Shoe Polish and Leather Care Blog

Here's a chart breaking down the pigment colors of each of our polish offerings. And while each product may not imbue full-richness or depth of the colors shown, this is the "true nature", of the pigment itself, and what – over time – the migration will progress towards.

As always, let us know if you have any questions, or if there are any colors you'd love to see that we're currently missing!

Polishing grain leather is not an easy thing. Caring for the leather care be quite straight forward – keep it conditioned with Conditioner, protected with Cream, and add some scuff protection on the toes and heels with Paste/Wax Polish. But, getting that magic mirror shine or even a nice quality high shine, can sometimes be elusive.

Grain leather has more texture, it's grainy (by definition), and rubbing stiff waxes across grain can be challenging.

Read How...

Choosing which color of polish to buy for your valued pair of shoes can sometimes be tricky. Photos show a wide-range of leathers using a single polish color: For example, Walnut can be used to bring out the reddish tones in a lighter brown leather, or can be used to tone down the reds and accent the browns in a burgundy or mahogany colored leather.

To make it trickier, there is no one single uniform "color name" that we all use. From the leather industry, to the shoe industry, to the leather care industry, we all select a name that best represents our intended audience, and then hope they can figure it out by looking at the pictures. 

So as to not totally confuse you, we created this line-up of common shoe colors and leathers, to show you which color polishes we would select to best "color match" the leather.

Here's a walkthrough on our process for restoring a pair of Vintage Florsheim Imperial Wingtip Full-Brogue Oxfords.

They were given new life recently, using only our products for a full restore from start-to-finish.

Picked up from the bottom shelf of a thrift store for $4, we recognized that the leather still had a lot of life left in them, if given some love and chemistry attention.

Today on Instagram, it appeared everyone was combining brown dress shoes with grey slacks. So, we had to follow-suit with this combination of Magnanni Colo derbies, Agave Denim Coco Mélange Grey slacks, and a Mirror Shine using our High Shine Paste/Wax and a touch of Light Brown Cream on the vamp.

Imagine a pair of sunglasses for your shoes or boots. Lensing is a technique whereby you add a different colored or shaded lens to the toes and heels of your shoe or boot. 

Lensing is different from burnishing, antiquing, or patina, in that the color remains embedded within the wax, and doesn't impregnate itself within the base leather. It compliments leather patina, by adding a new dimension through light effects. This technique uses two key products - Cream Polish and Colored Paste/Wax.

Additionally, you can mirror shine on top of the lensing, for increased color and light effects.

Pure Polish Products presents a video on routine shoe shine and leather care. Demonstrated by Andy on an older pair of Johnston Murphy Derbies.

Overview on Cordovan Shell versus Cowhide Leather, written by Glen Tippets, the creator of our products.

Thanks to Jesper Ingevaldsson, here's an older video demonstrating the effectiveness of our water resistant shoe cream on a pair of Alfred Sargents...