Shoe polish: thoughts, fun facts, questions

[BorstalBoy]

I whole heartedly agree with the sentiments about polishing shoes being cathartic (might have something to do with that military indoctrination...). Anyway, in my search for some ghillie brogues to wear with my kilt on semi-formal occasions, all the ones I’ve come across are made if corrected grain leather - i.e., leather that has the top layer of hide sanded down to remove blemishes and then is treated with a lacquer or acrylic varnish. These don’t take polish as the pores have been sealed over and moreover, the varnish will crack with use.

Unless anyone is able to point me to a source of full-grain leather ghillie brogues, my plan is to use acetone to remove the varnish after which I will dye the brogues and then polish as usual. I don’t know how this will turn out, but I’ll report on the results. I’ve read about others doing this with mixed results on other forums in regards to generic dress shoes.

[Tobus]

Anyway, in my search for some ghillie brogues to wear with my kilt on semi-formal occasions, all the ones I’ve come across are made if corrected grain leather - i.e., leather that has the top layer of hide sanded down to remove blemishes and then is treated with a lacquer or acrylic varnish.

What about these? Thistle Shoes Luxury Ghillie Brogues

[Steve Ashton]

In my days flying you never used polish on your boots. It is a fire hazard. And your boots for combat conditions were not polished either.

But there were a pair of boots back in the far recesses of the closet with polish for those rare times when they were needed.

Dress shoes were polished, work shoes and boots were not.

[Tobus]

In my days flying you never used polish on your boots. It is a fire hazard.

That's a new one on me. I could see how it makes sense, but this is the guy (my father) who I grew up watching polish his flight boots. The three smells that remind me of him are shoe polish, waxed canvas, and that slightly vomit-like aroma of military rubber waterproof coating. I wonder if the shoe polish fire hazard issue was something the Marines practised but not the Air Force?

[BorstalBoy]

In my days flying you never used polish on your boots. It is a fire hazard. And your boots for combat conditions were not polished either.

I can appreciate that - I’ve got the Navy perspective where combat conditions are less of an issue, and given that we have Marine D.I.s, polished everything is a must. For firefighting on the ship, we’ve got separate, galosh-type boots as part of the firefighting ensemble. Flight deck boots have a flame-retardant layer, which I believe aviators wear with flight suits.

[Steve Ashton]

Maybe the Air Force is different. When I was flying, it was illegal to polish boots used on the flightline.

[BorstalBoy]

What about these? Thistle Shoes Luxury Ghillie Brogues

It’s hard to say without seeing them in person - I might try ordering a pair if I can find a US retailer, otherwise the return shipping costs to the U.K. are outrageous. I bought a pair of Jamie Alexander ghillie brogues (which I will need return or try to pass along to someone in the US as they are too large) because they looked like they might be a full-grain leather, but alas are not. I want to say other photos I’ve seen of the Thistle brogues made them appear to be corrected grain (in between unpolished full-grain leather and patent leather in terms of glossiness), but again, this is judging off the photos I’ve seen.

I might return the Jamie Alexander brogues and then try to find a pair of the Thistle brogues instead as I could still go ahead with my plan to strip them if they do turn out to be corrected grain...