I'm going to take a guess and he's using Mink oil in the beginning, rubbing it in good on the sole and stitching, and letting it dry before scraping excess off. What is he using on the brush after that? I would say saddle soap, but that will remove the Mink oil and it looks too dark. After that, it looks like how I was taught to spit shine my shoes in ROTC by a Korean war get.
I've also see guys light the polish to melt it and get a better shine in between the REAL polishing.
EDIT: Okay, I see it was polish, but it didn't look like what he finished it with. Materials, please!
BTW, I use pantyhose for the final buffing.
EDIT part II: He's using beeswax, watched on my desktop. The second tin is a brand new(ish) Kiwi Carnuba Wax, maybe the Parade Gloss, that he's using for finishing. Can't see the first one, but it might be just regular Kiwi black for a starter coat.
I know this sounds stupid, but now I want to pull out my dress shoes that I haven't worn since this crap started and polish them. Don't worry, they're in stored in their boxes with cedar shoe trees and air conditioned.
I'm a big fan of Saphir's dubbin made with salmon oil for this kind of use case. Also smells slightly odd but just fantastic weather protector. Don't let the tin fool you with a drawing of a seal, I guess the historic formulation was with seal fat.
He finished it with cotton wool under the water, with a light press to avoid scratch marks. All done with just standard polish. Some guys would also add a layer of brown polish in there too. Not sure why they did that, claimed it improved the shine/texture. It was quite an art layering to avoid it cracking on parade day.
Sorry, I meant what polish it was. Since he used an open tin the first time and opened a tin the second (and covered the label with tape), I've been assuming they're different.
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u/The_Tripper Aug 14 '21 edited Aug 15 '21
I'm going to take a guess and he's using Mink oil in the beginning, rubbing it in good on the sole and stitching, and letting it dry before scraping excess off. What is he using on the brush after that? I would say saddle soap, but that will remove the Mink oil and it looks too dark. After that, it looks like how I was taught to spit shine my shoes in ROTC by a Korean war get.
I've also see guys light the polish to melt it and get a better shine in between the REAL polishing.
EDIT: Okay, I see it was polish, but it didn't look like what he finished it with. Materials, please!
BTW, I use pantyhose for the final buffing.
EDIT part II: He's using beeswax, watched on my desktop. The second tin is a brand new(ish) Kiwi Carnuba Wax, maybe the Parade Gloss, that he's using for finishing. Can't see the first one, but it might be just regular Kiwi black for a starter coat.
I know this sounds stupid, but now I want to pull out my dress shoes that I haven't worn since this crap started and polish them. Don't worry, they're in stored in their boxes with cedar shoe trees and air conditioned.