Shoes
Taking Care of Your Dancing Shoes
Keeping your shoes in good working order is important for many reasons. They should look clean and well-kept to show that you care about your appearance and the image you present to others. They are an investment and should last. Also, shoes in working order can help prevent injuries. Taking care of your shoes should be a priority.
I keep quite a few things in my shoe bag to keep my shoes looking good.
Shoe shining kits can be found in a variety of places, namely shoe stores, some competitions and through various vendors. Mine includes quite a few things, as I also needed to shine my shoes for JROTC in high school.
In my case is black polish to cover scratches, neutral polish to add shine, sponges for applying polish, soft cloths and pieces of an old tshirt for buffing. A small bottle of water will help to add shine, which I will explain how to do later. Saddle soap gets the grime off; a black permanant marker covers spots. A shoe brush also helps in the buffing process.
There are also shoe shining sponges for a quick shine. These can be found in the shoe shining section of a shoe store, or a store such as Walgreens, where I’ve found most of my items.
You can also keep leather patching kits in your case.
If you have an old pair of shoes that you don’t want to get rid of, use those for practices and if the weather or ground isn’t as clean as you'd like or will scrape up your shoes, outdoor performances. Save your nice new shoes for a feis or indoor performance.
Store your shoes carefully in your bag with the laces undone. Do not stuff them in your bag (which we're all guilty of) and leave them to crumple and get out of shape. After all of that work breaking them in, do you really want to have them deform? Keep the laces undone so that they will not pull the shoe out of form, too.
Shining Your Shoes
Here’s a step-by-step guide to shining your shoes similar to the way I learned in JROTC.
- Needs:
- Black shoe polish
- Neutral shoe polish
- An applicator (old tee shirt or sponge) for the black
- An applicator (old tee shirt or old nylons) for the neutral
- Towel to lay underneath it all
- Water
- Set your towel down in a spot where making a bit of a mess won’t matter.
- Make sure your shoes are clean. Either wash them off with a wet rag and dry them, or if they're especially dirty, use saddle soap. Don’t decide to use saddle soap for fun, though - it takes a lot of elbow grease to really clean!
- Make sure your shoes are dry.
- Rub black polish on your shoes with a rag or sponge applicator, being careful not to get any on the non-black sections of your shoes. Let dry.
- Make sure the shoes are dry. (It’s important!) Buff the shoes to make them shiny. They won’t be very shiny until you do step five, but don’t shirk on your elbow grease. Really rub!
- Take a rag or old nylons (nylons are more recommended) and dip it lightly in water. Get the neutral polish and rub the rag in there. Apply it to your shoes. Let dry completely.
- Once completely dry (again, it’s important!), buff your shoes to a nice shiny finish. Use a clean part of the nylons, and then a rag.