Slitesterk Brown Cream Pot 110 – 50ml Cream for Everyday Brown Shoes

Description

Slitesterk Brown Cream Pot 110 – 50ml Cream for Everyday Brown Shoes – every maker calls a different colour brown, so the useful pot suits most of them

Open the average British shoe cupboard and the largest single group is brown. Not one brown, though: a pair of tan brogues, some mid brown Derbies, a chocolate boot and something in between that nobody could name. Every maker mixes its own, and matching each one exactly would mean a shelf of pots and a good deal of guessing.

In practice one honest, middle-of-the-road brown does most of the work. Applied thinly it tops up the shade on the majority of brown shoes without announcing itself, and it feeds every one of them. Keep it for the everyday pairs and save the exact codes for the two or three you genuinely care about matching, which is a far cheaper way to run a cupboard.

A 50ml pot of pigmented brown cream in shade 110, from our own Slitesterk range and intended as the pot you actually reach for.

Why choose this brown cream pot?

• A true brown, and nothing clever. Shade 110 sits squarely in the middle of the range rather than leaning golden or chocolate, which is exactly what lets it work across a mixed cupboard. Thin coats are the trick: build the colour up gently and it flatters most browns, but load it on and it will darken a tan.
• It feeds the pairs you wear daily. The everyday shoes are the ones that dry out, because they are the ones that get rained on and then put straight back on in the morning. The oils here go into the fibre and keep the vamp bending instead of cracking.
• It resists the next shower. Buffed out properly, the wax leaves behind a surface that turns water away, so the pair you put on for the walk to work each morning does not turn patchy across a wet fortnight. Winter road salt has a much harder time reaching the seams as well.
• Scuffs stop catching the eye. The pigment load is set to fill in the shallow rubs that daily shoes pick up off kerbs, chair legs and one another in the cupboard, which is what lifts a pair from clean to genuinely looked after. Anything cut deeper than that wants a brown dye laid down underneath.
• A pot is the practical format. Fifty millilitres with a screw lid takes a dauber, which is what you want when you are doing three or four pairs in one go on a Sunday evening. Nothing skins over between sessions, and a dauber gets into a welt seam in a way that no cloth ever manages.
• Five ninety-nine, our own range. The whole argument for a workhorse pot falls apart if it is expensive, so this is our own line at a price that makes doing the everyday shoes properly a habit rather than a project.

How to use the Slitesterk Brown Cream Pot 110

This is the pot for working through several pairs in one sitting, so the routine below is built around something closer to a production line than around one carefully tended shoe.

1. Line the pairs up and brush every one of them down first.
2. Wipe each one over with a damp cloth and then leave them.
3. Test a bead on the palest pair before you commit to it.
4. Work thin coats in with a dauber, taking one pair at a time.
5. By the time the last one is done, the first is ready to brush.
6. Brush each pair firmly and then buff up the toes.

My tip as a shoe specialist

Do your palest brown pair first and your darkest last, and use the same dauber throughout. Brown pigment builds up on a brush as you go, so a dauber that has just done a chocolate boot will carry more colour than you intended onto a tan brogue, whereas working the other way round the brush only ever gets darker in the direction you are already travelling. It is the sort of thing that sounds fussy right up until you have put an unintended shade onto a light pair, at which point it quietly becomes a rule you keep.

Specifications

The details

• Jar size: 50ml with a resealable lid
• Reference: 110 Brown, a true mid brown
• Base: Pigmented cream with wax
• Best on: Smooth and grained brown leather
• Unsuitable for: Suede, nubuck or a gloss
• Rest: Ten minutes standing
• Also does: Water repellency and shine
• Brand: Slitesterk
• Price: £5.99

Frequently asked questions

Will one brown really suit several pairs?

For everyday shoes, yes, provided you go on thinly and build it. It is the wrong approach for a pair whose shade you are precious about, and for those I would buy the matching code and keep this for the rest.

Will it darken a tan shoe?

It can do, if you are heavy-handed with it. Use 108 light brown on a genuine tan and keep 110 for the middle and darker browns standing in the cupboard.

Is this the beeswax polish in a different pot?

No, they are two quite different products that happen to share a colour code. The beeswax polish is a shine product and goes on over the top; this is the pigmented, water-repellent care cream that feeds the leather and puts the colour back.

Where can I buy a brown cream pot in the UK?

Buy it from Shoespecialist.co.uk, where any order in before 5pm is dispatched that same day. Delivery is free on anything over £50, returns run to a full 60 days, and I am glad to advise on the shade.