Achieving a beautiful depth in the leather’s shade is one of the pleasant things that the use of really good shoes brings. Much of it comes with usage and time, but of course it can be enhanced in different ways. One of the slightly more unfamiliar ways is the use of navy shoe cream.

 

The thing is that the colour navy “speaks” – to borrow an expression that interior designers love – very well with many of the most common nuances of shoes. Think of it as moderate use of salt in cooking, something that enhances what is already there, even though it’s not the flavour you are looking for. The comparison may be a bit limp, as salt is used by just about everyone in all cooking, while the use of blue shoe cream when polishing shoes in burgundy, dark brown or black leather is considerably more unusual. So plan is that this post should change that a bit.

Navy shoe cream (the cream does more than wax, if you don’t do a burnished toe but then the effect is a bit different, the cream is the important one here but you can also use some navy wax polish too) with a lot of pigment, for example the shade Navy from Saphir Medaille d’Or series, is a great product to use from time to time, preferably in combination with other colors of the cream that maybe more matches the shoe, on perhaps especially shoes in burgundy or reddish brown leather. There the cream really brings out the more cool depth which often becomes really gorgeous, preferably combined with black cream and polish as well, in addition to the given burgundy color. On dark brown shoes it’s also the slightly colder tone that dark blue cream can enhance, therefore perhaps mainly darker, more espresso coloured shoes that this suits, shoes in warm brown tones clashes too heavily.

Here is a pair of brand new burgundy shoes that have been shined with navy and black shoe cream and wax polish, which has already achieved some depth in the color. Over time, it will become more and more significant.

Then, with the dark blue cream, you can also, in fact, get a bit of a depth and life even in black shoes. Not so that you completely change the feel of the shoes, but if you regularly polish with heavily pigmented navy shoe cream you will see another depth in the leather in some lightning conditions with time. If you are of the opinion that black shoes are quite dead it may be worth trying.

Black shoes that have been polished some with navy shoe cream over the years. Not the easiest catch in photos, but there is a slightly different tone and depth in the black, especially in sunlight, for example.