Once salt gets on shoes no amount of rubbing, wiping and polishing will remove it, the salt stain will always manage to show through. Local councils and the highways agency sprinkle many thousands of tons of salt onto our roads every year and it causes havoc with our shoe leather. But there is a solution to salt stains on shoes, but you must act fairly swiftly as the longer you delay the more difficult it is to remove the stain.
Mix a solution of one-third white vinegar to two-thirds water. Dip a clean cotton cloth into the solution and then gently rub it onto the stain in a circular motion without saturating the leather. Then dampen another cloth with water to rinse off the solution. Then dry the leather with a clean cloth and let the leather dry naturally and away from any fierce heat source such as a radiator. Excessive heat can spoil the leather fibres and lead to cracking.
If remnants of the stain remain or re-appear then repeat this process until the leather is back to its original colour. Then feed and polish the leather with a god quality was polish.
Don’t use oil based cleaners on suede or nubuck shoes as these may leave a worse stain than the salts. Brush off any loose salt deposits with a shoe brush. Then mix one teaspoon of dish washer detergent and one of fabric softener in 500ml of luke warm water. Spray the solution evenly over the problem area and gently brush it in. Then brush the area gently with a cloth dampened in water. Allow the shoe to dry naturally then bring back the texture of the suede /nubuck with a suede brush or with a light sand paper.
