Spit shine shoes
 

Apparently the best way to get a real mirror shine on patent leather shoes is by spit shining them. How do you do that?

Any other suggestions for getting them real nice and shiny?

I use Pledge (yes, the furniture cleaner) on my Coraframs (shiny dress shoes). Just spray a little on the shoe and buff with a soft cloth until the haze is gone. Works like a charm...

Another good trick with Kiwi, is to heat it. Take a blow dryer to your shoes right after application . (I personally melt the Kiwi in the can with my lighter before I apply it).
Use panty hose to buff the shoes with at the end. You get a better gloss with it.

I just get a little spit on my rag and clean it if I see a little dirt spot. I was never one to make them so blinding. Though I don't really need them to be for my work.

other guys in the army used to ask my dad to shine their shoes for extra cash. he swore the secret was pantyhose.

unless he just made that up when my mom found some strange pantyhose lying around. ;)

Materials: coarse brush to remove dust/dirt, clean cloths, acrylic-free shoe cream that contains wax and matches your shoes, brush or cloth to apply the cream, and a brush to polish it once you're done
Step 1: Dry shoes completely, brush off dirt, do not use water.
Step 2: Apply cream polish with brush or cloth evenly and as close to the sole as you can get it. If the sole is the same color, apply the polish there, too. Let the cream soax in and dry.
Step 3: Use the shining brush to stroke briskly back and forth over the entire surface of the shoe to remove excess polish. Use a lint-free cloth (or pantyhose) if necessary after brushing.

Now, for the spit-shine.
When I say to spit, you can either use a plant mister, or do it the real way, by spitting (not loogies, a 'pfft' will work perfectly)
The best cloth for this is the type you can get at the grocery store with yellow fabric and red thread around the edge. Only use Kiwi polish, and you'll get the best result.

Stretch your cloth over your finger, so that there will be no wrinkles between the pad of your finger and the shoe. Dip your finger lightly into the in of polish, getting a small, manageable amount on the cloth.

Now, spit on the shoe like I told you to, so there's a fine mist on the surface. If you don't want to spit on your shoe, you can touch the cloth and polish to your tongue (do not swallow it, you're not dumb) and use that.

Polish, starting at the toe, in small less than-one-inch circles, until the swirls start to disappear. Only apply more polish to the shoe when you can see the fibers of the cloth through the polish. When it starts to shine witha rainbow, like a puddle of gasoline, you're halfway there.

Once it's as smooth as it will get, give it a bit of time to dry, then start the process again. Keep doing this as many times as it takes to make any scratches, scuffs, or marks disappear.

Once you have a smooth surface, it's time to get that mirror shine. Basically, to achieve this shine, reduce the amount of polish you use each time until you're using more spit than polish, do that a couple of times, and you'll be all ready to head out into combat or your local fetish club.

Thanks for the info. I cleaned up a pair of shoes last night real nice and perty before a party.

Thanks, guys! I'll give it a go next time I've got a few hours to spare :)

OK I can talk this one, shined many Army boots in my life, there are a million shortcuts but taking a can of Kiwi shoe polish, fill the lid with water and get an old cotton t-shirt. wrap it around your fingers, get it wet, put some polish on and start rubbing, it will take a while for an original shine but it will come after a while. Best about a "true" spit shine is when you scuff it, it will take 10 seconds to rub it out, alot of the 'shortcut' methods are ruined.

What MrSelfDestruct said. I shined my share of boots and low-quarters, and that was the way we did it.

I'm sure there was some value in spending hours shining boots every night, so they were ready to go run in the dust and mud the next day, I just never figured out what it was

...you know what's weird? I just did a google search for Spit Shine Shoes and this page came up. First. Well, not this page but an archived version of it, still pretty cool. And wow, it's great to bring up a thread more than 20 months old.

Oh, and why I care about Spit Shining Shoes: Boot camp starts in three weeks, and I've been told to care about it, a lot. We'll see if that applies or not, but so far the information has been interesting, thanks guys!