Shoe polish: thoughts, fun facts, questions

[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?