A COMPLETE, DETAILED, & UNCUT GUIDE TO A MIRROR SHINE: A GUARANTEED SHINE

this is the elegant Oxford with your host Preston sotto hey everyone welcome to my in-depth mirror shine tutorial if you're watching this video it's probably because you've been having some trouble achieving a mirror shine so in this video I'm gonna be narrating here in person I know I don't do that often but I'm gonna be narrating here and showing you how to do a mirror shine step by step telling you everything you need and hopefully this will be my most comprehensive and detailed tutorial so it'll help some of you if you need it okay so you're gonna need a couple of things and I'm gonna show you exactly what you need so let's get started you'll need isopropyl alcohol and any type is fine I got this at Walmart absolutely any type is fine as long as it's rubbing alcohol you'll need an ice cube or cold water this glass dispenser is from the hanger project and it's really convenient when I'm doing a lot of jobs but just water and an ice cube is all you'll need a shining cloth and there's really no secret as long as it's a hundred percent cotton it'll do you fine cut up old t-shirts whatever you'd like there's really no secret to it as long as it's clean and it's tight and that's all you're really gonna need so I just cut up old t-shirts or I go to Walmart and I buy a extra extra long t-shirt and I cut it up and it gives me enough to to make a couple of rags and then you'll need wax polish any type is fine you pick your favorite I like Saphir Pat deluxe and miracle off those work really well and I'll use both in this video but you can use whatever you'd like okay now you're gonna want to make some water and some alcohol don't use a lot just enough to flavor the water so about an inch of isopropyl alcohol and then fill the rest with water if you use too much alcohol it'll just melt the wax off so just a little bit enough to get the concoction going but not too much okay now I hope this part's obvious but just be careful when cutting a little tiny hole on the cap of the bottle just be careful exercise caution and don't go cutting yourself then add the solution and put it over the ice cube just a tiny bit so it kind of mixes together and gets it all ready alright now that you have everything you have your ice cube with some rubbing alcohol in water you have your cotton cloth and your wax you're gonna open your wax tin and there it is the wax this is perfect form air shines and you can use any type you'd like so let's see what we can do first step is I want you to get some wax on your fingers I'm gonna use a glove so I don't have to keep washing my hands but just get some wax and start to apply layers over the cap dough just with your fingers like that and make sure to get the small areas down here by the welt okay so do that and add five to six seven different layers okay so that's one here's two three just make sure to go over it like that before five make sure to really spread it around don't leave any dunkey areas or any built-up areas okay just keep going make sure to get these areas down here so it all just really connects and then you get that nice mirror shot okay up here too don't forget this top area people don't realize that if the mirror shine doesn't connect and just glaze over you really won't get that mirror shine so make sure to get the wax evenly everywhere just like that okay don't worry about going overboard it's really hard you won't go overboard unless it's really cake down there with a lot of layers okay just take your time and this methods really worked for me it's helped me achieve Mary shines pretty quickly okay don't forget this photo cap and then one last good layer okay so after all that's done just wait about five or ten minutes and let the wax dry and then you're gonna come back to it alright now before you start buffing you're gonna need a nice clean cloth or anything that's 100% cotton you can cut up in an old shirt it really doesn't matter and this is how I do it okay so make sure it's long and rectangular like this get your two two first fingers like that put the cloth over your two fingers grab it like like that in a bunch in the back and you just twist so you have a nice cotton cloth around your fingers and then the excess just wrap it around however you can okay just wrap it and then pull there you go and that's gonna be really really good at buffing and achieving that mirror shine so any cotton cloth will do cut up old t-shirts and that's just what I do this is an old t-shirt now if you'd really like to once the wax is on the capital you can use a hairdryer and just melt those waxes even further so if they get into all the nooks and crannies that's why traditionally Street shiners with light they're their wax on fire I know that's a popular method some places and that really melts the wax really gets it everywhere but it's not a hundred percent necessary as long as you really put it in with your fingers it should be just fine and you let it dry so that's just for your information okay once you've given the wax a little bit of time to dry and you're ready to go remember your fingers wrapped around the cloth okay you're gonna get that alcohol water that you mixed earlier and you're just gonna put a tiny bit on your fingers okay just like that so it's a little bit wet and then you just dab the excess off you don't want it to be too wet just dab it off