Shoe Shining

Shoe Shining
Courtesy of C/Gandy, posted with permission

The following is my personal method of shining shoes. There aremany variations but this is one of the safest, simplest, and most effective.

Materials: Kiwi shoe polish, fresh water and cotton balls.

Step 1: If your shoes are brand new with no polish you will need toremove the protective coating with rubbing alcohol. This requires noparticular skill. Your shoes will look pretty bad afterwards, butnever fear the polish is coming.

Step 2: Prepare your shoes for polishing by making sure they are cleanand taking out the shoe laces.

Step 3: Dip a cotton ball in water and rub a little polish onto it. Proceed to make small circles on your shoe with the cotton ball. Ensure that you do not apply too much pressure.

Step 4: You are starting to shine the shoe when the polish starts to look like a streaky window before you wipe the windex off. Continue to shine that area until the streaky parts become nice and shiny.

Step 5: Focus mainly on the toe and heel of the shoe, but do notneglect the sides and tongue. Once you start wearing your shoes theywill get creases and you have to take special care to get that part ofthe shoe shiny again.

Step 6: Relace your shoes with the first lace going DOWN into the holes. Every lace after that should also go down into the holes and remember when you wear your shoes to tuck the laces in.

Remember that practice makes perfect AND perfect shoes!