Shining your own shoes can bring a great sense of satisfaction and pride in your shoes. I would highly recommend doing it on your own if you have the time. If not, make sure your shoes get a good shine often. We’ve talked about some general tips in shoe maintenance before, so check it out before you start. Also, if you want to know what tools you need, check out our guide on the tools of the trade.

Now on to the crux of the matter, how to shine your own shoes.

We have an excellent video by the good people in John Lobb to teach you how to care for and polish your shoes.

A few things to remember when polishing shoes:

• Leaving your shoe tree in the shoe while polishing makes it easier to shine.

• You can use old socks and even coffee filters to shine shoes.

• Horsehair brush dauber can also be used to shine shoes instead of a cloth. But if you do use this brush, then you’ll need a different brush for each colour.

• If your shoes has laces, remove them before shining the shoes so that you don’t stain the laces.

• If you don’t know what shoe polish colour to buy, ask a professional or take the shoe with you to match the colour. ‘Neutral’ is just a colour for light shoes.

• Paste polish helps to moisturise fine leather, keeps shoes flexible and helps it to breathe better. It is great for conditioning leather but doesn’t give the shoe a very bright shine.

• Wax polish can give your shoes a bright shine, but seals the leather and causes it to crack.

So now you have clean, shiny shoes. You’re ready to take the town by storm. Let us know how it goes in the comments!

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