Water polish

Combat boots polished to a shine

With bull polishing (also water-gloss polish called) is called a special method to leather shoes to polish to a shine. This polishing method is common among shoe lovers.

A prerequisite for a water polish is the care of the upper leather with a hard wax cream (classic shoe cream in flat tin cans). If there is a thin layer of hard wax cream on the upper leather (= upper leather), this can then be rubbed to a high gloss with a cloth moistened with a few drops of water. For this purpose, the (cotton) cloth is wrapped around one or two fingertips, a little shoe polish is taken up and then dipped lightly in water with this point. This water-moistened shoe polish is then passed over the leather. There are different techniques of water polishing: For example, you can polish with small circular movements or with long stroking strokes. The well-known trick of spitting on when polishing shoes is nothing more than a variant of this water polish.

As a result of this water polishing, the surface becomes increasingly smooth and reflects the incident light more and more directed. This creates the reflective gloss impression of the leather surface.

The more often the shoe has been cared for with hard wax cream, the easier it is to polish it. It takes a long time to polish new shoes with water. A shoe that has been polished to a high gloss with a water polish is very easy to restore to this condition later. Due to the particularly smooth surface, there is less dirt adhesion and shoe care will be faster in the future.

literature

• Helge Sternke: Everything about men's shoes . Nicolai, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-89479-252-7 (with a detailed section on various methods of water-gloss polishing).