Results: Leather CPR

I have these beautiful sandals, Beautifi by Guess, that I lent to a friend last summer.  Long story short, they got really dirty.  I did my best to wipe of the dirt, but there was still this dirt stain on the leather:

I finally took the initiative to clean them.  I found a product called Leather CPR on Amazon, it had good reviews so I decided to try it out.  It's a nice big 8 ounce tube, so I felt I got a good value for my money.

I tried cotton balls and q-tips, though the instructions say use a sponge or some material that wouldn't soak up the product.  Note: the cotton ball was a bad idea.  The q-tips were successful once I pulled some of the cotton off.

The instructions say "Leather CPR cleaner & conditioner [will] melt away the dirt and grime."  I was pretty suspicious about its ability to "melt" away the dirt.  I was worried and afraid that my beautiful but blemished sandal would never live to her full potential ever again!  It has been a year since she's gotten dirty, so the stain must be pretty set in.  I felt like a worried mother handing her child over to the doctors for surgery.

I took a deep breath, and applied the leather cleaner/conditioner:

Oh. My. God.  What have I done?  

Then there was the agony of waiting for the product to penetrate the leather.

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...

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2 minutes later...I wiped off the product:

Whew!  The dirt looked like it was lifted.  Now I just had to wait for it to dry.  So, all in all, Leather CPR did a good job of cleaning the leather.  My only criticism is that when I wiped too hard, some of the yellow dye came off.  But you can't even notice once the shoes were dried.  I think Leather CPR will work differently on different types of leather.  For reference, these sandals have an 'unfinished' feel to them, really soft and supple with no sheen.

*squeal* So happy that I was able to lift the dirt stain off!  Now if I could only get off the dirt that is on the wooden heels...

I have since also used Leather CPR to stretch some leather shoes.  I even used it on some shoes with man-made materials as well - this took a little more work and product because the material is harder to stretch.  I hear the ice trick works well, but I have yet to try it.  Overall, I'd say that Leather CPR works really well to stretch leather shoes and to break in new shoes.  Not so good on man-made shoes, but that's expected.  I give it 4.5 stars.