Question (from a new user) : First of all, I love this forum and have been coming here for ages, but only just made an account. While this is a very male forum, I hope there's some indulgence for the women who love taking care of all things gentlemanly.

OK, one of the loves of my life recently got an absolutely stunning pair of Church's Burwoods in Sandalwood. Thrilling for many reasons, not the least of which is that I planned to get him a similar pair of brogues from Lodger or whatever they're called now, but was holding off because I felt that he'd prefer something with a longer, square toe, so I get to revel in being right both as to his liking that style of shoe and his preferred toe shape. Not the point.

I'd like to keep these in lovely condition for him, and tend to default to the shoe manufacturer's polish if they make one. On this thread and elsewhere, however, I've heard some negative things about Church's wax polish. Could any of you sages advise? What would be the best way of taking care of these, with the caveat that I see this particular man for a few days a month (he's on the other coast) and he plans to wear the hell out of them (and is having the soles rubberized in order to do so).

Man in question doesn't do a lot of caring for things himself but tends to send everything out, and sees shoe care (beyond the standard trees and storing things well) as something you have done on the way to the office or at the shoemaker when that simply isn't cutting it anymore. He's letting me do some upkeep on a lot of his lovely, lovely things, which is fine when it's black Ferragamo loafers--I know exactly what to do there--but starting from scratch with something as nice as the Burwoods, I'd like to make sure I'm doing it well.

You're basically talking to an enthusiast rather than an expert; most of my shoe-care background comes from being raised by a grandfather who had gone from the military to the business world, rather than from having the sort of specialized knowledge that's so intimidating on this forum, but I'm not completely ignorant of what I'm doing, just a bit old-school.


Answer (posted by @patrickBOOTH ): The burwoods are made from polished binder leather, which is sanded and smoothed down. This makes caring for them a bit different. I know some people with this shoes and they just use some Saphir Renovateur and buff with a horsehair brush. "polish" will do very little on this kind of leather, but if you want to bring back a high shine I would just very, very, very little brown wax polish. There aren't pores in this leather and it can build up and get dull very quickly. Good luck.
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