● First, take your duster and wrap it around your first two fingers.
● Now lick the end. (If you prefer you can dip it in water but don't use too much).
● Rub the duster in the polish until you have a small circle on the end.
● Now start to gently rub the duster in small circles all over the area until you start to feel resistance and the polish goes dull.
● At this point I personally spit on the shoe although again, you may dip the duster in a little water if you prefer. (Although spit gives a better shine - this is where the term 'Spit & Polish' comes from)
● You now carry on bulling in small circles. Keep on going until the leather starts to shine. All you do now is apply more polish to the duster and repeat the bulling. Please note that it takes quite a few hours work to achieve the mirror shine you are after.
● Once your shoe has a smooth layer, you will notice that the surface has a slight oily sheen across it. This is just a very small layer of polish left on the leather. By taking a small amount of cotton wool soaked in water and then bulling gently as before, this will be removed and your shoe is finished.
● Just blow any water that is left off your shoe and that's it.
OR, you can use an ice cube method instead of water, as I told you. ;) It means there are no drips. Shoes look like patent leather afterwards.
ReplyDeleteGrannymar, you must think I'm obsessed by shiny shoes! :-)
ReplyDeleteSorry I forgot about the Ice-cube Method. I'll hopefully use that method the next time.
Spitting sounds disgusting I know, but it is a VG means of using very little moisture.
Tim
Make sure you use KIWI polish only, Kiwi Parade Gloss is fine too but Kiwi polish generally. Anything else leaves a substabdard result (if anything at all!). My maxim always was that you can only polish polish, you cant polish leather. There were all sorts of personal tips, I liked to build up a thick early layer, others used lighters to help things etc. Fascinating and quite meditative.
ReplyDeleteRoger
Thank goodness most of our polishes are made by Kiwi!
ReplyDeleteAfter the initial thick layer, would it suffice to use as little polish on the cloth as possible subsequently?
Tim
Yes, after you get a good layer then just a touch each time. However a bulled shoe polish layer can score easily, crack or even fall off!
ReplyDeleteRoger
First of all when you open tin of parade gloss you have to scrape very fine layer of wax from tin, otherwise detrimental effects on polishing. The duster should be boiled a few times and rung out. This removes dye in duster. Before you start rinse duster in water and squeeze all water out so in effect starting with damp duster. then follow Timothy's rules.
ReplyDeletethere speaks an ex brigade squad recruit circa 1982!!!!