What is used to apply these products or take the products off:
In bootblacking, you are either applying a product, or making it pretty (putting pressure downward onto the polish to flatten it and wiping the product across the surface to smooth it).
Paste wax can be applied using a dauber, a cloth, or bare fingers.
If you are polishing boots for Your Master only, applying polish with one's fingers is a major way to get into polishing boots. Using your fingers is personal touch, after all. Fingers work well with both paste and cream polishes. Fingers give you a lot of control over the amount of polish you apply. With a small amount of time and practice, you can reliably gauge how much polish to use. It's very easy to get into most crevices found on boots with your fingers. Most importantly, if Master is wearing the boots while you polish, you can include a bit of a foot massage into the polish job. Yes, you will need to scrub your hands and clean/brush under your nails when you are finished.
Paste waxes because of their consistency, will often need a lot of rubbing to get them into a spreadable form. Cloths or your fingers are better at this. Cloths or your fingers will also be easier to get the polish where you want it and be more even in distribution.
Cream polishes work wonderfully with a dauber because they are already at the proper consistency. Daubers are small brushes with handles and medium firmness bristles. Cloths absorb your cream polish and aren’t recommended.
"Making it pretty" type of implements fall into two general categories: brushes and cloths.
Hand-held brushes are pretty easy to come by. The bristles should be significantly firmer and more tightly packed than those you find on a dauber. Antique brushes in good condition are a treasure.
Electric buffers require less physical effort to do a good job, provided the equipment is marketed for use by actual shoe-shine professionals. You would only want an electric buffer if you were doing many boots (like for a bar or charity).
Cloth-type buffing tools, (i.e., cotton cloths, sheepskin, and chamois) work by flattening raised sections of polish through pressure and absorbing extra polish. Sheepskin and chamois (sheepskin without the wool) are more expensive than cotton cloth and very hard to clean. Cotton polishing cloths marketed for automotive polishing are good and inexpensive. You want to find a low-nap fabric. Flannel or flannelette works nicely. Lighter colored rags are easier to find an unused section on, rather than on dark rags. Be sure that the rags are all cotton (old cotton T-shirts work well). Do not use polyester material.
The Doing Part Process:
Inspect the boots – look for loose threads, cracks in the leather, large debris or other issues. Fix what you can.
Clean the boots – ask the Owner of the boots if there is a way that they like the boots to be cleaned first. Then follow directions. Usually, a routine of using a brush to clean off dirt and following with foamy saddle soap is good. Do not do this to PVC / Patent leather / Vinyl , as a brush will scratch the surface.
Polish or Condition - use Kiwi or another boot polish or Huberd’s Shoe Grease or Oil if you’re just conditioning the leather. At least one coat of polish, rubbed on then buffed off. If conditioning, rub the conditioner in to the boot and let it absorb in. If the boots are very dry, apply another coat. i like the Huberd's Oil because it absorbs into the leather fast, it only has natural ingredients. If someone has handed me a nasty old pair of shoes, the Grease is going on after i clean them, then they sit and dry. Miracle's can happen using only these two steps.
Using Huberd’s Shoe Grease:
The directions on the label read:
For heavy shoes: Before treating thoroughly clean and warm boots to room temperature Rub grease into the leather with hands or soft cloth. Carefully grease where soles join uppers and all stitching. Allow penetrating the leather then apply another coat. After shoes have once been treated apply as needed to maintain waterproofing and conditioning of the leather.
Starting with cleaning off the leather is always a good idea. Dirt and dust clog the leather, and mixing it with grease will produce a sludge type substance over the shoe. A damp sponge and a spray bottle can get most of the dirt off. A toothbrush can be used to get dirt out of the crevice where the leather meets the edge. I like to then clean leather with saddle soap. i like the feel of Fiebings Saddle soap better then Kiwi and both are good products.
The container opening of Hubert Shoe Grease is very small. Either spoon some into a disposable small aluminum pie tin to use with a cloth or use your fingers. The grease comes off your hands with regular bar soap and water.
Apply the grease evenly over the entire boots, paying specific attention to any spots where the leather tends to crease, particularly at the ball of the foot, around the ankles and at the knees (on thigh-high boots). Flexing at these spots tends to wear the leather more and dry it faster, so care must be taken to keep the leather as supple and moisturized as possible. Multiple thin coats are more effective than one thick coat.
Follow the instructions and apply a second coat. The boots (especially if the leather is dry) will absorb the first coat immediately and still need more.
After the second coat, buff the boot, especially if the boot is oiled leather. Due to variations in how much grease the leather absorbs, there are often areas with grease still sitting on the surface. This extra grease should not pose a problem if the boots are being polished immediately afterward, but oiled leather shouldn't be polished, therefore the excess grease needs to be removed. A cotton cloth is good for this, particularly one with low nap and low lint, since oiled leather tends to be slightly sticky, and you can wind up with lint clinging to the boot.
