What RED said to clean your shoes, but I use mink oil to finish them. Mink oil has the added benefit of being waterproof. I use it exclusively on my golf shoes and work boots.
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Aficionados of leather will no doubt have heard of mink oil already - this is, after all, a common oil with which leather items like, say, leather boots are conditioned. This oil is extracted from mink fat that has otherwise been removed from pelts that are headed to the fur industry.
This is the most well-known benefit of how mink oil operates - as a leather conditioner it can soften leather considerably, replenishing the oils that can dissipate over time and cause the leather to dry out, much as with olive oil or neatsfoot oil.
As with many things in the American canon, this is really an invention that came long before. Namely, this was something that Native American nations like the Chippewa first came to observe, noticing the softening properties of mink fat. The mink grew in popularity rapidly after the post-World War 2 economic boom, whereby the byproduct of mink oil was mass-produced.
The reason for mink oil's softening and moisturizing properties is to do with the palmitoleic acid within its chemical makeup, very similar to human sebum. In this way, it can coat, moisturize, condition, and protect leather, especially full-grain leather or vegetable-tanned leather.
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