Shoe polish: thoughts, fun facts, questions

[Tobus]

Who here loves polishing their shoes? Not many, I'm guessing.

Warning: random thoughts ahead.

I know a lot of the old-school military folks have fond memories (OK, recurring nightmares) about polishing shoes and boots. My dad was a career US Air Force officer and Vietnam veteran (F-100 pilot) with a healthy respect for polished shoes, and especially combat boots. I didn't take much interest in it as a kid despite his attempts to teach me, but somewhere in adulthood I developed an appreciation for the look of a well-polished shoe. Not that I necessarily like the looks of a new perfect-condition shoe, but rather one that's well-worn yet maintained with polish.

I certainly won't claim any expertise or mastery in the art of shoe polishing, but I rather enjoy keeping my dress shoes polished. I think I have somewhere around 7 or 8 pairs of shoes that I keep polished for daily wear, some of which are also my kilt-specific shoes, and a couple pairs of boots. I don't fastidiously polish them for hours and hours, but I do like to get a decent polish on a new pair and then add to it over time. I find that it gets richer the more it's worn, shined, and re-polished. I make it a habit of brushing them clean when I take them off at the end of the day, as well as inspecting and touching them up before wearing them again. It's a satisfying little ritual. My wife even knows to corral the bulldogge when I come home so the dog won't scuff or scratch up my shoes when she greets me.

Judging by the shoes I see around me at work or in daily life, almost nobody wears the types of shoes that require polishing any more. Or they just don't polish their shoes and prefer for them to look more natural and distressed. Why do you suppose that is? Is it because of the general trend towards a casual look? Are polished shoes considered old-fashioned and stuffy now? Is it a function of a reduced willingness to spend time maintaining things in favor of more disposable type shoes? I'm not necessarily talking about the kilt world here, but just shoes in general. People in kilts still seem to appreciate polished shoes.

Fun fact #1: when your shoe polish starts to crack or crumble in the tin, or when you're scraping the bottom and still have a bunch of polish left on the sides of the tin, you can melt it over the stove to liquefy the wax and re-settle it in the bottom of the tin. This helps you get all the "goody" out of that tin of shoe polish.

Fun fact #2: if you accidentally drip the melted shoe polish onto your gas stove when melting it, it will flame up nicely and stink up the kitchen. And it's a real pain to clean off. Ask me how I know.

Specific to Highland wear, I know that brown shoes are not that popular. But amongst the brown shoes that I see with kilts, it seems very rare that people polish them. It's almost as if they expect black shoes with a kilt to be shiny, but brown ones not to be shiny. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I in left field here?