Thursday, February 10, 2011

I love you, Sally Hansen.

I was swabbing down the interior of a pair of my favorite shoes with isopropyl alcohol to prepare them to receive a pair of comfy gel inserts, when I thought to search online for an answer to the question "How do you get rid of black scuff marks on patent leather shoes?" I found a site that recommended mineral oil (which I don't have on hand,) petroleum jelly (which I don't have on hand,) pure acetone (which I don't have on hand) and nail polish remover. Since I did have nail polish remover, I hesitantly gave it a go. I was worried about damaging the shiny finish of the patent leather. I was concerned about staining the light colored part of the shoes. I was anxious about ruining my beloved shoes. Then I realized that we were talking about dark black scuff marks on silver grey leather- how much more visible did I think any damage caused by my cleaning efforts was going to be? So I took a Q-tip saturated in nail polish remover, picked a tiny spot at the very bottom of the heel of one of the shoes and rubbed very gently. And the mark just disappeared! It worked so well that I'm embarrassed not to have tried it before, and to have been walking around in terribly scuffed shoes which could have been so easily cleaned.

I wish I took before pictures to show the full transformation. I frankly didn't believe that this was going to work.
You can see some of the scuffing in this photo:

 Look at them now:

I apologize if you're reading this and you can't understand what all the fuss is about and why I dedicated a whole post to cleaning my shoes with nail polish remover, but I freakin' love these shoes and I'm ecstatic over this discovery. Bear with me, sometimes it's the little things, you know?

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