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Best black shoe polish?

Polish in a can will polish to a higher shine than cream as it has wax (or a good bit more wax) in it. Cream is better for filling in scuffs or rubs, and may condition the leather a bit. But it won't come up to a high polish - there just isn't the wax in it.
 
I like Meltonian shoe cream in all its colors. Widely available in most good shoe stores. More of a soft cream but it applies well and restores color. Perhaps not the hard polish and shine as a harder polish but good stuff...

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Paste wax or creams.......seems like a very familiar discussion somehow.....

b/w/t - I love the smell of all shoe polish
 
I have mainly used Kiwi since Navy boot camp. Easy to find and have been satisfied with it. I'll have to look for Lincoln, if I see it I may give it a shot.
 
I'm late to the group, but I wanted to add Kangaroo (made in Korea) second is Lincoln polish, but both start with a layer of Fiebing's USMC Black leather dye! After 30 years, I tried many different polishes, but Kangaroo always gave me a perfect shine on my Oxfords...since we don't shine our boots any more.
 
Only shoe I put polish on is Cycling Dedora's, Black KIWI, surprise people even police shoes. Remember our USMC Issued Boots need to be polished, today every service has gone ruff out boots.
 
I just read something somewhere on line that said Kiwi had recently changed its formula. They did not seem to say for the worse.

I think it was some kind of thread somewhere. In the thread it was mentioned that Kiwi "Parade" has silicon, which the writer posited as bad for leather over time.

Above I said "I could argue for Kiwi "Parade," Lincoln, or Saphir. I love the smell of Saphir, too." I would say that I am exclusively Saphir these days.

I apparently neglected to respond to this question: "I was looking into picking up some Saphir products for some AE's I have on order. Do you guys tend to prefer the polish or cream?"

It seems obsessive when I write this, but I probably tend to use, seriatim, Saphir Medaille d'Or Renovator, then Saphir M d'O cream polish, then the M d'O tinned paste wax, the the mirror gloss wax. I really like that last product and it is fun trying to get a mirror glass. Some days I am better at that than others. But sometimes I just use the Renovator. It gives a passable shine by itself and I feel less guilty about neglecting my dress shoes! I use Baron's Dyanshine on the edges. I hate trying to deal with edge enamel for lots of reasons. Among them, I am not looking to have edges that looks like auto paint.

I have sort of accumulated these things over time. I am not saying that using each is necessary every time you shine your shoes. I probably favor paste over cream, unless I am trying to cover up scratches or discoloration.
 

Doc4

Stumpy in cold weather
Staff member
I just read something somewhere on line that said Kiwi had recently changed its formula. They did not seem to say for the worse

Given the multitude of previous reformulations, I think the working presumption ... unless stated otherwise ... is that the change IS "for the worse".
 
Given the multitude of previous reformulations, I think the working presumption ... unless stated otherwise ... is that the change IS "for the worse".
Well-said. Indeed, that could be said about most of the things B&B members are concerned about. I cannot think of a fragrance, for instance, that was better after a reformulation, and virtually all reformulated scents I can think of were not as good after reformulation. (Guelain Vetiver is an interesting case. It has undergone any number of reformulations over the years. I have some of a very vintage version. I love it, but I am not sure it would appeal broader to modern buyers.)

I guess for Kiwi shoe polish an argument could be made that it was not that good to begin with, at least in recent times, so a reformulation, might not in fact be worse. I really do not know Kiwi well enough in recent years to say, and regardless of the supposed silicon content I think I would still like the "parade gloss" version.
 
Hmmmm. The internet tells me Kiwi has withdrawn its shoe polishes from the UK market, whatever market that is exactly, citing that folks are wearing more casual shoes these days, which do not require polish. I would think that is true of most parts of the world and might have guessed perhaps less true of, say, England itself, but what do I know!
 

The Count of Merkur Cristo

B&B's Emperor of Emojis
this is true, they all work very well...i have been invery well satisfied with Saphir [
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] and The Shoe Snob polish...
Mark:
Since my early Army days (and beyond), it's always been Kiwi, then Parade Gloss. Then, later in my career I started using Linclon, and then Angelus and finally settling upon Saphir (in both blk & bwnpolishes). Shoeshine Image.jpg

Shoe Shine.jpg "You can't buy happiness, but you can buy [shoe] polish...and that's kind of the same thing". Author Unknown
 
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