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I'm certainly no expert but I am pretty sure many people around use different colors of creams to create depth and shades to shoes, with for example dark blue cream on black leather shoes, or even red/burgundy on brown shoes, which is why I was curious to see if anyone had advice or so around here.
The goal is to create nice tones, shades, and depth with color-ish reflects on the very dark brown, and as said not to change completely the color or try to re-color entirely the shoes, but I might have not explained so clearly
paulbiche-
Definitely 18 months ago I showed a bunch of pics of the mid tan Cheaney shoes I applied oxblood to, to give a nicer deeper colour. If you use acetone or alcohol you will have much more luck in breaking off the old colour and getting depth to whatever polishes you add on top.
I think it will be incredibly subtle, and hardly noticeable if you try to get a depth of shades on a dark brown shoe without doing this. If you are lucky, under one particular lighting scenario, you may just see your handiwork, but it won’t be like the photos in the magazines. You really need to strip back the polish, and start from a lighter base.
Edit: https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13614524/
I also have a pair of chocolate-red Loakes that I did similar but that was from new on a very light tan, with a mix of brown and oxblood. -
Yep you can achieve something a bit like Carlos Santos Patina Range by doing that but it might not work as well light on dark. Give it a go
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Did you watch that video about how to make a cheap pair of shoes look expensive as well?
pdlouche
jv
hugo7
Pretty sure we discussed this with someone a year or so ago. You can’t un-dye leather.
Dyes used to tan leather are permanent or else they would just drip off in the rain or with sweaty feet. You must use a solvent if you want to try to lighten a shoe, because you’re trying to strip as much colour as possible.
Acetone, or Isopropyl alcohol, you can strip off the whole finish, then re-apply creams and oils into the leather, and polish again, but in reality this only works for a single shade. You can go dark brown to brown, but it may not be consistent.
Generally where you see fashion shoes with the sunburst or burnished toes, they started light and darker was applied.
If you apply light polish to a dark shoe, it’ll just look messy, or it won’t look any different. I once tried using white polish on a very pale cream-grey shoe as the difference in tone was small... it just looked awful and I had to clean all the polish off and start again.