Hi, I'm Kirby Allison founder
of The Hanger Project.
The purpose of this video is to
help you understand the
differences between wax and
cream polishes,
and I understand how to use
both to keep the best care
possible of your leather dress
shoes. So the fundamental
differences between wax and
cream polish is that a cream
polish is more for nourishment
and recoloring,
and a wax polish is primarily
for really providing those
hard waxes in order to create
that high shine.
Now with the cream polish,
we recommend applying it to the
entire shoe either with a
shoeshine dauber or chamois
and then buffing it off of the
horse hair brush and you can do
that two or three times.
Wax polish is
going to have a higher
concentration of hard waxes.
Now this is going to help
provide that hard protective
wax barrier to the shoe
that is going to protect it
from any type of water and then
small light scuffs and
scratches.
You want to be careful about
applying too much wax to the
areas of the shoe that bend
like the vamp because what
happens with the hard wax
polish is once those waxes dry,
if you bend the shoe,
those hard waxes are going to
crack and provide or
produce a a white substance
across that area.
So we really recommend using
the hard wax primarily you
-know you can do one or two
coats on the shoe,
but we really recommend
concentrating the hard waxes
where you want that high shine
which is on the toe box and
the hind quarters.
Before you apply any polish,
provided that your shoes aren't
particularly dirty you know
just buff them off with
a horsehair brush just to
remove any type of surface
dirt. Now if you have surface
dirt that is
more than what a shoe shine
brush can remove.
And then I'm going to recommend
using something like a leather
cleaning soap in order to
actually shampoo the leather.
But here these Gaziano
& Girlings aren't that dirty so
just buffing them with this
horsehair shoeshine brush is
fine. Next,
I'm going to apply my cream
polish. Now again,
the important thing to remember
with cream polish is that you
really want it to be able to
soak into the leather oo
the longer that you leave a
clean polish on the shoe,
the better.
There's really no limit - I
mean you can you know you can
polish your shoes and then
leave the cream polish on
overnight and buff it off next
morning.
It's not going to damage your
shoes.
Now The Saphir
Medaille D'Or Pommadier Cream
Polish, there's 13 different
colors. Now the important thing
to remember with color matching
is you just want to get close.
A lot of people call us and
they want an exact match
for their particular pair of
shoes snd even with 13
different colors it's
impossible to find an exact
match.
And so we recommend as close of
a match as possible.
Now if you're really concerned
about changing or darkening the
color of your shoes we
recommend going with a slightly
lighter polish.
If you'd like to see kind of
more of a patina or antiquing
develop which I think is one of
the beauty beautiful things of
shining your own shoes,
then you can go with a slightly
darker polish.
All of these polishes have a
relatively light pigment
compared to like,
a shoe dye,
so there's nothing that you can
do that's ever going to ruin
your shoe.
If you shine your shoes with
some polish and you don't like
how they turned out, then you
can use some of the Saphir
RenoMat to pull that polish off
and restore it back to the
original finish.
So here these are a burgundy
pair of shoes.
I've got the burgundy severe
medalled the palm of your shoe
cream.
What I like to do is
apply a little bit of cream
polish using a chamois and then
I use the top of
the lid as a pallet just to
make sure that I'm not applying
too much polish,
and I'm just going to start
massaging it
into the leather.
Applying moderate to firm
pressure,
just to really kind of help
work that in there.
Less is More.
Right. So you want to be
applying enough polish that
you're you know,
covering the entire surface of
the leather,
but you don't want so much
polish that you see real
visible build up or
gunking.
The reason is is just because
it's going to be harder to
remove that polish with the
horsehair brush in order to
produce that shine.
So with this cream polish,
I'm just massaging it into my
leather over the
entire surface of the shoe.
You know, you can go over each
section multiple times -
that's not going to be a
problem.
You know once I'm comfortable
with the amount of coverage I
have,
then I'm going to set this shoe
aside and let it you know at
least absorb the nutrients
from this cream polish for five
minutes.
After you've allowed the cream
polish to absorb into the
leather, then take a horsehair
shoe shine brush and you want
to buff that polish
off the shoe.
