During the winter season, and not least early spring time when the snow melts and you have slush on the streets and sidewalks, there's a high risk that you will get road salt on your shoes. Although it's not snowing at the moment, the salt is often left on the streets for a long time, therefore the first rainy weather in spring often ends with salt stains as well. Especially on leather shoes, the road salt can cause severe damage. Here we tell you how to avoid this, further down you also find a film showing all the steps.
Wipe off the road salt immediately
If you have been out on salted streets, and especially if it's slushy, then you can expect that you have got some road salt on your shoes. It's only unnecessary to wait for the shoes to dry and the characteristic white salt edges to emerge, and only then start wiping them off. Instead, do the wiping at once.
Use a regular dishcloth (preferably a special one for just salt, or if not available, take paper towels or similar) and moisten with as warm water as your hands can handle. Then wipe the shoes in sweeping motions from the top down on the shoes, and change the area of cloth/paper regularly. You should not wipe back and forth, around, around the shoe, then you just move the salt around, but make sure to get if off when you've reached the bottom of the shoe. Lastly wipe along the area between upper leather and sole edge from back to front.
If this is done correctly you will remove the salt by wiping them once. If you still see salt stains when the shoes are dry, you just repeat the above, and hope you'll solve it then.
Dissolve salt that has attached to the leather
Sometimes you may not have the time or opportunity to wipe the salt off directly, or for some other reason let it settle into the leather of the shoe. Or it'is simply quite a lot of road salt that has ended up on the shoe. In these situations, you may need to use a product that dissolves the salt to remove it properly.
Saphir Salt and Snow Stain Remover is one such product, which is specially developed to dissolve and remove road salt. Take a smaller amount of the product on a polishing cloth or some other type of cloth and rub the area where you got salt stains. Then let the shoes dry for a while and make sure there are no salt stains left. If you haven't removed everything, repeat the procedure. Be sure to change the cloth between the rounds. If the shoes are in suede it may be better to use an application brush with which you apply the cleaning product.
After using Saphir's salt cleanser, it's good to apply shoe cream and polish again, especially in the treated area, to moisturize and protect the leather. However, be very careful that all the salt is gone before you start creaming, or spray with impregnation spray if it's suede, so that you don't encapsulate the salt and it stays there and corrode on the leather.
Below a before and after picture, where the shoe on the right have had the salt removed and then polished with Saphir Medaille d'Or shoe cream and wax polish.
Below a film that shows all the steps.
If you have questions about shoes and shoe care, contact us at ktj@skolyx.se and we will be happy to help.