Rabbit Hole

Leather shoe care is a bit of a black hole. Justin FitzPatrick, former bespoke maker and owner of the Justin FitzPatrick brand, has many posts and videos on this topic because people like to debate on what the best products are, how to use them, and what not do with them. In part 1 I will go through the more agreed upon items.

Shoe Trees

Most people agree that you should have shoe trees to maintain the original shape of your shoes. There are some snobs who prefer cedar for the smell but any material is fine so long as the shape fills up the inside of the shoe well. Lasted shoe trees are nice if available because you are guaranteed a good fit. Polishing is also much easier with trees. There may be some debate on if shoe trees undo creases. In my experience they have never undid creases but they prevent them from getting deeper. However, real leather will always crease and I think they do look cool the longer you keep the shoes and polish them.

Brushes

There are multiple trains of thought on which brushes to use and how to use them.

The Most Common Brush Usage

1. Use a longer horse hair brush to remove dust and dirt.
2. Use a stiffer and shorter boar hair brush after using cream polish
3. Optional goat hair brush after mirror polish

Method Optimized for Mud

1. Use a stiffer boar hair brush to remove dried mud and dust off the shoe.
2. Use a shorter horse hair brush or yak hair brush after cream polish.
3. Optional goat hair brush after mirror polish

Minimalist Frugal Option

1. Use a short to medium length horse hair brush to remove dust.
2. Brush off the dust on the same brush and use it after cream polish

Suede and Friends

For suede, rough out suede, and nubuck leathers a stiff boar hair is used to remove dust and a crepe brush can be used to remove small stains.

Exponential Growth of Brushes

Horse hair, yak hair, boar hair, and goat hair brushes can’t really be completely cleaned of polish because water will permanently change the texture of the brushes. This forces you to have more brushes if you use different colored cream or wax polish. One could probably get away with having only one set of brushes if all your shoes are black or dark colored patinas mixed with black. But if you want a wide range of colors you will quickly fill old shoe boxes with brushes until you realize it’s inconvenient and then lay them all out in a single layer on your shoe rack.

Differences in Brush Preferences

Polishers in Asia tend to prefer very small boar bristle brushes to force color pigment from cream polish into the pores of the leather. It also makes brushing the tongue of the shoe easier. Some cobblers like to keep it simple and use different length horse hair brushes for every task.

Availability of New Brushes

Now that Paul Brunngard, Brift H, and The Way Things Go all have online stores that ship to America I have more brush choices. I still do not own any brushes from any of these brands but I will consider buying them in the future.

The goat hair brush is usually the most expensive, but very long haired horse hair brushes custom made for Brift H or The Way Things Go can be just as expensive.

I currently possess standard brushes scoured from Amazon and Wellington and they do a great job so far. I think I might hold off on buying brushes in 2025 in favor of items in categories that I’ve never purchased before such as edge dressing and edge crayon. I will probably also not be buying polish, but that is a deeper hole that I will save for Part 2 of this series.