THE LITTLE THINGS - SAVING SHOE POLISH

NEUTRAL POLISH/HVO MIXTURE COOLING

BLACK POLISH/HVO MIXTURE COOLING

NEUTRAL AND BLACK POLISH WITH HVO BEING HEATED

BLACK AND NEUTRAL POLISH BEFORE CONSOLIDATING BY MELTING

With my income cut to less than half of what it was formally, we've had to carefully consider every purchase.  For example, when items like shoe polish ran low or as it sometimes does, the little cake of polish in the can dried up and broke into unmanageable pieces, the old was simply discarded and a new one bought. A can of shoe polish now retails at about $4-$5, plus the drive into town consumes another $5 in gasoline for the car.  $10 may not seem like much, but every expense cuts into some other necessity these days.

So, one Lord's Day morning I was preparing for church and wanted to polish my shoes.  But the polish had broken up into small chunks that were not very manageable.  They crumbled further, scattering small crumbs into the carpet that I had to pick out of they would have been trampled into large, indelible stains in the carpet.  I managed to put a nice shine on the shoes, but cleaning up was time consuming and it used an inordinate amount of polish.

Later I recalled how I'd seen some cadets in the CAP Summer Encampment I'd staffed a few years back melt such polish crumbs over a candle to consolidate them into a single mass in the can again.  I tried that on the stovetop, and did consolidate the polish, but it was as hard and unusable as a chunk of plastic.  It occurred to me that the polish must be a mixture rather than a compound in order to remain soft and workable and homogenizing it by melting it spoiled that property; but I didn't know what that would be.  Looking about the kitchen, I imagined that some item at hand could be added to the melted polish to make it more suitable.  I tried several different materials: cooking oil, olive oil, lard and hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO)(e.g. Crisco).  The latter worked the best.

I added about 1g of HVO to a 1/4 can and 2g of HVO to a half can of polish with satisfactory results.  The resulting shine was a shade duller after brushing than new polish, but a little work with a soft cotton cloth fixed that.  Time involved, about 10 minutes start to finish to reconstitute a partial can of shoe polish.  When using an electric range, use low heat on an electric burner and watch for smoke and fire.  I keep a fully charged fire extinguisher hand in the kitchen at all times and strongly recommend this.