Care of dance shoes with chrome leather soles

Chrome leather soles, also known as suede soles, enable smooth gliding over parquet flooring and offer excellent traction. This is made possible by a special tanning process that gives the leather a coarse-pored, open surface structure. The rough surface of chrome leather soles makes them the first choice for dance shoes, both for men and women. The dance shoes from Werner Kern are of course also equipped with particularly high-quality chrome leather soles that allow you to move confidently and safely on the dance floor and give yourself completely to the joy of rhythmic movement.

Dance shoes are no ordinary shoes. The chrome leather sole is ideal for the smooth dance floor, but not for asphalt or cobblestones, especially as the open-pored leather is very sensitive to moisture. You should therefore only wear your dance shoes on smooth, clean and dry floors and always have a pair of comfortable street shoes with you when travelling. Alternatively, you can also find a large selection of modern dance shoes with street-ready leather soles that you can wear both on the way to the dance club and on the dance floor.

In order to enjoy your dance shoes with chrome leather soles for as long as possible, you should clean them regularly and look after them properly. You can find out what to look out for and what you should avoid in this blog post.

Cleaning dance shoes with chrome leather soles properly

Dirt and wax residue from the parquet floor accumulates under the chrome leather sole when dancing. This will make your dance shoes increasingly slippery and slippery over time, making it more and more difficult to move gracefully and in a controlled manner on the dance floor. You should therefore clean and roughen the chrome leather sole at regular intervals with a fine-wire brush. Please only use a brush specially developed for dance shoe care, not a steel brush from the DIY store.

The buffing brush must not be blunt or visibly worn, otherwise it could damage the chrome leather. You can order a good brush with steel bristles for roughening in our online shop in the "Care & Accessories" category or purchase it from a specialist retailer.

Under no circumstances should you use any other means or tools, such as sandpaper or a grater, to roughen the soles. This is because the sensitive surface of the chrome leather can be permanently damaged by improper cleaning, meaning that the desired properties on the parquet are no longer given.

Repairing dance shoes with chrome leather soles

With prolonged use of dance shoes with chrome leather soles, the sole may become loose at the edges. However, this does not mean that you can no longer wear the dance shoes or that you need to take them to a cobbler immediately. As a rule, you can easily and permanently repair small areas yourself, provided you use an elastic leather adhesive. Other adhesives (e.g. superglue or all-purpose glue) are not suitable for this because the glued areas are exposed to heavy loads and dynamic twisting.

Coat all surfaces to be bonded with adhesive so that they are completely wetted with a thin adhesive film. For highly absorbent surfaces, you may need to apply a second thin layer of adhesive after a few minutes to achieve an optimum bond. Allow the surface of the adhesive to dry for 5-10 minutes before joining the sole and shoe together and applying as much pressure as possible. The adhesive must then dry completely before you can put the dance shoes back on and use them again.

Alternatively, you can also take your dance shoes to a local shoemaker who can expertly re-glue the chrome leather sole. This way you can avoid excess glue staining the upper leather, for example, and enjoy your dance shoes for longer.

How to put on and take off dance shoes correctly

If you only wear your dance shoes with chrome leather soles on the dance floor and not on the street, you are already making a significant contribution to looking after them. But you can do even more to enjoy your dance shoes for as long as possible. To prevent the glued chrome leather soles from coming off, you should avoid detaching one from the heel with the tip of the other when taking off your dance shoes.

It is better if you always take your dance shoes off while sitting down and loosen all straps and other fastening elements beforehand. Then pull the heel off your foot with your hand and step out of the shoe so as not to put any more strain on the chrome leather sole than necessary.

It is best to use a shoehorn to put on the dance shoes and only close the buckles or straps when the shoe fits perfectly on your foot.