How to Spit Shine a Pair of Boots or Shoes (from someone with allot of experience)

Okay, let me tell you how to polish a pair of boots, or shoes... an NCO showed this to a bunch of us at fort Sam Houston Texas
We were shown how to build a very shiny base coat.

1. With a clean rag, smear a thick layer of Kiwi shoe polish onto your foot wear. You’ll have to dig into your tin of Kiwi allot for this step.

2. Then, either get a small propane torch (like is used for soldering) or get a cigarette lighter and set the polish (on the shoe/boot) on fire.3. Only allow the polish (wax) to burn for a few seconds as you tilt the boot this way and that while holding it up-side-down. This way, you can control the flames, and make them go where you want which is over the unmelted wax. You could also perform this wax and burn step in sections by doing the toe first, then the heels. Do not damage your boots/leather by burning too long. You only want to melt the wax and get it to run… that’s all.

3. Blow the wax out.

4. Get a pair of men’s briefs (tighty whiteys), and a cup of cool water. I have found mens underwear work best for me. I don't know why, but they can put a beautiful shine on footgear. That being said, the shine is worth the sacrifice of a pair of my own. With the Kiwi sitting on the table (don't use any more yet) take your briefs and hold them so that the soft crotch cotton is on the tips of your polishing fingers (first and second fingers) then wrap the excess portion around your hand.5. Dip your underwear covered fingertips into the water, and begin to polish your footwear by making moderate size circular motions with your covered fingers. It should be noted here that contrary to what some people will tell you, you can use more than one finger, and you don’t have to use only your finger ‘tips’. I use not only my finger tips, but the entire last two-thirds of my polishing fingers. At first, you will accumulate allot of wax into the rag, so you might want to change positions of your fingers often (moving them to a clean spot in the underwear. Just remember to always keep your polishing rag (the underwear) dampened. The damp polish rag encourages the polish to dislodge its self from the rag, and deposit its self on the leather.

5. Continue polishing till you are no longer picking up polish with your rag, then dab your rag into the water, then into the wax, then go back to the boot/shoe and continue your polishing motion. In this step, only a smidgen of wax will be needed at a time since your base coat is built up. Note: it's okay to occasionally polish in a back and forth motion from time to time in those hard to reach places.

6. It takes a while to get a nice glossy shine on your boots/shoes, but give it about 1 to 2 hours and your actions; your endeavors will pay off, and reinforce continued perseverance in shining them. When you feel like quitting for a while, stop going to the tin for more polish, and only use the damp rag. If your shine has water spots, then your rag was too wet. All you have to do in this instance is squeeze any excess water from the rag, then while it is only damp, polish in those circular motions as before.

Polishing your foot gear is pretty straight forward, and if you put all that time and effort into making them look good you should also know how to care for the soles of your boots/shoes. There is a product on the market called (I think), ‘Heel and sole dressing’ which is a kind of black shiny die that you squeeze from a bottle onto your soles. The bottle has a small foam applicator which makes it easy to use. This stuff really finishes off a pair of jump boots and makes them look really, really good.

When I was in the army, I loved having my boots shine. They were shined so well that I could count top-floor barracks windows looking at them through the reflection. I frequently made quite the impression on officers who inspected us from time to time. Yes, while they wore lazy patent leather, I wore the real thing and mine outshined theirs. What sucked was when I would accidentally drip diesel fuel on them. Well, that's all for now... Hope you have allot of luck on you foot wear... just keep at it, and you'll have it down in no time.-----------------------------------------