To make your own black shoe polish, you will need the following items:
- Beeswax or Paraffin Wax
- Carnauba Wax
- Mineral Oil
- Carbon Black
- essential oils (optional)
- tin or other container
This is a nice little project that is really in the spirit of being self-reliant and going back to basics. Now, you may be weighing in your mind whether or not it is worth it to purchase all these ingredients to make yourself some shoe polish, because you don’t really use all that much shoe polish yourself. A valid point. But before writing the idea off altogether, consider this: all polishes are made more or less following the same method but differ in the proportions of the ingredients. So, you can use your leftover paraffin or beeswax, Carnauba Wax and mineral oil and make a number of other products, such as: wood/furniture polish, car wax, surfboard wax, mustache wax, leather waterproofing/or conditioner (see future posts!). There are literally dozens of uses for beeswax.
Generally speaking, making colored shoe polish is challenge because you need to find some kind of pigment that matches your shoe color. Dodging this problem, quite a few online sources offer instruction on making a shoe polish with no color. I have also heard of people attempting to make brown shoe polish by using brown wood stains. While wood stains come in many colors making it more probable that you can find something close to your shoe’s brown, I must say I am skeptical about this idea.
So today, we will make a black shoe polish. This does away with the color matching issue, because black is black. And black is also the most common color for leather shoes. Rather than use a dye or stain or some other liquid, we will be using a dry pigment called Carbon Black. Carbon Black is commonly found in printing inks as well as a numerous other industrial applications.
The three main ingredients paraffin, Carnauba wax and mineral oil are chemically similar substances. The idea of making polish is to make the waxes easily pliable by melting them and diluting them with mineral oil. We use paraffin wax as a main component because it is softer and has a lower melting point than Carnauba wax. Carnauba wax adds a real shine, which is why it is so valued in car wax. In most commercial shoe polishes there is a characteristic smell. This is because they use kerosene for diluting and softening the wax. Instead of kerosene, we will use mineral oil which has no smell. If you want your shoes to smell good, you may add some essential oils (but this is optional)
Shoe Polish Recipe
____ grams Paraffin wax
____ grams of Carnauba Wax grade #1
____grams of Mineral oil
1 gram of Carbon Black
Optional Essential Oils: 5 drops Cedarwood Atlas, 5 drops of Patchouli, 5 drops of Sweet Orange (6X)
Optional: you may find it helpful to use an infrared thermometer.
Procedure
First you will melt the Paraffin and Carnauba wax together. Most instructions of this sort will tell you that you need to do this in a double boiler. They tell you this for safety, because using a double boiler does make the process safer. But a double boiler is not entirely necessary. You may heat the wax in a pot directly on a heat source provided you operate on a low heat setting and monitor the process very closely. If the wax begins to smoke or burn, you must remove it from the heat immediately. Keep in mind that wax is flammable. It may go up in flames if it comes in contact with fire or a heat source.
You will notice that the paraffin melts first and it may take a long time to melt the Carnauba. The melting point of paraffin is 145-155°F. The melting point of Carnauba is 185°F. When both of these have melted, remove the pot from the heat source and add the mineral oil and stir. When it seems well mixed, add the Carbon Black and mix until fully incorporated. Pour the mixture into a tin or glass jar. If your container is plastic, keep in mind that the polish may melt the plastic if it is poured when hot. If you will be adding essential oils, monitor the temperature with an infrared thermometer. If the temperature is above the flash point of your essential oils, they will evaporate and be lost. The flash point of many essential oils in around 130°F. When all steps are complete, leave the container uncovered and allow to cool. Do not use until completely cooled and solidified. This may take 30 minutes.
Testing Your New Polish
Now that you are done, you will want to try your new product. Use this in the same way as you usually use shoe polish. It is highly recommended that you wear disposable gloves when polishing your shoes. Black shoe polish will always stain your fingers. But this may be especially true in this case because of the Carbon Black. After seeing how great this polish is, you may feel inspired to make some for family nad friends