The London Lounge

What is your shoe care routine?
TIA

Every week.
Mirror finish.

If a gentleman polishes his own shoes, then I'm not one. Once or twice a week I visit the shoe shine parlor and let them take care of what I'm wearing that day. Sometimes for a more comprehensive polish I drop a pair and pick it up later.

I cannot claim to clean my shoes nearly as often as I would like - or that they deserve.

On paying a weeks wages to buy a pair of shoes shortly after starting my first job, I suspected that decent shoe trees might also be a fair investment. That has paid dividends down the years and I'm convinced that if you do nothing else, shoe trees will extend the life of your shoes by a factor of at least 2.

In recent years I have also moved away from just using the hard wax polishes (Parade Gloss & the like) towards shoe creams like Collonil and Saphir and just finishing off with all-beeswax polish on my most formal shoes. On shoes that have received creams right from new, the preservation effect on the leather is very noticeable.

I've also started putting some effort into keeping suede in good trim with collonil suede spray, rather than just a good brushing - I wish Id started that regime years ago.

All in all I've ended up having to buy a much larger shoe kit box, but next to unhurried shirt-ironing, shoe cleaning is rather therapeutic.