How to Shine Boots
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Nothing is boring than walking to an official meeting with unpolished and dirty boots or shoes. Also, they will undermine the smart looks of a properly tailored suit.
Also, there’s nothing that can elevate your presentation quite well than walking with a well-polished pair of boots. If you are unfamiliar with what it takes to shine your boots, here’s a step-by-step guide to smartly shined leather boots in a short time.
What you’ll need
- Shoe cream or wax polish
- Leather cleaner or conditioner
- A dry, cotton cloth
- Horsehair shoe brush
- An old towel or a newspaper
Step 1: Set The Stage by Gathering Your Tools
Start by laying down some old newspaper or any old towel that you rarely use. A towel is the best option as it’s greener and reusable.
Also, make sure you remove the boot laces where applicable and keep the boots trees in.
Step 2. Brush
Before you apply any polish to the boots, ensure you start by brushing them to remove the surface dirt. Furthermore, it’s essential to get along the welt of the boots, close to where the upper meets the sole. Dirt gets trapped there like you wouldn’t believe.
It’s quite simple, apply pressure against the boot, then use a back-and-forth movement to remove the dust. Ensure you use shoe brushes that come with horsehair bristles.
Even though they are a bit expensive compared to the regular brushes with synthetic bristles, they have a notable difference in quality.
Step 3. Condition
Most footwear resources advise you to apply the shoe polish at this point, but it’s vital to start with a conditioner or a leather cleaner first, then use shoe polish. There’s no need for trapping old surface dirt below the layer of polish.
You have to dab a small amount all over the boots. But you must first test the product in an inconspicuous part like the upper side of the heel counter to ensure that discoloration isn’t a problem.
Even though your boots aren’t that dirty, make sure you use a leather conditioner during this step. For all purposes and intents, your boots are made of animal skin, and such boots benefit a lot from the nourishment they receive from a high-quality leather conditioner.
Step 4: Now Polish the Boots
Here, you can use a tiny applicator brush with horsehair bristles. But you can also use any soft and dry cloth as this will work properly. If you want to have proper control over the amount of shoe polish you use, then use a soft cotton cloth.
Don’t over-apply the shoe polish. Begin with a nickel-sized dab, then continue rubbing it on the upper side of the boots. The application will have a matte finish once you finish.
Make sure you use a cream color that looks like the color of your boots. When the boots feature an unorthodox color, then choose a neutral shoe cream. If you decide to use a horsehair brush, then have more than one on your hand for a tan, dark brown, black polish, and any other colors that you may want to use.
Once done with polishing your boots, let them dry. The idea here is to allow the polish to get inside the leather properly and nourish it. The more you let it sit, the more it gets inside the leather.
Step 5. Buff
Once the cream dries up, take a dry, soft cloth or large horsehair, then buff the boots. Apply pressure gently, then use the same motion that you used in the second step.
Your boots should begin shinning immediately. Once done with buffing, apply a sole edge dressing to finalize the task, then make the boots look almost new.
How to Shine Shoes Without Polish
Everyone has been there. Going late to a formal event or important business meeting, looking for your boots only to find them dirty and scuffed. Don’t worry! A simple coat of shoe polish can shine them up. But– a mess! – you’ve run out!
Many thanks to the daily items that do a nice job of polishing shoes, and perhaps you have most of them in your kitchen cabinet. Even if you don’t have shoe polish, here are tips on how you can shine the boots without shoe polish.
- Lemon and Olive Oil
Even though most oils in the market are perfect for shining shoes, olive oil is widely known as the best moisturizer and an alternative to shoe polish. Just spray or sprinkle a little olive oil on your boots, then leave it for five minutes. After that, buff using a soft, dry cloth. Finally, add some drops of lemon juice to facilitate the shine.
- Coconut Oil
Rub the coconut oil on your boots, then buff them off to provide them with a sophisticated look. Please don’t use this method if you stay in a cool climate. Coconut oil can clump on your boots in the cold, leaving an ugly white mess on the leather that’s hard to remove.
- Bananas
Shinning your boots is the last activity to do before walking out of the door. When you don’t have shoe polish, using the banana you ate in the morning is among the best alternatives.
All you have to do is rubbing the inside part of the banana peel on the boots, then buffing off the excess to give them a smart and shiny look. Nobody can suspect that the boots are polished with garbage.
- Beeswax
This is one of the oldest forms of shoe polish that you can still work today to shine your shoes. Just heat the wax to make it soft, then apply it to your boots. After that, rub off the excess using a soft cloth before you buff them for a shiny look. The wax also conditions the leather.
How to Shine Boots Using a Heat Gun
Having a mirror shine on your boots is easy using a heat gun. Here is the procedure:
Step 1: Stripe The Factory Finish
Soak a cotton ball inside the rubbing alcohol. With one hand inside the first boot to give you support, use the other hand to hold the cotton ball, then rub it around the boot. Ensure you stripe off the boot’s chemicals that give it the factory finish. If the boot maintains its factory shine, do this again until it has a matte look.
Step 2: Make Sure The Alcohol Dries Up Completely
Use your middle and index fingers to hold the cloth diaper hen dip a little section of the diaper inside the cold water. After that, run the wet spot of the diaper into the black wax. Then apply the wax on the boot then keep doing this in a circular motion until you remove all the wax.
Step 3: Now Use the Heat Gun to Melt the Wax
you can use a hairdryer as an alternative to melting the wax. However, hold the heat gun two feet away from the boot, then heat the wax until melts on the leather pores on your boot. Now place the heat gun aside, then watch as a haze develops on the cooling wax.
After that, dip the cotton ball, then rub the wax in circular moves until all the hades fade away. Do this once again to create a second layer of wax, polishing, and heating until the boots sines. Remember to use thin layers of wax and build a little layer at a time.
Step 4: Add Neutral Wax
Immediately you have up to six layers of black wax, add two more neutral wax layers using the same procedure. The neutral wax provides a clear shine layer and protection to the boot. Repeat the same method for the second boot.
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