tap it lightly some people tap it on their hand it just really doesn't matter as long as you get a little bit of that excess moisture off okay and the water and the rubbing alcohol together are gonna really help initially melt the wax okay and that's gonna begin the process so go over imagine you're shining an eggshell okay not it not too much pressure that you you know break the wax but just enough so that you you know have the friction so that it the wax melts so just go back and forth okay moving the shoe okay member to use your the tips of your fingers to get in these tiny areas down here like that perfect just like that just go back and forth and then start touching the ice cube just for a couple of seconds for that really cold water start again back and forth and then when you need to touch the wax you don't have to scrape any wax that's enough just touching it is enough to get that small layer that you need to start buffing okay and you can do tiny tiny circles or back and forth it really doesn't matter as you can see we're already building a mirror shine it's that simple and this took me some time to learn I know I'm still learning I'm not the best shoe shiner in the world so I've experimented with different methods I've seen on YouTube or listening to the advice of really competent shoe shiners so it's just it's just a learning process have fun experiment enjoy shining your shoes and don't worry about it just have it the private it's not fun you're never gonna do it so you have to enjoy it and then just go about like that okay it's that simple haven't added anything just the layers of wax waited ten minutes then use that rubbing alcohol okay just back and forth touch the ice cube touch the wax back and forth getting those tiny areas here on the side and once you're really into it you can just go quickly just like that okay building up that friction touching the wax touching the ice cube okay and if you want you can even go a little further into the sides over here this really doesn't flex so I think you're you're okay putting a high shine on here then to one or two layers up here on the vamp won't make a big difference but just go back and forth and you'll immediately see that mirror shine start to build up okay okay now once in a while add a little bit of that alcohol water and it'll really melt whatever waxes aren't melting too well just like that really simple just touch the wax and that you're gonna get enough wax urdhva to build another layer just like that then if you want you can wait a it 10 seconds one two three four five six seven eight nine ten let that wax just dry get a little bit of trouble of ice water and then buff it's that simple and if you're not already and you just want a quick shine that's sufficient right there and it only took a minute or two and you can just get out and do it really quickly it actually took my time this is really slow usually I'm you know going really quick and making sure the the mirror shines all done so there you go pretty quick so just keep building layers and that's the part that can take a long time if you really want to build a true mirror it can take you 20 minutes 30 minutes an hour even if you really want to get that perfect shine but I found that Saphir really built up shines quickly as I've been taking orders over the past year and a half I started out with Kiwi and that worked just fine but it just took longer to shine so overall I'm really impressed with how Saphir has been been shining and this pair was had never been shined before it was a bear pair it was sent in for donation and I'm shining them up to send them out and and and literally just shine them right in this video there's nothing nothing's been done before or no preparation nothing but the shoe is just bare and all it took was six layers to start that that mirror shine okay now later if you want this is merit gloss it's more of a dry it's a dry formula it's not as uh as wet as Pat deluxe you can add that too and it builds up wax finish pretty a mirror finish pretty quickly so just start interchanging okay going back and forth touch both I got to do is touch the wax you don't need to scrape it or anything just touch it and that's enough you're gonna get that little and that little uh you're just gonna get that that sufficient amount to build the next layer gonna touch the ice cube make sure there's not too much water and go back and forth just like that and you can also add your breath and that gives it that uniform moisture over the whole thing and you can just start going back and forth like that so I'm gonna put this tutorial this link to this tutorial and all my videos from now on so if you watch a video and you don't know how to mirror shine you can just click the link and watch it and hopefully this will help you so I hope this is how I hope it's been helpful and here's to having many hours of fun merry shines thanks now here are some frequently asked questions that I get sometimes don't get a spot that just looks dry and will not shine no matter what you do that means the leather is oversaturated that means you use too much water and especially if the shoe had brokes broking or those little tiny holes water got in and it won't shine you haven't pulled it'll it'll look terrible it'll look like you remove the factory finish but that's not the case the shoes are just oversaturated so come back in a couple days let them dry