Let Your Shoes Get Their Beauty Sleep!
Airing and drying: Even safety shoes need a break from time to time. This is particularly important for leather shoes, as leather can absorb a lot of moisture, but needs around 24 hours to release it again. Since going to work barefoot isn’t an option, we recommend that you buy a second pair for daily use – that way you won’t interupt your shoes’ ‘beauty sleep’.
To air your shoes, you should remove the insoles and loosen the laces to ensure that no damp spots remain. Placing the shoes on the radiator or in direct sunlight to dry them out more quickly may seem like a good idea at first. But it’s not: the leather can ‘burn’ and become hard and brittle. Once cracks have appeared, they can no longer be repaired.”
Regular Cleaning
Gentle cleaning: You don’t have to work in the mud to know that dirt at work is inevitable. It’s clear that you can’t and won’t clean your safety shoes every day. But regular cleaning is worthwhile. You feel more comfortable in clean shoes. Not only because your foot protection shines and gleams so beautifully. Dirty materials, especially dirty leather, are less breathable and therefore worsen the climate inside the shoe, which in turn encourages sweaty feet.
The best way to remove coarse dirt from leather and textiles is with a brush. For the remaining marks and stains, cleaning with lukewarm water is sufficient. Please do not forget to allow the shoes to dry thoroughly after the ‘bath’. Special foams and shampoos are available for stubborn stains. However, if you use such cleaning agents, make sure you impregnate the shoes thoroughly afterwards. These stain removers “open” the leather fibres to release the dirt – only the impregnation closes them again.”
Special Treatment for Safety Shoes
Keyword Impregnation: Impregnation makes leather and textiles resistant to water and dirt. In other words those who regularly give their safety shoes special treatment will need less heavy-duty cleaning next time. Feel free to waterproof your safety shoes more often.
Just don’t overdo it with each application: sprays should ideally be applied from a distance of 20 to 30 centimetres, and the mist should only dampen the upper material, not soak it. You should also avoid droplet formation. Proper waterproofing coats each individual leather fibre with a protective film, while the spaces between the fibres remain open. This way, the leather retains its breathability.
The right care products: To ensure that leather does not become hard and brittle, but remains adaptable, flexible and durable, we recommend wax-based creams or emulsions that are applied thinly and evenly. Products containing oil and grease, on the other hand, are unsuitable; although they make the leather supple, they close the pores. This, as you might have guessed, impairs breathability.
If you want to treat safety shoes with functional membranes – such as GORE-TEX – with care products, make sure that you use products that are also suitable for these materials. You can recognise these care products by special (certification) seals. Unsuitable products can result in the membranes not functioning as intended.
Not In the Bag!
The ideal storage solution: Where to put your shoes when you take a longer break? Maybe because you’re on holiday. Or because you don’t want to leave your winter boots in the hallway all summer? The worst possible option is a plastic bag – it is an ideal ‘breeding ground’ for mould. Air-permeable boxes or a shoe bag are ideal. Shoe trees also maintain the shape of the shoe and ensure even better drying. Wooden shoe trees are particularly suitable because they also absorb moisture. If you want to go all out, take the luxury version made of cedar wood: the oils it contains gently remove unpleasant odours.
