How To Shrink Leather Shoes While Maintaining Quality

Regardless if you bought leather shoes that were too big or your existing leather shoes have stretched out, one thing is for certain:

Leather shoes can be shrunk while the quality is being maintained.

In fact, the process is quite easy, and you would not need any more than a few household supplies.

In this article, we will go over how you can shrink your leather shoes while maintaining quality and not damaging them.

After all, we would need to be careful, because it's just as easy to ruin your leather shoes.

How To Shrink Your Leather Shoes With Water

The most straightforward way to shrink your leather shoes is to do it with water.

But we would need to be careful when we are proceeding with this process. We do not want to damage the leather shoes or to shrink them too much.

Water can cause damage to leather, and the leather can become stained or even cracked.

If you have it handy and you want to protect your leather shoes from mistakes, you can apply a leather guard or a leather protector to the surface of the leather shoes.

You can do that in order to make the shoe more resistant to our water treatment. You'd only need to make sure that your shoes are dry before you continue with the process.

Step #1: Prepare a spray bottle and fill it with lukewarm water

If you do not have a spray bottle, you can use a clean towel for this process. It's just that it's easier to do it with a spray bottle.

You could even do this process with your hands by filling in a bowl with lukewarm water. 

Step #2: Dampen the part of the leather you'd want to shrink

Now, the goal is not to completely soak the shoe in water. We want to gently apply water to the area that we want to shrink, even if that area is the whole leather shoe.

Tip: Avoid getting the soles or the base of the shoe wet. We want to preserve the structure of the shoe and we would not want the leather shoes to absorb moisture as well.

Step #3: Before drying the leather shoes, insert thick socks or shoe stretchers

Insert shoe stretchers into the wet leather shoes.

That will help the shape of the leather in the drying process to stay intact and make the shoes more comfortable in the process.

Step #4: Dry the leather shoes in sunlight

If it's possible and there's sunlight outside, it's ideal that you dry your shoes in the sunlight. It could take up to a few hours for your leather shoes to dry.

This slow process is exactly the reason why it's the best option, as the slower process will reduce the chance of the head to damage your leather shoes.

Step #4.1. Dry the leather shoes with a blow dryer if there is no sunlight

Other drying alternatives include using a blow dryer. With this process, you risk damaging the leather shoes from the intense heat.

This is why if you are going down this road you would need to put it on the lowest heat possible and hold only for a few minutes. Also, make sure to keep the leather shoes at least 6-7 inches away from the shoe (15-20 cm).

You do not want to risk damaging the shoe by holding it too close to the blow dryer.

Step #5: Make adjustments with more water and heat

If the shoes did not shrink to the size you wanted them to, you should revisit the steps from 1 to 4 and do them again.

It's not always the case that you get the correct size in the first trial. It also depends on the thickness and type of the leather that your shoes were made of.

Bigger and thicker shoes would require this process to be completed a few times.

Step #6: Apply a leather conditioner

Once your leather shoes are dried up, you can treat them with a leather conditioner.

The reason for this is that you want to avoid getting your leather shoes cracked or stiff, as we mentioned earlier.

Leather conditioners are good for reversing the process of damaging your shoes and could also prevent further damage to your shoes.

But there's a caveat to this: You will need to read the instructions on your leather shoes or on the packaging if you want to get the most out of your leather conditioner.

You also need to keep in mind that different leather conditioners are made for different types of leather. This is why getting just any leather conditioner would not be the solution.

If there are no instructions or you cannot find them, you can simply rub them into the shoe with a clean cloth and then let them dry.

Conclusion & What You Should Keep In Mind

You don't need to toss away your beautiful leather shoes just because they do not fit you anymore. You can make your leather shoes fit you by shrinking them with water.

You'd only need to be careful in how you are using the water and then how you are drying them up. It's very easy to damage your leather shoes if you are not correctly following the process.

When dealing with leather shoes, patience is key. You do not want to rush this process.

For larger leather shoes and for thicker ones, this whole process could take a couple of rounds of wetting the shoe and then drying it up all over again.

There's also the possibility of over-shrinking your leather shoes.

That could happen from applying too much water or too much heat and the shoes can become too tight or even deform.

And finally, make sure that your shoes are thoroughly dried after any exposure to potential moisture. You can utilize odor-absorbing insoles or sachets to keep the leather shoes fresh.

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