Survival of the Fittist

Sep. 12, 2011 at 1:36pm with 16 notes

I’m going to make a confession right now:

I’m awful at shining shoes.

It’s not that I haven’t tried. I shine all my shoes that need it (i.e. not suede or Chucks), and I try to do it every month or so. And it’s not because I hate it. I find it kind of relaxing. It’s a good way to tucker myself out before I go to bed.

No, I’m just bad at it because I glob on polish. I never had anyone show me how to shine shoes, so I had to go into this blind. I would load up a rag with as much Kiwi as it could hold, and go to town on the shoe. If I couldn’t see a thick layer on the shoe, then I simply didn’t do a good enough job.

And the result? A lot of my shoes look like shit.

So I decided that instead of weeping, I should be proactive. I found a guide on how to sort of start over with your shoes, and I really liked the results. I liked it so much that I’ve already done it to at least 5 pairs of shoes. And I decided to give you a guide on how to turn back time on your shoes.

READ THIS: I’m going to give you a set of warnings to protect my ass at the end of this article. But this one should be said twice: Don’t even think about doing this to a pair of cordovan leather shoes. If you put too much polish on those, you just have to buff until your arm falls off. From what I’ve read, you don’t want to even get cordovan leather wet, so this would pretty much ruin your super nice shoes.

Here’s all the stuff you’ll need for this project: Wax polish in the color of your shoes, saddle soap, Ronsonol lighter fluid (the tutorial recommends fluid containing naphtha, but mine said distilled petroleum and worked fine), horsehair brush for buffing, horsehair dauber (or a rag if you want), a sponge, a little container for water, old t-shirt for polishing, and some cotton balls. Optional (and not pictured): edge dressing and leather conditioner.

Here are the shoes I’ll be working with. I have no idea who made them. I found them about a year ago while thrifting and I really love the way they are cut. Unfortunately, they took on that kind of sheen that only corrected grain leather has, had gnarly white wrinkles from excess wax, and were miscolored throughout from, as far as I can tell, at least one application of black polish from the previous owners. Oh, and there’s a layer of dust on them to show you just how long it’s been since I wore them.

The first thing you want to do is get the sponge slightly wet (not dripping), work up a lather with the saddle soap, and then really wipe it into the leather. I’m sure you’re a bit nervous about getting your shoes wet, but from what I’ve read, it’s not the end of the world. The shoe trees will help pull excess moisture, and the saddle soap also has some moisturizing elements. You want to get a decent layer on, then let the lather dry on the shoes for about 15 minutes. (This is a great time to also use an old toothbrush to get in the welts).

As you can see, this step alone has already pulled up a decent bit of excess polish. And we haven’t even gotten to the rough stuff. Speaking of the rough stuff, I probably don’t have to tell you not to use the Brill-o pad part of the sponge.

After 15 minutes, get a damp rag and wipe the shoes off, getting rid of any lather. While still wet, we’re going to do the real polish removing. With a tremble in your step and fear in your heart, get out the Ronsonol and pour it into a cotton ball.

Warning: Lighter fluid is flammable. So don’t, I don’t know, smoke during this or do it over your BBQ pit. You should probably also have a fan going, or do it in a ventilated area.

So, with a cotton ball that is pretty saturated with fluid, start wiping down your shoes. You want to really put some pressure into this, as it needs to saturate the leather and grab the old wax. You want to pay attention to wherever the shoe is unevenly colored. If there are dark spots, rub a little longer and harder there. You’ll see the color start to come up.

This is a very terrifying step the first time. But I can tell you from first-hand knowledge, this is fairly gentle on your shoes, unlike acetone, which will strip those bad boys of dye in a heartbeat. But you are stripping away the polish and by proxy a little bit of dye, so be sure to pay attention to what you are doing. If you rub for too long, you will pull away dye, although I was able to fix it when that happened to me. Also, don’t put the fluid directly on the shoe.

What you’ll be left with is a shoe that’s a little lighter in color, hopefully even throughout, and dull. The shoe on the right has had the polish removed, while the shoe on the left has not.

You probably want a lot of cotton balls. They are going to get filthy with old polish, as you can see in this picture. And while I have your attention, I’m going to say this: From what I’ve read, you can dispose of cotton balls that have been used with flammable materials in your garbage. However, you want to make sure that they are not dripping with fluid. They won’t be very wet by the time you finish both shoes, but let them sit out for an hour or two in your house and they should be good to go.

