Thanks to Rae, Vix, Claire, and others who weighed in on my earlier thread, I ordered some Tarrago Shoe Cream to try turning my brown oxfords bronze. I finally got around to doing it this morning, and I LOVE how they turned out!
The color I used was "old gold." You can see it looks really yellow in the jar but over the brown it turned out a lovely bronze. First pic is the before, second is after 1 coat, and third is after 2 coats. The color actually looked pretty good even after 1 coat. The second coat made it a bit brighter and more even. You can see a little streakiness but I wanted that, so I'm happy. They are drying now!
I also got the shoe cream in "platinum" to spruce up my pale gold Born Arlettas, which were looking a little beat up. The color was an almost perfect match - I'd say the colors looked really true to the colors on the shade card on my computer screen - and the oxfords look much better. You can see them in the background in a couple of photos; forgot to take a before photo, but the distressed spots had turned quite a bit darker and were kind of ugly. The shoe cream lightened up those spots nicely and put a subtle metallic sheen over them as well. They still look distressed but not worn out anymore.
Very happy with how both of these turned out!
A couple of notes for anyone else who is thinking of this.
--I used paper towels to apply since I didn't have any sponges or rags. It worked out just fine.
--The tongue was the hardest part since it was hard to get into all the corners under the eyes, but then again those areas will probably never be seen.
--I didn't tape up the heels. I probably should have since I got gold on them. Just went with it and put a coat over the whole heel so they are kind of bronzed too.
--I used only a teeny bit of the jar for the gold oxfords, and maybe 1/4 of the jar for the bronze ones, so I'd say a little goes a long way!
PS - Does anyone know if these work on suede???? At this point I only have one pair of brown shoes left (not counting my cognac boots which I still like). They are my brown mid-calf suede spat boots, and I know I'd wear them a lot more if they were a different color.
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