Write on my car windows with shoe polish? Ok, I can take it in good humor. Write on my car’s paint with shoe polish (or ANYTHING)? I have a throat punch ready for you, possibly followed by a kick to the oompa-loompas.
Yea, doesn’t shoe polish have a slight bit of abrasiveness to it? I’m also thinking that, if the car isn’t perfectly clean, the polish would mix with whatever dirt & grit is on the car, in-effect creating a rubbing compound that will create lotsa micro-scratches.
Modern paints are order of magnitude more durable than 1970s crap. You’re right that cheical compatibility might be different. But if I had ot bet whether Substance X would harm 1970s or 2020s paint more, my money’s on new paint surviving better.
Just today I saw a decorated just married car. First time in years if not decades
Written on the windows in some kind of paint-like stuff was “Buy the bride a drink - Venmo #somethingorother” and tomorrow’s date. Today being a Friday.
Not a sentiment I’d ever seen before, and not one I thought much of. But hooray for a wedding.
Yup. That is how it was always done when I have seen it. And write on the windows only since it is possible to scratch the paint. When they want it off just hose the car down and wipe with a cloth.
At race tracks in the 1970s we marked the car’s class and number on the glass with liquid shoe polish. Never had any problems.
My Thai wife had her car blessed by a monk and he wrote stuff on the velour headliner inside the car with calamine lotion! Surprisingly it washed off easily.
Near the end of the wedding ceremony, a small group of men gather in the parking lot to decorate the getaway car. The young groomsmen carefully affix discarded soup cans to the rear of the car with biodegradable hemp twine, and lay garlands of organically grown and locally sourced lilies and peonies all over the vehicle. As they prepare to retun to the festivities, the groom’s aging father limps over, with his signature devil-may-care grin. To the wonder of the groomsmen, he produces a palm sized can containing a dark, waxy substance. “What’s that, Mr. Vanderbilt?” “Guys, this is shoe polish. We’ll paint messages and blessings on the car for the happy couple. Just be careful not to get any on your face.” The young men look at each other, and then down at their suede leather Birkenstocks. Shoe polish? Has his war wound finally gotten the best of him? Nevertheless, they all swirl some onto their handkerchiefs and approach the waiting white Bentley Continental to bestow their best wishes to the happy couple.
I’ve done over 400 weddings as a photographer, and I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve seen a decorated “just married” car. Maybe I’d need my second hand. Maybe. And I can’t remember the car itself ever being written on, much less with shoe polish (I didn’t even know that was a thing). It’s usually just flowers and a sign of some sort placed or draped along the back of the car. It seems like one of those traditions that is nearly gone around here (Chicago). Other wedding traditions that have seriously faded: garter ceremony and toss, bouquet toss, smashing cake into each others’ faces. Garter and cake I almost never see anymore. Bouquet is a bit more common (but under a quarter of weddings for me), but sometimes replaced with the bride just handing off her bouquet to a selected guest. And I do see a loose correlation with geography and income as to which of the traditions are practiced and which are not.