Last month I won some vouchers to spend at a department store in Istanbul. Not having found anything interesting, I fell back on this pair of brown leather ankle boots, although I already had similar ones.
A men's fashion blog to skate your shoes
So I decided to redo their patina to have something more reminiscent of midnight blue. I suggest you follow me step by step in my men's fashion blog, and maybe it will make you want to try it.
Preparation
You must first gather all the necessary products: polishing cream, acetone, leather dye, colored balm, shoe polish, as well as clean equipment: a brush for dyeing, cloths for acetone and colors, and gloves. .
I can then start by cleaning the shoes with shine cream: they must be perfectly clean.
Leather stripping
With the shoes clean, I can start stripping with acetone and a cloth. I don't hesitate to press hard, because the leather is new. I also choose to emphasize the hard end and the quarters so that they have a lighter shade in the final result.
And of course, I don't forget to remove the shoe trees otherwise the leather will be marked at their level.
On these boots, the leather was chemically dyed and had a fairly hard film preventing stripping (and in the long term preventing the leather from breathing). I got rid of it by sanding lightly with very fine grain sandpaper (modelling type). But this should only be done as a last resort, because if you don't have the patience to go with a cloth, you will damage your leather.
Once the job was finished, I let the shoes sit overnight for the acetone to evaporate.
Tincture and balm
The next day, I applied a layer of midnight blue dye to the entire shoes using a cloth and wearing gloves (so as not to have blue fingers during my job interviews this week next !). Before the dye dried, I removed some of the dye from the hard end and quarters using a cloth dipped in acetone.
After a good two hours of drying with shoe trees to tighten the leather, I coated the entire shoes with turquoise blue balm. This type of balm evens out the color (between the hard toe, the quarters and the rest of the shoe for example) and will leave blue reflections later.
Leather renovation and glazing in a future article!