What you're looking to do is to
really you know to buff
off any excess around uneven
polish it been applied
and then you know,
the heat and the friction from
the horsehair shoe shine brush
is going to bring up the
temperature of those waxes and
you know glaçage or you'll kind
of gloss them over.
With a cream polish you're
going to be able to get like a
nice soft patina and like
a nice soft shine ,you're
never going to be able to
produce a high gloss shine with
the wax alone.
It really goes to personal
preference whether or not you
stop at the cream polish or you
feel like you want to continue
on to using a wax polish.
So I'm just using very
light pressure and then just
buff until you see that any
type of uneven build up has
been removed. and you
are able to produce the desired
shine.
Now you can see on this shoe,
on this Gaziano &
Girling, after just one
application of the Medaille
D'Or Pommadier cream polish,
I've got a shine that really
would be perfectly satisfactory
to go out at night with.
If you desire a higher gloss
shine than this,
then that's when you would come
on top with a wax polish.
Now going to show you how to
apply the Saphir
Medaille D'Or Pate
De Luxe Wax Polish.
I love this Polish.
I mean if you're someone that's
been polishing your shoes for
your entire life,
and you're used to using Kiwi
or Lincoln you're absolutely
going to fall in love with
Medaille D'Or Pate
De Luxe Wax Polish. One of the
most important things that
really differentiates this wax
polish from other polishes is
out there is that it uses an
all natural pine base
turpentine.
I mean, you can literally smell
the difference; there's zero
silicones and zero petroleum
products in this wax polish
that could possibly damage your
shoes.
The other thing is that it uses
a really high concentration of
beeswax
and that's what produces that
nice hard wax finish that's
going to give your shoes a
beautiful shine.
I'm going to use the same
chamois;
I prefer to apply
my wax polishes exclusively
with a chamois because you're
able to control the amount of
wax that you're applying.
And again,
less is more. I'm just putting
enough wax polish onto my
chamois,
so that it's not gunky and
then I'm going to start
applying this wax polish the
same way that I did with my
cream polish.
Now the first one or two coats
you can really take across the
entire shoe,
but beyond one or two coats
you're really going to want to
avoid this vamp because
once that hard wax dries,
and you go outside and you
begin walking in your shoe,
you know you really will see
those hard waxes break
and produce a little white
buildup.
So I'm going to let this wax
polish dry.
Anywhere from
a minute to three to five
minutes is enough, so what I
normally recommend is setting
one shoe aside while
you're working on the other.
One of the questions that we
get quite often is "can I use
a neutral wax polish on my
shoes versus a pigment wax
polish," and the answer is
absolutely.
If you're someone that's got
like 30 different pairs of
shoes and you've got every
single color of our pigmented
cream Polish then you can
absolutely just use a neutral
wax polish solely for the
purpose of building up that
wax finish.
Now you're not going to be
adding any pigment with the
neutral wax polish but you
might not need to if
the finish in your shoes is
already fine or you've
recently renewed that finish
with a pigmented cream polish.
So now that this wax polish has
dried I'm going to take my
horse hair brush and
just buff this off.
With the hard wax polish,
you're absolutely
going to find yourself spending
a little bit more time buffing
than you will have the cream.
So again, using kind of a
moderate firm pressure,
just buff the wax polish
off until you see a nice shine.
There you have it.
So you can see that the shine
of this Gaziano & Girling shoe
has certainly been elevated
with just one coat of the Pate
De Luxe wax polish.
In this case I'd say
one coat is fine for me,
but if you desire a higher
gloss shine you can absolutely
provide additional coat,
I just caution that you do
want to limit the amount of
hard wax that you're applying
on the vamp because the moment
that you start walking you're
going to see those hard waxes
crack and leave a light
residue.
Now if that happens all you
have to do is just brush them
off with a horsehair brush and
that'll take care of the
problem.
But you don't want to get out
in the day and realize that you
don't have your horsehair brush
and you've got white residue
all the way across your vamp.
Thanks for joining us.
If you have any questions about
this tutorial or any other
shoeshine questions,
feel free to ask your questions
in the comments section or
e-mail us at
shoeshine@Hangerproject.com and
we'll be happy to answer those
questions.
Thanks again for joining us,
I'm Kirby Allison.
