Today, we are offering a cleaning tip on how to polish shoes and give them that sophisticated rich shine. Check out our Art of the Home tip below.
Art of the Home Tip – when polishing your shoes, follow the steps below — especially Step. 5 for an extraordinary shine!
Step 1: Place all your polishing equipment and shoes on a newspaper.
Step 2: Brush off shoes to remove dirt and dust – especially around the welt of the shoe. This is very important so you don’t put your polish on top of the dirt and trap the dirt particles onto the leather. For excessive dust and dirt, you may need to use a damp cloth. If you do, make sure the shoes have dried up before proceeding with next step.
Step 3: First apply polish with a small brush to the welt of the shoe. You can try to do it with a cloth too but areas around the welt are much harder to reach that way. And without polish on the seams, humidity gets trapped in there which can damage your shoes. I don’t do it for all my shoes and not all the time but for expensive shoes, I definitely would recommend this extra step. Finally, with a cloth, apply shoe polish in a circular motion on each shoe. You can also use the small brush – will probably leave you with cleaner hands.
Step 4: After the polish has been applied, ideally you want to wait a couple minutes, proceed with buffing. First, brush with a soft bristle large brush (horsehair preferable). This brushing technique will smooth the polish as well as warming it up (when you’re brushing) which will make the polish shine.
Step 5: Using a microfiber cloth, a peau de chamois (chamois skin) or simply rolled up pantyhose, vigorously polish for a lustrous shine!