Care tips for Profes­sional Shoes Wellness for shoes

Preparation
If your boots have become wet or dirty, allow them to air dry in a well-vent­ilated room. Do not place your boots near any heat source, which can cause the leather to shrink and crack. Remove the laces, which will help the leather care products reach the recessed areas of the boots, and remove the insole. Removing the insole is very important, partic­ularly after a multi-day hike, since moisture tends to collect under the insole.

Cleaning
Thor­oughly brush off your boots. This will help make the leather breathable once again. Then clean the boots with warm water and a brush. If your boots are very dirty, you should use a lukewarm soap solution (e.g. LOWA Shoe Clean) or a boot care product, which will open the pores of the leather, and then thor­oughly rinse the boots. The leather is now in an unpro­tected condition: It will imme­diately absorb any water that comes in contact with it. You will need to treat the boots after drying with a water­proofing agent after this step.
Take care when drying your boots: Let them air dry in a well-vent­ilated room. You should never dry them in the sun, in a bathroom, next to a heating unit, in an oven or in a hot car, as wet leather can “burn”, becoming brittle and prone to shrinking and cracking. Conversely, your boots can develop mildew if you store them in a damp area.

Water­proofing
Your boots should be slightly damp when you apply water­proofing spray (e.g. LOWA Water Stop PRO). The pores of damp leather are wide open, enabling the water­proofing spray to penetrate deeply into the material. The spray reaches its greatest level of effect­iveness after 24 hours – at that point, your boots will then be water- and dirt-repellent once again. Regular water­proofing treatments will repel water and dirt. The breath­ability of the leather will be main­tained, but the leather will not absorb water and it will be water repellent, making the boots completely protected. You should treat your boots once again before you set off on your next outing. (The spray’s effect begins to wear off after about three weeks.)

Care
If you wear your boots frequently and often get them wet, you should use a boot-care product on them, even on boots with GORE-TEX linings. Poorly main­tained leather dries out, becomes brittle and cracks, and ulti­mately, the boots will become irre­parably damaged. Apply a waxy shoe paste (e.g. LOWA Active Cream) or cream with a soft brush (LOWA Shoe Care Brush), and give your boots enough time to dry out. You should treat your boots once again before your next trip. Do not use any pure oils or fats on your boots. These treatments may indeed make the leather very soft and nearly waterproof – but they also close the pores of the leather, causing boots to lose their stability and breath­ability. These oils or fats can also loosen the adhesives used to bond the boots’ soles to the uppers.
A note about nubuck and split (suede) leather: The surface of these types of leather will become smoother, shinier and darker when wax is applied to them. The surface of suede leather can be brushed out with a suede brush (e.g. LOWA Triangle Brush), but the original look will suffer to a certain degree.

Storage
Store your shoes in a shoe bag or box in a dry, well-vent­ilated place. Use a wooden shoe tree to maintain your boots’ form. It will preserve the boots’ shape and prevent creases from forming. As an alternative, you can stuff crumpled newspaper in the toe of the boots. The paper will absorb moisture and help preserve the shape of the boot. Change the paper every day until the boots are dry.