This shoe shine kit arrived a day after I ordered it. That's good service.

First, I cleaned using their foaming cleaning spray stuff. That almost solved the problem in itself. I was on the fence about polishing them at all. But there was a scuff mark and a small nick in the leather and some discoloured areas on the brown leather (the shoes have two colours of leather). So I decided to use the shoe polish.

The first problem is the aforementioned two colours of leather. I'll just show a picture:



So I didn't want to get any black polish on the brown part and vice verse. So I put masking tape all around the permiter of the brown parts. This was not a quick job. There are many curved areas.

Also, I had to go to the store to get masking tape. And cotton balls. So that was a chore.

My plan was to use the toothbrush to apply the shoe polish. Yes, it will take an age but I'll be able to carefully go around and avoid polishing the parts that are the wrong colour. But I didn't put the toothbrushes in my bag when I was at the store or maybe the cashier never rang them up. They were only 50p in any event.

So I tried the cotton balls. This was another method suggested by the internet. But this didn't work. You got strands of cotton sticking to the shoes.

A third method that the internet suggested was an old t-shirt. So I tried that and that worked fine.

It was surprisingly easy. I got the brown parts, then I took the tape off, and then I did the black parts. No need for tape, I just carefully avoided the brown parts and was largely successful.

Then I left them to dry for 15 minutes. Then I brushed them. Then I polished them with a cloth. Then I sprayed them with some water resistant stuff that also came in this shoe shine kit.

It's a few hours later and they look okay to me. Scuff marks are gone, discoloured areas are properly coloured. The black looks black and the brown looks brown. So great.

I've had these for maybe a year and a half so even if I end up throwing these out, they lasted longer than I expected. The soles were a concern. These are leather soles. I bought shoes for about £120 years ago with leather soles and within two weeks, the soles were peeling off.

No such problem with these and they weren't that much more. I see them online for £220. I don't remember what I paid for them.

I think those other shoes just had a piece of leather glued on to the bottom of the shoe whereas these shoes are better made.

You can get new soles put on as well, although who knows how much that is. I saw one guy say, "I bought these shoes for £80 so I expect them to last!" £80 for dress shoes seems low-end to me. Maybe I'm out of touch with the common man. Anyway, that guy apparently go them resoled for £15. I've seen prices as high as £50 but even that would be okay.