The Lost Art of Polishing Your Shoes

Every morning, before the city’s hum took over, my father would sit by the door with his shoes. A tin of Cherry Blossom polish—dark, waxy, the kind you had to dig into with a finger first—balanced in his palm, brush in the other. Slow, deliberate circles, the faint scrape of bristles against leather, the shoes absorbing shine like skin drinks moisturiser. If I ever missed saying goodbye before he left for work, the smell told me everything—the faint turpentine tang of polish hanging in the air, proof he had already gone out to face the day.

He would never let anyone else do it. Not my mother, not the help, not even me when I offered. The shoes were his. The act was his. My grandfather was the same—when I visited him, I’d find him bent over, cloth in hand, shoulders slightly hunched, bringing life back into his black oxfords. It wasn’t grooming—it was ritual.

That ritual, though, has all but disappeared. Few men polish their shoes anymore. The tins of Cherry Blossom—once permanent fixtures in Indian households—still exist, but now they sit forgotten at the backs of kirana stores. Instead, we have sneaker laundries with names like Sneakinn or Crep Protect, who promise to whiten your soles and de-scuff your Nikes. Sneakers go into the wash, leather has been replaced with rubber, and scuffs are worn like merit badges. What was once considered negligence is now authenticity.

The history of that little red tin is itself a story of modern India. Shoe-polish culture was imported during the British Raj, when leather shoes became the de facto symbol of Westernised respectability for Indian clerks, lawyers, and government men. In 1906, two English brothers, Charles and Dan Mason, launched Cherry Blossom in Chiswick. By the 1940s, the tins had arrived in Calcutta, sold to soldiers, railway workers, and later middle-class households. It was marketed not as luxury but as duty: a shoe well-shined was a man well-prepared. Post-Independence, Cherry Blossom became so common in India that it eclipsed even Kiwi, its global rival, turning into the working man’s polish of choice. That smell—the wax, the solvents, the faint sweetness—became part of the Indian domestic atmosphere, as recognisable as incense or naphthalene.

But polishing was never just about appearance. Psychologists have long studied why rituals matter. Neuroscientific research from the University of Connecticut shows rituals literally dampen “error-related negativity” signals in the brain, lowering stress when facing uncertainty. In the military, boot-polishing remains a teaching tool—not because gleaming boots matter on the battlefield, but because the discipline of care builds psychological readiness.

So when men polished their shoes every morning, it wasn’t vanity. It was an ethic. It was a way of saying: I am ready for the day. I respect the world enough to meet it prepared. That slow, repetitive motion of cloth on leather was a grounding mechanism—a small meditation before chaos.

Today, in our sneaker era, the loss of that ritual might be telling. Some see it as liberation: less rigid performance of masculinity, fewer outdated codes. But there’s also something hollow in the ease of outsourcing. We’re quicker, freer, more casual—but also more detached from the physical intimacy of care. And if rituals are what tether us to identity, what happens when they vanish?

Perhaps the point isn’t to bring back Cherry Blossom and stiff leather soles. Times evolve, wardrobes shift. But maybe what’s worth salvaging is the slowness, the deliberateness, the intimacy of tending to what you own. Because in an age where everything is disposable—sneakers, phones, even relationships—there is something radical about keeping a ritual alive.

My father doesn’t polish his shoes every morning anymore. The world no longer demands it. But every so often, I open a drawer and catch that familiar waxy sweetness from a forgotten tin. And in that moment, the lost art doesn’t feel lost at all.