Once you have both shoes stripped, you’re ready to polish your shoes. But you don’t want to make the same mistakes, so let’s briefly go over my revamped process for shining shoes:

Fill your little container with as hot of water as you can get out of the tap. Then, barely dip the horsehair dauber in the water, and lightly brush it over the polish, getting a very thin layer.

When I say “barely dip”, I mean you shouldn’t have water dripping. In fact, tap it against the polish tin top to make sure you don’t have extra water. And when I say “a very thin layer”, I mean you should barely see any on there. In fact, when you clean off your brush later, if you wipe it in the sink, you should only barely dye the water instead of leaving wax all in the basin.

From here, you want to brush the polish and water onto the shoe, using a circular motion. You’ll probably want to put more water and polish on maybe 3-4 times during an entire shoe, making sure you are getting very little polish. You just want the tiniest of layers on your shoe. And at this point, you want to keep rubbing the polish into the shoe in a circular motion, until the water goes from medium streaks to miniscule droplets.

You should keep going until the polish feels really greasy and brushing it provides resistance. Once you have both shoes coated, you want to wait until the polish is dry. About 15-20 minutes.

After it’s dried, you want to get your horsehair brush and then brush the crap out of the shoe. You are knocking off all the excess polish and shining the shoes. The left shoe is with the dry polish, and the right is after buffing. (I have two horsehair brushes: One for polish removal buffing, and the other for quick buffs before and after wear).

The final step is to get your old cut up t-shirt and put a major shine into the shoes. You just want to grab it and rub it into the surface of the shoe until you get your desired level of shine. You’ll also get the last bits of polish onto the shirt.

This is the final product. While it’s not perfect, the shoes have lost the unnatural luster and have taken on a healthier shine. The color is a lot smoother, the wrinkles aren’t as harsh, and they actually feel a little bit softer.

I’ve done this with a few different types of shoes. I did them to pebble grain shoes, not to get a good shine, but because the old polish was cracking and I didn’t like the dark patina that had developed from the wrong color polish. Corrected grain leather shoes really benefited from this, as it took away a lot of the plastic sheen they have and became softer. I had one pair of shoes that I thought was corrected grain, but it turns out they were just poorly treated by me and the previous owner. Not only did it go back to a soft, nice leather, but I was able to pull off a ton of black polish and see how pretty burgundy they really are.

I had a pair of Allen Edmonds good quality leather that had a shiny toe but a dull body. While this procedure did dull the toe somewhat, it also allowed the rest of the shoe to pick up a nice shine. Now the toe matches the rest of the shoe and will age and shine together. Finally, I’ve done this with black, burgundy, chocolate, and medium brown shoes, so it looks like it will work all around.

Should you do this to your shoes? I don’t know. I have a couple pair of shoes that look fine, so I’m not going to bother putting them through this. If the color is fine but there might be a little bit of extra polish, you might want to try buffing them a ton first. If you aren’t going to use this opportunity to improve your polishing skills, you should just skip this. While I haven’t damaged any of my shoes(knock on wood), I definitely wouldn’t do this to any shoes multiple times. You shouldn’t even use saddle soap more than 3-4 times a year, so I wouldn’t do this whole thing to shoes except in extreme cases.

If you want to improve any corrected grain shoes, keep in mind that it’ll make them look a little better and feel softer, but you’re not going to get Aldens out of the process. If you are thinking about doing this to your cordovan leather shoes, stop it. I already told you no.

Finally, while I haven’t had any catastrophes, you are taking a risk with doing this. I’ve rubbed a little too vigorously and found myself with spots in the shoes where too much dye has been leeched out. Your heart may stop for a minute, but all you need to do is pay extra attention to that area when applying the polish. If it doesn’t even out after the first application, apply a little extra polish just to that area, give it an hour to really get in there, and then buff it out. However, don’t blame me if you try this and wreck your shoes.

While this is a bit of a risky operation, I’ve found it has given several pairs of shoes new life. I’ve put several shoes back into rotation through this process. This could be especially handy to those readers who thrift or eBay their shoes, as you’ll find a lot of poorly maintained shoes. This Hail Mary just might save the day.