Polishing Shoes

Among my close circle of family and friends, it had became common knowledge that I like to polish my shoes. And that is true. I find relaxation and tranquillity in polishing my shoes. Now, this polishing I am referring to should not be taken to be the same as what most of the leather-wearing population does: Layering polish on and then brushing the shoes. For me, that is far too active an activity to facilitate relaxation; and there is a limit to how many times you can repeat that since the shine generally doesn’t get any better. What I am referring to here might be more familiar to you guys in uniformed groups; it is what the British military colloquially term bull polishing and according to one website, the Calvary Guards dubs it bobbing while the general population would likely know it as “spit shine” or “spit polishing” or whatever innovative names you come up with.

But again, my point is not the terminology; nor the results, which could be extremely impressive and satisfying; but the process. It is this process that really draws me to spending a portion of my free time polishing my shoes.

To facilitate proper postulation of my point, I am forced to bore you with the steps to a pair of gleaming, mirror-finish shoes/ boots. Firstly, you remove anything and everything from your leather, that is, strip off any old polish or dirt, mud…. Then you do what most of the folks out there do, apply a generous layer of polish with a brush and then WAIT FOR IT TO DRY before brushing off. Some people just apply and continue brushing, which really wastes polish without achieving much. The standard procedure is to have two brushes, one for applying and one for removing the polish. Though usually it doesn’t matter since you are just doing what is known as “pre-layering” for the subsequent layers of wax. Once you complete brush polishing and get a decent looking pair of shoes, you can grab a piece of cloth (the British military seems to advocate a Selvyt jewellery polishing cloth. But for me with cheaper taste, I use any piece of old cotton. Just avoid synthetics.), wet it, dip it in the polish and then apply it to the leather in circular motions. With time and hard work, you achieve the hard shine of military boots.

By now, I speculate that many readers of this piece will be bored out and think about how tedious and repetitive this task is. The very repetitiveness of bull polishing is what I intent to discuss here. For me, I think that this quality of polishing shoes is what makes it so beneficial to somebody like me who wishes to have some time to think and reflect in peace but prevent myself from falling asleep from thinking without other forms of occupation. The repeating of moving my hand in circles applying polish provides a pace for my thought and reflection without occupying me too much mentally and intellectually to prevent the flow of thought. Put in simpler terms, polishing shoes supply me with space for thought while keeping me awake by its sheer simplicity of motion and, pardon me, thoughtless activity. As in I don’t have to think about the task at hand but yet stays awake and obtains a rhythm for thinking and reflecting about other things.

That pretty much sums up my main motive behind polishing shoes, leaving the almost equally-important results. While brush polishing imparts a soft shine to the leather, bull polishing smooth out the surface of the leather by filling up the pores and indentations with wax from the polish. With a little practice and elbow grease, it is easy to achieve a stylish hard shine. From my perspective, a glossy shine just about carries off any type of leather footwear. Shiny dress shoes make a formal impression while shiny safety/work/ammo/combat or whatever-you-call-it boots project a clean-cut and masculine image.

Contrary to what others may think, I am actually very aware that there exists an almost hundred-year-old invention called patent leather. It is inherently highly glossy and shiny, but lacks the natural creases and wrinkles of non-patent leather. While bull polishing yields leather equally shiny as patent leather, there will always be regions of creases where it is less shiny, as opposed to the homogeneous shine of patent leather. Furthermore, polished leather attains a patina over time and wear that makes it all the more attractive while patent leather age to resemble glossy rubber (Reminds me of the black rubber boots worn by market vendors). In fact, the very fragility of the polish finish makes it more precious and attractive to me. With the satisfaction to boot, I really don’t see why anyone would choose patent leather over a bulled finish. Unless, of course, they do not have the time.