“The use of road salt as a deicer on roads and other impervious surfaces is the preferred method to promote safe motor vehicle and pedestrian travel during winter months … sodium chloride … is readily available and inexpensive and effectively depresses the freezing point of water to melt ice.”

Thus spoketh the arcane Journal for Surface Water Quality Professionals. But what about the impact of road salt application on leather? These ugly stains turn your favorite shoes into a canvas sprayed in fifty shades of grey by a group of emerging graffiti artists. A public artwork of micro-crystals that nevertheless scores no points under the socially exacting gaze of your boss and secretary.

In what says quite a bit about New Yorkers’ ability to suffer, and their disrespect for their footwear, the white stains are still there the next morning, now bold and deeply cemented into the leather.

Two sins at one blow: wearing the same shoes on two consecutive days, and not caring to care for them. This is particularly true for men on Wall Street who seem to think of their dress shoes as invincible, as Bill Cunningham aptly observed, but numerous ladies commit similar atrocities, whether to their Louboutins around Grand Central or their Converses in Bushwick.

Shame on them all, as salt is clearly the most toxic agent (to shoes) of the wintry weather, capable of significantly diminishing the maximum useful life of footwear, as if each pair were a disposable purchase and not the long-term investment that they are supposed to be.

Here are five common sense recommendations, both of the preventive and the trauma-care kind:

1) Try Gore-Tex boots when you will likely encounter snow or slush. Feel free to opt for dressier versions in real leather unless you think that SUV-style plastic boots make you look pretty (they don’t). At work, change into shoes with leather soles.

2) Alternatively, wear galoshes, an inexpensive but almost forgotten must-have. Swims, of Norway, are the best quality available. They work just as well with women’s flats as they do with oxfords, and you can use them in rainy summer weather as well.

3) Whatever leather your dress shoe, it needs shoe polish (or, in the case of suede, spray), religiously applied at least every other week during winter. As regards polish, stay away from express sponges and go straight for the standard of care: palm/ bee wax. Kiwi from your local supermarket is perfectly fine, but better and available in more colors are Saphir Pate de Luxe and Burgol, all of which you can order online.

4) When you come home and your shoe is wet or dirty, take a minute to put in a cedar shoe tree, wipe it with a damp cloth, and let it dry (but do not put it anywhere near a radiator).

5) Finally, if your shoes already show signs of salt, not unlikely given that the City of New York has already used more than 350,000 tons this winter, they need urgent special treatment to restore the natural pH value of the leather and keep it flexible. Mind that the science behind some methods (e.g., the ones involving vinegar) is rather dubious. Only one I can recommend unreservedly. It is a detergent-free shoe cleaner consisting of casein, cocos oil and other nutrients that has consistently accomplished fabulous results on my shoes.

In this spirit, show your shoes the love they deserve and let them experience the gym-cum-spa feeling that proper shoe care offers.

This post is part of the Gentleman About Town column.

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By Leo
Photograph by Mumintrollet