How to Polish Your Dress Shoes

Keeping your dress shoes as tidy as they were on the day you bought them is a tricky task. Regardless of being hard work, there are specific tricks that you can use to make them look great again.

Since there’s many different ways to polish your dress shoes, we have organised six easy steps for you to follow. The items you will need are really accessible and won’t cost you much:

• Tin of wax polish
• Horsehair shine brush
• Shoe polish brush (applicator)
• Cotton balls
• Shine cloth
  

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First Step

Some preparation; place your dress shoes on top of an old towel or a newspaper. This way you won’t get shoe polish all over the place and will save you from staining the carpet (shoe shining is extremely hard to clean out!).

Second Step

The cleaning procedure starts by dusting off your shoes with the horsehair shine brush or a damp rag.

Third Step

It’s time to cover the entire shoe with a generous amount of polish, using the shoe polish brush. If your shoes are still a little wet from our second step, allow them time to dry before you apply the polish.

For this step you want to make sure to match the colour of the polish to your shoes’ colour as closely as possible, you don’t want to dye your shoes! You should allow fifteen minutes for the polish to dry.

Fourth Step

It’s brushing time! Brush the entire shoe enthusiastically using the horsehair shine brush. This step will help brush off all the excess of polish and will leave the shoe with a nice thin layer on the outside.

Fifth Step

Once you are happy with the polishing results, you can now move on to the toe and heel in order to add extra shine to your shoes. Grab a cotton ball and dip it into water, squeezing it will get rid of any excess of moisture so it won’t drip (you are looking to get a damp cotton more than a soaked one).

Afterwards, it’s time to apply the polish on the toe and heel of the shoe by doing circular movements. It’s time to sit back and relax as this is a lengthy process.

Sixth Step

Repeat step five until you are happy with the level of shine. Remember to swap to a new cotton each time and to remove any extra polish before applying a new layer.

The first shine is always the hardest since you have to do a deeper work but they’ll become easier and quicker with time.

And there you have six, easy, accessible steps to polishing your shoes. Be sure to show them off to all your friends, they’ll be just as impressed as we are!

Written by Carla Oliver Marti