One of the most underrated products in Saphir Medaille d’Or’s extensive range is, in my opinion, their Nappa cream. It’s a product without solvents that only contains nourishing ingredients like jojoba oil and wheat protein, but no waxes, so it leaves the pores of the leather fully open. Ideal for many situations, for example when you want a fully natural patina to develop, for sensitive leathers, and for the often neglected but very important care of the leather lining.
If one generalise what the main ingredients of most shoe care products for smooth or embossed full grain leather do, one have different types of oils that penetrate the skin and nourish the material making sure it doesn’t dry out and stays pliable, and different types of waxes that fill out leather pores and stay on the surface to protect it and give a shine. Most shoe creams, wax polishes and leather conditioners, lotions and balms consists of mixes of oils and waxes, and to make these mix together one use some type of solvent, which also can have cleaning properties.
Continuing to generalise, most lotions and conditioners contains mainly nourishing oils and then some waxes, most shoe creams contains an even mix of oils and waxes, and most polishes contains mainly waxes and a smaller amount of oils. What differentiates between various brands is that more expensive and often better ones focus on natural ingredients of good quality, cheaper and less good ones often use more synthetic ingredients and stuff like silicones.
A product like the Saphir Medaille d’Or Nappa leather cream stands out in regards to the above. It’s a product that only contains oils like jojoba oil plus wheat protein that is high in amino acids and peptides, which nourish and improves elasticity (no surprise both jojoba oil and wheat protein is used a lot in cosmetic skin care products). Since it doesn’t have any waxes, it can also be made without any solvent, making it an extra gentle product. It also smells really nice, which is a plus, and do not darken the colour.
A jar of Saphir MdO Nappa cream.
It’s developed for extra sensitive leathers like nappa and various types of exotics, leathers that especially can be sensitive to solvents. While it’s great for that, it’s properties also makes it ideal for other types of leather care as well. One being when you are after a fully natural patina development, which for example many workwear boot enthusiasts are. The Nappa conditioner makes sure the leather stays nourished, but without the protective waxes you don’t hinder the leather from changing colour and get that natural character many love. I much prefer it over Bick-4 which is popular for the same properties, but it contains silicone which Nappa doesn’t. Some leather oils can have similar properties, but I often find them harder to work with and it can be trickier get a a nice dry finish compared Nappa. It can also be great when you feel leather is dry to use it as an extra boost of nourishment, before applying with shoe cream etc.
Another thing I use the Saphir Nappa conditioner for is the inside of my footwear. As I’ve written about before in this article, it’s very important to also care for leather linings. It’s exposed to a lot of salty sweat, and there’s a reason why the lining is what often cracks first, since so few remember to care for it. Given Nappa is a product without wax that fill out the pores you don’t reduce the breathability of the lining, making it ideal for this purpose.
The Nappa conditioner is one of the products I use the most. Sometimes just to give extra nourish to dried out leather, and then for some boots and for the lining of all my shoes at least once a year. Pictures: Skolyx
This is a great to share. I learned of Napa at the NY Super Show and purchased a jar. Since I have a majority of hand patina shoes, the NAPA is the perfect conditioner. And I learned from this article that I should apply it to the inside lining. That is so intuitve yet I had not thought about this, What a simple way to avoid an annoying potential fix in the future. Keep the great content coming.
Michael: Yeah many miss caring for the inside of the shoes unfortunately. Basically all full grain leathers should to be nourished if one want to maximise its lifespan, be it outside or inside of footwear, wallets, bags, belts, furniture, car seats etc.