What up man, welcome to NT, and most of all welcome to the Air Jordan universe.
My recommendations:
1. As an old school sneaker collector who's been rockin' J's since the 80s, don't trip on the creases. It's a natural part of rockin' sneakers. Toebox creases, imo, give the shoes a more natural look and are meant to "age" your leather over time the more you wear your shoes. I'm not saying you shouldn't try force fields but imo, those things are useless and more importantly they're uncomfortable.
2. As far as cleaning and maintaining your shoes, the best everyday cleaning solution to use is a soft cloth, water, and a magic eraser. I also use Jason Markk for occasional/monthly cleaning. Think water and soap when washing your car twice a week, and car wax once every couple months.
*** On cleaning hard to remove dirt marks on
only white leather or on the outsoles/midsoles, you can apply a light touch of rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip or cotton ball. I do not recommend doing this to anything painted other than white because alcohol will cause the paint to fade.
3. For storing your J's, keep them in a cool place inside your closet in room temperature. If you haven't worn a pair for a long time or plan to keep a certain pair of kicks on ice for an extended time, I suggest taking the shoes out of the box at least once a month, place the shoes on top of the box on your bed, and leave them there for an entire day. Remember, shoes/leather need to breathe in order to maintain its texture/dexterity so it's important to do this to keep them crispy and sharp. Make sure you don't let the sun hit them directly so close those blinds/windows.
4. If you're the type that lets yellowing icy soles bother you, a cost-efficient way to clean them would be to simply take a toothbrush and Colgate Whitening toothpaste and rinse/brush/rinse/repeat the outsoles after each use in order to minimize the yellowing. You may find videos on youtube if you'd like more guidance. Personally, I don't buy any of those products such as Sole Sauce, SeaGlow, etc because you have to put in way too much work and its a waste of time and money. You wanna keep things as simple as possible. They're only shoes and they're meant to be worn and beat because you can always cop you a new pair later on.
Hope this helps. Enjoy your kicks, rock em like there's no tomorrow. But don't forget to smell em when they brand new, it's a sort of "rite of passage."
Here's a sampling of a small part of my collection (Note: each pair you see (except for the Pinnacle 1s, Banned 1s, and 72-10s) has been worn well over 20 times and they all still look super clean because of the methods I use above. The reason I have them out of the box is because I had not worn them for at least a couple months so I'm letting them "breathe" since they've been out of the regular rotation.)
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