LONGWING

Boot Black, Japan

I discovered Boot Black for the first time in January at Pitti and posted about them at the time. Boot Black is the flagship, luxury care brand of The Columbus Co. which is a Japanese specialist in shoe care products across the market, in a similar vein to Medaille D’Or from Saphir. Although I saw the impressive product range on demo in Florence I was yet to trial the products myself. I’m not too fussy about my shoe care products, I do have good supplies of Saphir but find that the best product usually depends on the job in hand. Some of the more mass marketed wax polishes contain more pigment which is particularly handy when giving a pair of black oxfords an overhaul for example. Much of shoe care ritual is down to personal preference and tradition and I certainly advocate that. Anyway, having discovered this new brand I was keen to give it a try.

It was ironic that I should receive a package from Tokyo on the very day news of the Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami broke. The trivialities of shoe care pale into insignificance in light of what happened on that day and since. I spent the next few days trying to find out if everybody at Columbus Co was ok as if it was my mission so I was delighted to eventually receive an email from Masamichi, letting me know that everyone was safe and relatively unaffected.

Having now used the creams I am very impressed, the colours are perfect and the cream is very easy to work with and rich in pigment, a little goes a long way which is exactly what you want. I’d rate the cream similar to those from Saphir which is high praise. Another thing Boot Black has impressed me with is how extensive their range is, they make every product you can imagine and HERE is a PDF detailing the range in full.

As far as I know Boot Black is not currently available outside of Japan but expect to see it arriving at quality establishments in the very near future.

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