Boot Stretchers
After Mayes worked Réno'Mat on my shoes, he noted that not only had it done an excellent job of lifting off old polish and stains, but that it had also acted as a thinner and taken off some of the finish, preparing the shoe to receive a fresh new base coat of polish. On Mayes’s encouragement, I ran my fingers along the shoe and noticed that the surface felt a bit rougher—a sign that Réno'Mat had stripped away the oils and left it parched.Shoe care supply In essence, Réno'Mat had worked as a reset button, restoring my shoes to a near-original state. This result wasn’t surprising to Mayes or to me, as the potency of Réno'Mat had announced itself to us with its stark warning labels and its noxious aroma, which enveloped the store. Réno'mat has its place in the shoe-care world, but that place should most likely not be your home. Lexol Leather Cleaner, on the other hand, had difficulty removing the old polish that had built up on the shoe. It did an adequate job dealing with small stains on the surface, but only with some serious working by Mayes did it manage to lift a nominal amount of the old polish. Removing old polish is an important step, as old polish can suspend dirt and other grime that then gets sealed underneath a new polish layer, where it can rub against the leather. The Lexol cleaner was gentle, as promised, but it also produced a noticeably tacky feeling on the shoe, meaning that it left behind some residue. After you clean your shoes (with a cleaner or with a slightly damp rag), conditioning them is the next step. Conditioning should form the basis of your leather-care routine. Out of the 25 shoe-care guides I read—written by shoe-care professionals, shoemakers, leather tanners, and menswear enthusiasts—21 enthusiastically recommended the use of conditioner (the four guides that didn’t simply failed to mention conditioner use at all). Conditioning your shoes is a vital step because leather is basically flesh—without moisturization, it will lose its pliability and start to acquire a decidedly duller look as creases form. In extreme situations, the leather will start to crack and flake, which is in most cases irreversible. After reading through 20-plus-page debates about conditioner choice on menswear forums, reading shoe-care guides, speaking with leather-care experts and tanners, and conducting in-store testing with Stanley Mayes and his crew, I can say with confidence that Saphir Renovateur is worth the extra cost over Venetian Leather Balm and Lexol Leather Conditioner. Renovateur has a lot of hype surrounding its supposedly miraculous abilities to nourish leather. Although a good deal of that is hyperbole, Stanley Mayes and I both ended up pretty impressed with Renovateur’s performance. Kirby Allison, of the menswear website Kirby Allison’s Hanger Project, writes that Renovateur "deeply penetrates the uppers to supply the essential nutrients required to maintain the leather’s optimum condition and suppleness, while preventing any drying." Nick Horween of Horween Leathers (one of the oldest continuously running tanneries in the US) told me that he found Renovateur to be a “a very refined product and easier to control than the Venetian,” one of our other tested conditioners.