Shoe polish: thoughts, fun facts, questions

[Father Bill]

What's "bulling"?

I like shining my shoes, brown or black and I'm proud that I'm good at it. Part of the problem today is that it's hard to get shoes with top-grain leather. It's mostly split and burnished and never does come up to specifications or keep a shine either. I like to melt the wax in with the back of a hot tablespoon heated from the inside over a candle and rubbed HARD on the shoe. Proud to look like I've got mirrors on them when I'm done.

[Hirsty]

Bulling is referred to spit polish this side of the pond.

[Hirsty]

I do love a well polished shoe.

I wear brown oxford brogues from Jones Bootmaker with my daywear set up.

We were having a beach wedding in Australia, being a rather casual affair I wore my tweed jacket, brogues, brown belt, green tie - day wear.

My shoe polishing kit came with me from Scotland and I bulled my brogues up to a mirror-like shine. As soon as my shiny feet hit the powder-fine sand of the beach they reverted to a matt finish.

[Profane James]

I really want to do it for myself - the wooden box with the shoe rest, brushes, etc - but just don’t have the time to devote. Plus, in my parts, there is a wonderful shoe repair/cobbler that has been around forEVER, and I think I would feel bad not supporting such an intensely local and valuable business.
In another context, I love the ASMR shoe cleaning and shining videos. You have to sift through the chaff, but some have wonderful cloth and brush sounds!

[Tobus]

I really want to do it for myself - the wooden box with the shoe rest, brushes, etc - but just don’t have the time to devote. Plus, in my parts, there is a wonderful shoe repair/cobbler that has been around forEVER, and I think I would feel bad not supporting such an intensely local and valuable business.
In another context, I love the ASMR shoe cleaning and shining videos. You have to sift through the chaff, but some have wonderful cloth and brush sounds!

Do you take your shoes to your local cobbler for polishing and maintenance? I wish I had someone locally who I could regularly use for repairs, resoling, etc. I'm not sure I'd need that service for everday cleaning and polishing, but it would be nice to be able to have a professional who I could rely on. Take care of your local cobbler! It's a dying trade.

I don't have a fancy shoe-shine kit like some people probably do, with the wooden box and shoe rests. Mine is just a zipper bag where I keep my tins of polish, rags, and brushes. I have separate brushes for brown and black polish. To be honest, I've never had much success with applying the polish with an applicator brush, and I prefer to just apply it with a soft cloth (old t-shirt strips) wrapped around my fingertip. So my applicator brushes only get used very rarely, but my cleaning/burnishing brushes get used all the time. There's something slightly zen-like about brushing shoes and seeing minor scuffs just disappear and get smoothed over.

What brand and type of shoe polish do people here prefer? I usually only find two brands locally, and so I typically stick to hard paste-wax Kiwi parade gloss polish (both brown and black) on my shoes. It's great for cap-toes and keeping the front wing-tip end of brogues shiny, but I'm thinking of going to a softer type of cream wax for other parts of my shoes. Specifically, the areas that bend and crease when I walk, the tongues, and other areas where paste wax doesn't last long. It flakes off and I lose the effect. I don't mind a softer or less shiny look in these areas, as I think it accentuates the hard shine on the toe when there's a two-tone effect, so to speak. Got any good recommendations for a cream wax that works well in keeping the leather more supple and keeping a semi-gloss look in the bendy parts?

[Blaidd]

What brand and type of shoe polish do people here prefer? I usually only find two brands locally, and so I typically stick to hard paste-wax Kiwi parade gloss polish (both brown and black) on my shoes. It's great for cap-toes and keeping the front wing-tip end of brogues shiny,

Along with Nomad and others, I still prefer the military bulled finish, at varying degrees depending on the use of the shoe. However, (again, I think like most military), I avoid the Parade Gloss variant of Kiwi, sticking to the older 'standard' polish. I find the spirit in the gloss version can leave a misty finish. Personal preference I guess.

[Tobus]

Along with Nomad and others, I still prefer the military bulled finish, at varying degrees depending on the use of the shoe. However, (again, I think like most military), I avoid the Parade Gloss variant of Kiwi, sticking to the older 'standard' polish. I find the spirit in the gloss version can leave a misty finish. Personal preference I guess.

Interesting. I've noticed a misty finish on one of my pairs of shoes that I polished with the brown Kiwi parade gloss wax. Well, maybe not misty so much as having a strange sort of coloured sheen under the surface that won't buff out. I had attributed it to putting on a coat of clear wax at one point, then going back to brown later. I haven't seen it happen on the other brown shoes I use that polish on, though.

[Tobus]

Along with Nomad and others, I still prefer the military bulled finish, at varying degrees depending on the use of the shoe. However, (again, I think like most military), I avoid the Parade Gloss variant of Kiwi, sticking to the older 'standard' polish. I find the spirit in the gloss version can leave a misty finish. Personal preference I guess.

I'm quoting your reply again because I gave it some more thought over the last few days and decided to "go back to basics", as it were. I've been using the Parade Gloss variant for the last few years, and it seems to give a very crisp-looking sheen without quite so much work in the bulling process, but you had me curious as to whether I've been making the right choice. So I picked up a couple of tins of regular old Kiwi polish (brown and black).

Over the week-end I had to take my Bulldogge and drop her off for a month's stay at a K9 training camp where it was rainy and muddy. I was wearing my brown Corcoran jump boots, so they needed some cleaning up last night. I washed them off and let them dry, then used a cotton ball and some rubbing alcohol to take down the Parade Gloss wax from the heel cup and toe cap, with the intent of re-building the wax on them with regular brown Kiwi.

Side note: my wife is not a fan of polished boots, and thinks they look better when they're scuffed and worn. I compromise for her sake, and only polish/bull the heel cup and toe cap, leaving the rest of the boot just clean and brush-waxed without necessarily polishing or bulling it.

I try to keep it simple, using just an old t-shirt for building up the wax layers, then brushing with my horse-hair brushes, then bulling with another t-shirt rag. Here are the boots after cleaning, during the wax-building steps on the heels/toes:



I must say, I noticed a marked difference in the way the regular polish builds, as compared to the Parade Gloss variant. And in the bulling process, it took a bit more elbow grease, but the end result was a deeper shine with a better and more pure colour, if that makes sense. It didn't have the slight irridescence that I get from the Parade Gloss, and I could really feel the friction changing a lot more noticeably as it reached a mirror-like finish. I like it! I think you've convinced me to stick to regular old Kiwi polish.

Not a perfect job by military standards, I'm sure, but I'm happy with it.

[Profane James]

Do you take your shoes to your local cobbler for polishing and maintenance? I wish I had someone locally who I could regularly use for repairs, resoling, etc. I'm not sure I'd need that service for everday cleaning and polishing, but it would be nice to be able to have a professional who I could rely on. Take care of your local cobbler! It's a dying trade.

I do, indeed. Now, fortunately, I don’t spend a lot of time outdoors getting them scuffed up. A single pair may only go the shop once a year - I do clean them and do light buffing myself, but leave the serious care to those professionals. Plus, all of mine are full brogue, so any shine gets lost in all the brogueing (my opinion). I just ask for clean and touch up.
Shop Local!

[Baeau]

....I really want to do it for myself - the wooden box with the shoe rest, brushes, etc - but just don’t have the time to devote. Plus, in my parts, there is a wonderful shoe repair/cobbler that has been around forEVER, and I think I would feel bad not supporting such an intensely local and valuable business...

Would this, be the type of wooden box?