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Daily Suede Shoe Care

A suede cleaning brush is an essential tool to help maintain your suede shoes and should be used after each wearing. Use a suede cleaning brush to remove dirt from suede after wearing and to re-fluff the suede pile.

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Transcription

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison, founder of The Hanger Project. The purpose of this video is to discuss the differences between different types of suede cleaning brushes and to demonstrate their use. Suede shoes are incredibly easy to take care of. It's actually one of the most robust materials that you can have a pair of shoes made out of. You really can't damage suede which is one of the reasons I love suede shoes so much. Perfect for travel. Perfect for casual wear, and very easy to clean if you're using the right products. The most important thing that you can do for the regular maintenance of a pair of suede shoes is to simply use a suede cleaning brush to just brush the suede on a daily basis before after you wear the shoes.

There's basically three different types of suede cleaning brushes. You have a Natural Bristle Brush. The second type of suede cleaning brush you have is a Combination Brush that features some type of combination of brass bristles and either natural or synthetic bristles. And then the third type is a Crepe Brush, which uses a soft, gummy rubber to clean the suede. Crepe Brushes are really more designed for more delicate nubuck than they are suede, but you can certainly use them on both. My preference is to use a Natural Bristle Suede Cleaning Brush. The reason is that I find that the natural bristles have a little bit more flex in them, and they're at varying lengths. You can kind of see some of this subtle texture here. And so I just find that Natural Bristle Brushes do a better job getting into the suede, and then personally I feel like it's less likely to damage the suede. But really any suede cleaning brush that we're going to sell here in The Hanger Project you really don't have to worry about damaging the suede.

A suede cleaning brush really couldn't be any easier to use. There's really two purposes of using a suede cleaning brush. The first purpose is to really just brush the suede. What you're doing is that you're getting the bristles into the pile of the suede to remove any type of dirt or other stains that may have accumulated just during normal use. The second purpose is to re-fluff the pile. So just like with a nice carpet, as you walk and use the suede shoes you're going to see the suede begin to kind of matte down and not look even. So just simply brushing using a suede cleaning brush is going to re-fluff that pile and kind of restore the natural, even texture. As I said I prefer using the Natural Bristle Suede Cleaning Brush just because it does a better job in my opinion getting into the actual pile of the suede.

So take your suede cleaning brush and it's really simple. Basically you just want to brush the suede. Now use moderate to firm pressure. You don't want to use too much pressure because you can actually damage the suede, so using light to moderate pressure is certainly sufficient. And just brush the suede. Anywhere that you see any type of discoloration due to the accumulation of dust or dirt just brush those areas of the shoe. Especially on the back of the shoe, where you naturally have a lot of accumulation of dirt and debris from driving or other things. So let's just spend a little bit of extra time here, and just brush.

As you can see using a suede cleaning brush really couldn't be any easier. I really recommend using a suede cleaning brush after every single time you wear a pair of suede shoes, but you don't have to. As with most all shoe care, it really just comes down to your personal judgment. Use the suede cleaning brush as you feel that you need to. And certainly any time that you see that your suede shoes are accumulating some dust or that the pile isn't looking particularly even, then just simply brushing them over with the suede cleaning brush is going to fix that. The suede cleaning brush is really just one component that you're going to use in the overall total care of suede shoes.

Saphir Medaille d'Or has an entire collection of fantastic suede cleaning products. Now your suede cleaning brush you're going to use the most often, but the other products are incredibly important for the overall care. So just give you a quick overview of these products even though we really didn't discuss them in detail. We have Omni Nettoyant Suede Shampoo which does a phenomenal, intense cleaning of the suede. And then we have the Gommadin Suede Eraser which is going to help you remove dry stains. And then Saphir has a line of suede conditioners. The Renovating Suede and Nubuck Spray is available in neutral, and then also in several different pigmented colors. That's going to help kind of renew the patina, any type of color saturation, and then it also contains an almond oil that will actually condition the suede. And then most importantly is any type of waterproofing or protection. So then, Saphir has a Super Invulner Medaille d'Or, which has absolutely zero resins in it to help waterproof and protect your suede shoes.

For more detailed use on how to approach total care of suede we have an actual video on how to clean suede shoes that details all these products. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail us at shoeshine@hangerproject.com or ask your questions in the comments section below, and we're always happy to answer customer questions. And you know stay tuned for more shoeshine videos. Thank you.