the polish is able to really penetrate that leather to deliver those nutrients now whenever it comes to the toe cap and the heel it is a good idea every once in a while to kind of remove all those hard waxes to strip it back down to just the the leather without any of those waxes on top you can use it with a hair dryer you can use it with the saphir renomat we've got plenty of videos on this channel on how to do that but it really isn't largely that necessary and not something that i would do frequently because of the amount of time that's required to then rebuild that shine now the next question we get is how long will these polishes last and really the most important thing is preventing your cream polish from drying out now it's important to keep the lid well sealed to prevent any unnecessary airflow so keep it very tightly sealed you can put it in a ziploc bag you know that's the most important thing you can do these new twist cap tins seal much better than the old twist ones because air could get in through the side so again the most important thing is to just keep them well sealed it'll prevent those solvents from evaporating and the wax is from becoming progressively dry now a product like the saphir mirror gloss will ultimately dry out crack a little bit that's totally fine you can fix that by just taking your chamois and kind of pressing it back into the tin it's really not a problem and if your pat deluxe that dries out then congratulations you've created a tin of the mirror gloss and you can still use it for that mirror shine process not something that i would particularly worry about so there we go waxes versus cream polish hope you enjoyed this little tutorial if you have any questions let me know in the comment section below if not make sure you check out my video on how to create the perfect mirror shine you can really learn how to use all these wax polishes to create what is the holy grail of a shoe shine and that is a beautiful mirror gloss i'm kirby allison and i love to help the well-dressed acquire and care for their wardrobes while exploring the world of quality craftsmanship and tradition thanks for watching

Channel: Kirby Allison

Views: 19,593

Keywords: kirby allison, mens fashion, hanger project, how to polish, shoe shine, mirror shine, wax polish, cream polish, saphir, shine shoes, wax vs cream, saphir pommadier cream polish, best cream polish for shoes, best wax polish for shoes, leather polish for shoes, how to get a mirror shine on shoes, elegant oxford, angelo shoe shine, jason dornstar, pommadier shoe polish

Id: VwYcQ7cilbk

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021