The onset of winter always becomes a real test for our shoes, especially suede ones. Beautiful and fluffy white snow on the roads quickly turns into a mixture of mud and sand, which is also abundantly sprinkled with chemical reagents harmful to shoes. As a result, our shoes become stiff, with streaks and white spots. How to take care of shoes in winter so that they look good and remain functional, we will talk in this article.
Winter shoe care tips
To keep the appearance of shoes, you need to carry out several activities. To get started, choose cosmetics suitable for care (based on the specific type of shoes). The composition of cosmetic preparations that care for shoes includes special components that are superior in result to cheaper products with artificial compounds. Carefully inspect the product you are going to buy. For example, a good quality cream looks like a glossy homogeneous mass, of a uniform shade, without cracks and delaminations.
Prevent your shoes from negative external factors: use various plant substances. To strengthen the surface of leather shoes, apply lanolin or glycerin daily.
Avoid getting shoes in dirty wet snow, the so-called “snow porridge”. When you get home, clean the soles and surfaces of your winter shoes with a special shampoo. When the shoes dry well, generously smear the entire surface with a special cream containing beeswax or fluorocarbon resins, and walk around the house a little in it. This will soften the hard parts of your boots or boots.
Winter shoe care tips
Every morning polish your winter shoes with a brush, and if you can’t make them shiny, try rubbing the surface of the shoes with a slice of lemon and then polish with velvet.
Please note that you should not dry your shoes near heaters. Use special pads for drying shoes, and if you don’t have such pads, then just stuff your shoes with plain paper.
If you have new shoes, before going outside for the first time, first soak them liberally with a water-repellent protective agent and polish them. Protect new shoes with colorless creams. Use colored creams when it becomes necessary to refresh the color of shoes, or mask small cracks.
An unpleasant smell inside the shoe can be removed with a cotton swab moistened with a solution of potassium permanganate (6 lenses per liter of water) or peroxide. Shoes made of suede, velor, nubuck in the cold season require careful care using special aerosols and emulsions. It is necessary to carry out prevention daily. For this, special products for suede leather are needed: there are creams (on a liquid basis) on sale, which are aimed at reducing moisture hit on the suede surface. So that such shoes do not spoil in winter, it must be treated with impregnation. She protects sucks from snow, moisture and salt. Impregnation is carried out in three stages, as it dries. It is better to carry out shoe processing not on the day when you want to go outside, but in advance.
Tips for the care of shoes in winter
If spots and stains appear on suede shoes, then most likely they are because of damp. It is not easy to get rid of them completely, so put on another shoes in raw weather. If suede shoes are wet, clean it with a rubber brush and fill it with crumpled paper. To straighten the pile, hold your shoes over the steam (for example, beating from a boiling nose of a kettle).
To renew the “slick” areas of suede shoes, you need to clean their surface with a rubber brush, and then rub with ordinary table salt.
Of course, it is very difficult to completely protect shoes in the winter from exposure to chemicals, but with proper daily care, you will significantly extend the life of your favorite shoes!