I got my shoes shined the other day by a man who appeared to be homeless. In addition to his chair and shining accoutrements, he had both a dog and a large camping bag full of belongings. Transient or not, he was scraggly and unkempt.
But he gave a good shine to my shoes. For $10 (at my suggestion - he said he’d take whatever I wanted to offer, but did scoff at the $25 airport shoeshiners, who “mainly used water”), I was promised a “true Navy shine”.
One element seemed either brilliant or insane, or possibly both. He said the secret was to “heat” the polish, to help it absorb into the shoe better. He accomplished this by igniting the polish with his lighter, and then extinguishing it with a forceful breath (which didn’t work so well on the second shoe - when the dose of air only encouraged the fire, he had to quickly use the cover of the polish container to smother the flaming dish).
The result was polish that was liquid, and did indeed absorb deeply into the shoe leather. It produced a very good shine, and is still holding well a couple weeks since. I’d like to incorporate some variation of this into my own shoe shine routine, but without the safety hazard.
My questions, then:
Is heating the shoe shine polish indeed the secret to a great shoe shine?
Is there a safer way to sufficiently heat the polish then to light it on fire and quickly extinguish it?
Do you keep reading Polish when you see polish? It makes the part about the liquid a little creepy.
Also, how much should a guy pay someone to shine his shoes? I’ve never had mine shined in the airport, so I don’t know if $25.00 is accurate. If geography is relevant, this was outside the Miami Dade County Courthouse in downtown Miami, Florida.
I shine my own shoes so I’m pretty familiar with the labor involved. It’s about 20 cents worth of polish and 5 -7 minutes of work and this is for size 13-14 oxfords. I can’t see paying more than 4-6 dollars as a convenience. 10.00 for a shoe shine seems pretty steep. $ 25.00 for a shoeshine seems absolutely absurd unless the President of Kiwi Polish is delivering it and pouring you a complimentary beer. I think you were being told a tale to justify the $10.00.
I’m happy to hear that $10 was generous, since it was intended to be. I’m more curious about whether anyone else has heard of heating the polish before shining one’s shoes.
Navy shine? One thing the Marines did better was the shoe shine. Light the polish in the can, snuff it out with the cap (IIRC Travis Bickle does this), then apply it in little circles using cotton balls. Go back over it with cotton balls soaked on ice water (not loogy spit!) until a high gloss comes up. If you can keep grit and dust from penetrating the wax, you’ll be able to increase the gleem with touch-up as you are then polishing the polish. Also, buy edger and blacken the exposed soles.
Or you can do like everybody did the first day out of boot camp and buy patent leather Coreframs
I’ve had it done a quarter century ago, and I assumed it was mostly for showmanship, kinda like a flambe dessert. Same with the snapping of the towel and all that. This was at the Kaiser Bldg in Oakland where a bunch of octogenarians ran a barber shop and one guy shined shoes for those who wanted it while getting their hair cut. The youngest fellow working in the shop was in his late 70s. They cut hair quickly and well and shined shoes nicely. Never seen it anywhere else and it was never explained to me either. Oh, and he lit it on fire on my shoe. Fun with matches!
Speaking as someone from the next county up, non-English speaking might not be much of a minority in that area.
For the OP - If heating the polish was useful, I’d expect there to be instructions on shoe polish saying so. Random Google sites seem to indicate that it helps..or it helps soften old polish..or you should heat the shoes gently after the polish is applied.
What a great story! I had something similar happen to me in Shreveport. And this old gentleman at the ancient parlor (adorned with the ever descending serpent of blood and bandage) applied and then lit the waxen polish right there on my shoe as well. Steel toed dress boots. That was a fine shine. Deep and more lustrous than you’d expect from what was essentially a nice work boot. I think they were Red Wings.
Yup. My ex was in some sadistic army cadets thing when he was at boarding school in England as a teen, and they swore by setting the polish on fire, to avoid getting sworn at for insufficiently shiny shoes.