completely and you'll never have a problem the shoes will always shine right back up another question I get is sometimes the mirror shine just won't develop the truth is you have to fill in the pores leather is porous because it's skin so you have to fill all the pores and then once they all fill it will glass over so just keep at it some pairs glass over quickly some take a really really long time the only way to tell us to just go at it okay so if the shoe won't shine you can always start you know from here get a lot of wax and then you can put another thicker layer over the whole shoe just like that okay just like that and once that thick layer is on there you should probably wait I don't know meander - before you get back at it so you see the wax is just really hazy I'm just gonna wait ten seconds okay one two three four five six seven eight nine ten just blow on it okay and then you get your alcohol water and you dip some on your finger just like that let's put drops evenly everywhere and just like that okay and then you just start buffing again sometimes that's necessary if it's not working out for you and then touch the ice cube the nice water just helps everything and just go back and forth just like that so you need water to keep to keep it all kind of lubricated so it doesn't so the friction isn't too hard and you end up pulling off the wax and that's why back in the day that you spit and spit is always available and if you don't have anything available you can use spit I know one shiner who still uses saliva and it works just fine you can you can do that just back and forth just like that don't start to glass over there will be some cuts in the video but they were just sequential right away I haven't stood up since I started the video it's only taken me at this point around 8 to 10 minutes you can see the shine is just developing even I even higher it's all looking really great you can add some breath okay and it's looking a lot better you can see a lot of the room you can see me and the camera it's just a lot of fun to keep going back and forth so you'll probably change fingers I mean change rag the position of the rag two or three times before you done but if you want to stop right here if you're in a hurry or you just want to make your shoes look good you're totally justified in stopping here and you'll be fine okay now a smooth leather works the best if you have pebbled grain it'll be a little bit harder here to fill in those sections even more but then you have questions please sound out below let me know I will get back to you I really want everyone to learn how to measure shine it's really fun it's it's a once you know the technique it's it's easy it's relatively easy and you can do it on a lot of shoes and you'll be really happy so hopefully if you've been having trouble this is this tutorial will help yeah okay just keep going handed this is the bad thing about mirror shines once you start you don't want to stop til it's like glass I'm getting some lint off this particular cloth which isn't great just got to be careful some cloths actively than others okay okay so once you're near the end of your reer shine you'll notice there are some micro scratches along the thing and if you really want it to be like glass this is how I finish off a mirror shine you get the alcohol water again okay just whip that sure to wet the cloth and then you add a little bit of water and then you kind of buff it but this time you're going to add a tiny bit more pressure than normal okay just slightly more you're kind of buffing it like you're buffing wax off of a car you need a little bit of pressure not too much where where it's like crazy just enough where you're kind of buffing those micro scratches out using the water and the rubbing alcohol and it all just comes together okay you can do that a couple times back and forth and you'll notice the mirror shine looks really great so I'm really happy with how this came out this video literally took me eight to ten minutes I'm sitting here just one shot I had to make some cuts because of some errors on my behalf I kept on saying the wrong thing but it was all quick and I hope this is really helpful for you so you all can do a marriage shine thanks and this is what you'll get when you're done this is a pair I did in another video but as you can see once it's all done the shoes look like glass and everything's perfect so just take your time do the best you can as you can see it wasn't a very long process so I hope it all helps thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and share for more content in the future make sure to check out my other videos as well if you'd like to learn more about shining your shoes look for me on facebook instagram and twitter at the elegant oxford for more remember to care for your shoes so that they'll last you for years to come always put your best foot forward the small details matter most so don't forget to hashtag shine your shoes see you next time

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 733,908

Rating: 4.9147835 out of 5

Keywords: mirrorshine, spitshine, shoeshine, saphir, kiwi, allenedmonds, glasstoe, bull, tutorial, shoerestoration

Id: WXGxPbBGbC4

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/LBsusername]

I served in the Army in the 80's so I got a crash course in spit shining and LOTS of practice. Love that people still think about it though. :)