Yeah, I'm dating myself but I'd bet most of us here have been using Kiwi shoe polish our whole lives, probably purchased at a grocery store. I don't buy it too often but found myself needing some. Turns out nobody carries it anymore. I did buy some generic stuff I found locally at a big box store and it was crap. I even went to the BX, but nobody wears military uniforms that require you to shine your footwear anymore, so they only had generic crap too. I ordered some from Dr. Evil but it's like $10 for a regular can that used to cost $2.99. Yeah, I could probably check a specialty shoe store but I didn't have time for that. I saw that they've stopped selling it altogether in the UK for lack of demand.

It was hard to de-polish my fingers after I polished my boots for inspection!

Walmart no longer carries it?

Kiwi along with Johnson paste wax have been discontinued.

Angelus makes a good shoe polish.

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^^^^^^ Walmart dot com carries, not in stores.

There are other colors and such, Click here to black

Prices have become stupid expensive.
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You can also get Kiwi on Amazon through the Kiwi Store. LINK
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My Armour Belts needed some attention and I have been checking grocery stores and walmarts over the last several months. Nope.

just an hour ago I picked up an amazon package with some Feibings mohogany leather die, from amazon. This was recommended to me from Mike Dare at Armour.

Kiwi used to be everywhere.

If it's not LINCOLN SHOE POLISH, it isn't worth doing.

Yeah the days of a "spit shine" seem long gone.

quote:

Originally posted by Greymann:

Angelus makes a good shoe polish.

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The owner, Paul, is a first class human. He is the 3rd generation of the family, and is in the process of handing the company over to his grandson. The founders were poor immigrants who lived the American dream.

They make a variety of leather dyes etc which are all good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
If it's not LINCOLN SHOE POLISH, it isn't worth doing.

That’s what I switched to, available from Amazon

Pulled out my bottle of Lincoln shoe dye just a few days ago to touch up some leather. It had dried up and evaporated. Good to know it's still available.

Most recent uses were for touching up the edges on sweat guards on holsters. For some reason they typically interfere with a proper grip for a draw so I trim them up perfect for me.

Lincoln is good.

Target here has kiwi in store. But I haven’t polished a boot since I retired in 17

My grandfather (Brit/Scot) worked for Kiwi as a salesman. My Grandmother would tell a family story about how excited he was when Kiwi gave him the sales territory of mainland China (back in the 1920's or 30's). Except nobody told him that the Chinese wore cloth shoes!

Are shoes actually made of shiny leather any more? I still have a couple of pairs of rarely-worn dress shoes, but these were bought 30 years ago. Yes, I use Kiwi to polish them, but everything since then has been some sort of modern fabricated material not to be polished.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

….Are shoes actually made of shiny leather any more? I still have a couple of pairs of rarely-worn dress shoes, but these were bought 30 years ago. Yes, I use Kiwi to polish them, but everything since then has been some sort of modern fabricated material not to be polished.

^^^^
Short answer: Yes. I have dark brown, light brown, cordovan, and of course black (with the appropriate color of belt - don’t wear a black belt with brown shoes for example). I have polish kits at work and at home. Scuffed shoes really are a bad look IMHO.

I think the demise of Kiwi can be directly correlated to the switch to a suede-type non-polished boot in the US military in the mid 2000s.

And I’m sure that the civilian population in general trending toward more casual shoes and not leather ones that need polishing didn’t help.

That takes me back. It's been years since I've polished; my boots get oiled now.

I prefer Lincoln to Kiwi as it is easier to get a mirror shine as it is a softer wax. It shines up even better than Kiwi Parade Shine.

I heat the wax, use a brush to apply, let set, brush the boot, then sprinkle cheap after shave on the boot and buff with a cotton wheel in my drill.

I still polish my boots that I wear with my Kilts. I use a good boot cream on my dress shoes as they don't have to be shined, but properly taken care of.

How many thousand cans do you want?

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.htm...om=R40&_dmd=1&rt=nc;

A while back I was looking for the Kiwi Parade Rest (I think that was the name). It was used to dye the edge of the soles black. I started using Allen Edmunds polish when I started wearing their dress shoes. It works well enough for me.