I’ve read various online instructions, and they sound to me like they’re written by journalists who have never shined a shoe in their life. I’d like to hear from people who have professional experience or equivalent knowledge.
I was a shoeshine boy in my teens, working in a barber shop. My questions arise from the difference between what I was taught and did back then, and what I read on the net nowadays.
The sites say after applying the polish to let it set/dry for 15-20 minutes. I never did that. You can’t make someone sit and wait for 15 minutes when they’re getting a shine. As soon as I was done applying polish, I started buffing. Does letting the polish dry actually make a significant difference?
While we all agree to start buffing with the brush (horsehair, of course), the sites say to then use a soft cloth, such as a T-shirt. I always used a shoeshine cloth with a coarse side (similar to denim) and a soft side (similar to the inside of a sweatshirt). I would first use the coarse side, then use the soft side. Is there no point at all in using the coarse side?
Sorry, not a pro. But I do know that a lot of shoe polish now is much wetter than shoe polish was then. I always let my shoe polish dry before buffing now. 15 minutes seems like a long time, but actually I just let the shoes dry and do something else, so it’s more likely to be 1 hour or more.
Since I’m using a thin wet polish, I go straight to the soft cloth. I don’t even brush. What’s the point of brushing a dry coating? I thought the point of brushing was to work the polish into the leather, and it soaks in anyway when it’s wet. A little brushing when it’s wet if the leather is in bad shape, not after it’s dried.
Not a professional shoe shiner by any means but working for Florsheim (before they went bankrupt) was one of my earliest summer jobs and they taught me pretty much everything I know about shoes and how to take care of them.
And no offense, but the polishing (not shining) you get at a professional shoe store compared to that of a shoeshine stand, (or a barber shop in your case), is like comparing the service you’d get at a professional car detailing shop compared to an automated car wash. Those quick-service places aren’t called shoe-polishing stands on purpose.
As to your questions:
First of all, there are two basic kinds of shoe polishes; one is a cream and the other a wax. Cream definitely needs to dry to allow it to set on the surface and for the leather to absorb its favorable conditioning ingredients. Also, if you’re doing a two or three coat polish, not letting the cream dry between rounds over-soaks the leather and ironically dries it out.
In the case of waxes, it’s not as important as creams to let them completely dry since they work only on top of the cream but you should wait about 10-20 minutes to let them set before buffing it off. But if you’re doing multi rounds of waxing, you definitely want it to dry so that you’re able to build layers on top of each polish.
In the name of convenience, many modern shoe polishes will contain the leather-nourishing element of creams and the protective element of waxes so it makes sense to let them completely dry.
I’m not familiar with a “shoeshine cloth” but we used a horsehair brush to do a rough buff and clean off any residual polish, then a buff with a cotton cloth (similar weight to that of a regular t-shirt), then a final buff with a ladies’ nylon stocking to give it a glorious shine.
I’m not sure what the coarse cloth is supposed to do…
Such questions have plagued me ever since I was a cadet at a military college.
FWIW (not much, I suppose), I never saw much difference in allowing the wax to sit versus getting right to it with a t-shirt (dabbed with a bit of wax and the shoe’s surface slightly wetted, too). While this has been moved to IMHO and I’ve offered mine, I do really wish there WAS a factual answer to this question.
I suppose if I’m ever interested in pursuing an Ig Nobel Prize, this’ll be where I focus my attention. I mean, you could probably devise an experiment in which the reflected luminosity of a shined shoe, its “brilliance,” is measured under uniform lighting conditions based on the shoe-shine method, though you’d need to have (I suspect) a large number of shoe-shiners and initially limit them all to working on a single type of shoe under as nearly uniform/controlled conditions as possible. Actually, a military school would be a great place to conduct such an experiment, with plenty of previously untrained entering cadets serving as “blank slates” to impart a particular shining method upon, and then have assessed objectively by some sort of luminosity meter, and subjectively by members of their training cadre (what “looks shinier”).
Actually, the other day I was looking on Amazon for shoe polish (because going to the supermarket or Target is such a hassle these days). Kiwi has one variety called “parade gloss polish”, presumably aimed mostly at military types who need it.
I’ve used it, not impressed. But to the OP’s point, perhaps that’s just because my technique is all wrong. Or maybe it’s because my technique is “all right” and I can get just as much out of straight black kiwi polish (what I normally use) as the gloss.
I mean, I can do a pretty good job of shining shoes, but there are guys I went to school with who could do it so much better. I’ve often wondered how much of it is touch (just the right pressure, just the right speed) and how much of it is procedural, as in the ordering of steps. The real fanatics will use an open flame (usually a lighter), but I doubt that would fly for a shoe-shiner working on someone as they sit with their trousers on. Anyway, my shoe-shining abilities have always been serviceable, and I’ve gotten a lot of pointers on how to get a glossier shine, but all of it tribal knowledge, and with the results mixed.
I would be genuinely fascinated to learn of a controlled study on shoe-shine techniques.
When I was an Army Cadet we were expected to get the toecaps of our boots up to a high degree of shine. I think this is common in many armies around the world. The usual method used Kiwi hard polish. Once the boot was clean, the polish would be applied liberally to the toecap with a brush and ‘ironed’ on with the back of a hot spoon. Once it was smooth, it would be buffed up with a succession of cloths to a fair degree of shine. Finally came the ‘spit and polish’ finish. Literally spit and polish applied with a cloth-wrapped finger. The final finish was a careful buffing with a soft cloth.
Sure, but why a coarse cloth? The brush is coarse enough to remove any excess polish and to give it a rough buff. I’ve never seen or heard of any professional shoe polishers use anything like a coarse cloth, although I have heard of people forgoing the brush altogether and just use a regular cotton or microfiber cloth to buff and polish.
