Darkening Leather Boots/Shoes

[SUP]

In the 2nd photograph, you have a nice contract of a slightly darker shade. It looks good. I hope you get a good shade that works well with the current color.

I used Startso brand too.

[Aventurine]

This is a case where Tandy's not bad.

[cottontop]

3 minutes ago, Aventurine said:

This is a case where Tandy's not bad.

Do you mean leather dyes and treatments? 

[cottontop]

I just received my jar of Startso Leather Balm, dark brown. This stuff is very easy to use. It is also water soluble so easy clean up. I used it to darken the "saddle" area of a pair of shoes that were all one color of a light tan. The contrast of the two parts of the shoe looks great to me. I used plain old masking tape to protect the areas where I did not want the balm to reach. For me, I can't see using any other method.  However, if you are a professional cobbler and have the products and the experience and are coloring shoes for a paying customer, then I can see the need to dye the shoes using the acetone and whatever other stuff a cobbler would use to do a professional  long lasting job. But, the Startso worked for me yet YMMV. Will post a photo later today.

 

 

[cottontop]

Here is a photo of the end result of dying a portion of this pair of shoes with Startso Dark Brown Balm in order to have contrasting colors in the shoe. The photos are not great (I am not a very good photographer) but I think you can get the idea.

[cottontop]

I tried to upload another photo of the above shoe, but the "choose files" thing says my photo is to many MB's or something so i will have to settle on the one above.

In the photo, the dark portion of the shoe looks almost black, but it is really a nice dark brown. This is a before the coloring job photo.

 

Edited July 23, 2024 by cottontop
addition

[cottontop]

I'm trying to upload a little larger photo. Hope it works.

Edited July 23, 2024 by cottontop

[SUP]

That looks very  nice.

And Startso dyes do last. We have been using our dyed shoes  non-stop  for several years now and they look as fresh and new as ever. I knew nothing about leatherwork then, else I might not have used them, and lost out on a good thing. Sometimes shortcuts work very well. 

[cottontop]

2 hours ago, SUP said:

That looks very  nice.

And Startso dyes do last. We have been using our dyed shoes  non-stop  for several years now and they look as fresh and new as ever. I knew nothing about leatherwork then, else I might not have used them, and lost out on a good thing. Sometimes shortcuts work very well. 

Thanks for the positive comments SUP. I do appreciate it.

[Aventurine]

On 7/18/2024 at 1:34 PM, cottontop said:

Do you mean leather dyes and treatments? 

Yes, Tandy dyes and treatments seem just fine on the veg tan cow hide I used long ago for tooling.  I won't use them anymore because I am striving for a low-toxin  and low-environmental-impact lifestyle, but when I did use them they were very good.  The browns, russets, burgundies, reds, oranges, and golds held up beautifully over time. The greens held up okay.  A caveat, blue alters a lot as soon as it is applied and over time it doesn't stay blue because as the leather underneath darkens it turns more and more brown, which is a species of orange, which is the opposite color of blue and turns it greenish-grayish or blackish. (Navy blue is already dark so it doesn't matter much;  I am speaking of true-blues/ultramarines/cobalts/sky blues.)  If you want something to stay blue you must put an opaque layer under it.  I imagine that purples also suffer as the leather darkens and browns,  but I never used any.

Chrome tanned leather is light blue-ish gray when undyed and might keep blue dyes nice for longer;  I don't know.