Hi Guys - first real post after lurking for a while. I just bought my first pair of nice-ish shoes (Cole Haan Air Colton's, not much by #menswear standards, but good for a broke college kid) and just got handed down a pair of lightly worn Donald J Pliner shoes, so I thought this would be as good a time as any to practice good shoe care for when I upgrade one day. I've read a bunch of threads about shoe trees, polish, etc. but I guess I have some really specific questions, since I haven't seen any of this stuff in person.
For example, I was going to pick up some horsehair brushes from AE that were listed on the site a few days ago. But once I shine the shoes, what do I do with the brushes that (presumably?) have dirt and polish on them? Is it OK to wash them? How about the cloth I use?
Do I really need a shoe tree for each pair of nice shoes I own? I've read they're only important the first few hours after wearing. If that's the case, since one pair of shoes is an 11 and the other an 11.5, and these are size L and XL trees respectively, can I just buy the big one and stretch the smaller shoe out a bit? Or will it absolutely not fit?
And does anyone have a good step-by-step resource for polishing a wingtipped shoe? From what I've been reading, it seems that people apply lotion, conditioner, wax, polish, or cream in all sorts of orders and combinations. Is there a sort of very basic How-To available that is maybe a step above kiwi military spit shine videos on eHow? Something that maybe shows how much polish to put on (I've read that too much is bad)?
Thanks for the help, and sorry for the questions about minutia. It's just that I don't want to mess these shoes up, and hopefully keep them for a few years. Thanks!
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