shoe polish
Artisanal shoe polish was the common leather care product for shoes until the end of the 19th century . In the general language area, the term wax was also used for waxy cleaning agents that make a surface shine, and shoe wax is now also colloquially referred to as shoe polish .
properties
Shoe wax consists of a mixture of fats ( oil , tallow , wax , resin ) with soot . It keeps leather supple and waterproof and has more shine the richer it is in resin and wax. But it also adheres less to the leather. However, fats of biological origin can become rancid and lead to fat eating in the long term .
Soapy wanks ( soap , glue , rubber , sugar ) give a dull shine and take on less dust than the fat wanks. In use, they are inferior to the latter, but are still better than the watery wank (sugar, rubber, egg white ), which provide a nice shine and are easy to clean off when they have become dusty. These wanks are more hydrophilic , so they don't keep the water out and make the leather brittle in the long term. The English gloss waxes contain gum, olive oil and leg black as a black pigment (a heated mixture of syrup , charcoal and sulfuric acid ). The concentrated sulfuric acid causes digestion, crosslinking and partial charring when heated . But the use of this wanking is problematic for the reasons mentioned above, if the leather should not suffer.
Today, industrially mixed, semi-synthetic shoe polishes are offered that perform the same tasks and contain paraffin , hard waxes and solvents such as turpentine .
