A quick guide to achieving a mirror shine of your fine leather shoes:

You will need:

• Paste wax polish, the hard kind in a metal tin. Kiwi, Lincoln, Saphir, and others have all been recommended. Shoe cream (the paste in a jar or tube) is not a viable alternative for achieving a mirror shine.
• A soft applicator cloth - a small piece of an old cotton t-shirt, old cloth diapers sold for polishing, or cotton facial pads have all been used with success.
• A final polishing cloth - a larger piece of shirt, diaper, or a cotton flannel shoe bag (as come with your better shoes) work well for this purpose.

The procedure:

• Clean the shoe. This can range from a simple brush-off of loose dirt to a wipe down with a damp cloth to using cleaner/conditioner lotion, etc. This is not the focus of this article, and opinions vary on this process.
• Once the shoe is clean and has been allowed to dry, apply a thin, even layer of wax polish over the whole upper (the main leather "body" of the shoe) with a smooth cotton cloth or "facial pad", starting from the heel of the shoe.
• Let dry/"cure" for a while - a few minutes usually is sufficient, but the longer the better.

The following "mirror shine" method should generally be undertaken only on the stiffened areas of the shoe, usually the heel counters and toe. It builds up a relatively thick layer of polish that, if flexed, can crack and even flake off. Thus it is best to use the mirror polish method on the parts of the shoe that cannot flex and leave much less polish on the flexible parts. You can experiment to see how much you can get away with, since cracked polish can be quite easily rubbed off the shoe in the flexible parts.

• Dip the cotton cloth in water so that it gets slightly moist. It should not be dripping with water, nor should it be too dry. Getting a good balance here can be hard, but is also important for the success of the mirror shining process.
• Get a little bit more polish on the cloth.
• Using a circular motion, rub the shoe with the moist cloth. Continue dipping the pad/cloth into a little bit of water and a little polish, and rubbing a small circle (stay in one place). At this stage you are building a solid layer of polish on the leather.
• After a while you will feel the area you're working suddenly "smooth out". This is hard to explain in words, but you will quickly understand when you try it. The first time this is done to a pair of shoes, it may take a while - subsequent touch-ups will be much faster.
• Move on to the next area, continuing with both water and polish until the stiffened parts of the shoe all feel smooth and "greasy" when rubbed with the polish covered cloth/pad.
• Allow this treatment to cure and harden for as long as you can stand it, preferably overnight. This time allows the solvents in the polish to evaporate, leaving behind a very hard and durable layer of glossy wax. Even ten minutes is better than moving on immediately.
• To put the final gloss on the shoe, rub very gently with a soft cloth. The cotton flannel shoe bags that come with many better shoes are ideal for this. Turn one inside out over your hand and use the inside of it (with no embroidery or printing) to smoothe over the whole shoe. It is important to note that at this stage you should not be removing polish, merely smoothing out the very outside surface of the finish.

• Using thin gloves (cotton or rubber) during the process is generally a good idea, as shoe polish typically contains substances that can cause skin irritation and/or will stain your fingers and fingernails.

• When the shoes already have a good mirror shine "base" it usually is not necessary to perform the first two steps of the process (applying a layer of polish and let it dry). Simply clean the shoe of dust or grime with a damp cloth and go straight to the water/polish step.

• If the shoe's layer of mirror polish has been compromised (cracked, scraped, etc.) or the leather has dried out over time, you may want to strip the entire shoe with dilute alcohol (vodka or rubbing alcohol), then start the process with cleaner/conditioner, shoe cream, then polish, as needed.

This page from J.M. Weston has instructions and a Flash video of the process being done: http://www.jmweston.com/en_home.htm -

Click on 'Art and the Material', 'Maintenance' (sic), 'A lesson in images ... see the video (text link on the left)'

Note that in the video the polisher follows several steps:

• Applies cleaner/conditioner lotion to the whole shoe, working it into the leather
• Applies colored shoe cream to the whole shoe, working it into crevices and broguing (holes) with a brush, then buffs it with a separate brush
• Applies a coat of wax polish (to a presumably dry shoe, as it will not work well on fresh shoe cream) and buffs with a brush
• Applies "glaçage" ("glazing" (?)) separately to the toe and heel counters

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