Every cadet's favourite topic: polishing [bulling] shoes.

What to use

You will need:
• 1 yellow duster-style cloth
• Kiwi black shoe polish or similar
• Kiwi black parade gloss or similar
• Cotton wool
• Kiwi dark tan polish
• Your shoes (!)

How it's done
NOTE: I give no guarantees that this will work. It did work for my shoes, which pass inspection (usually). You have been warned!

Take the ordinary polish. Fold the cloth around your index finger and get some polish on it. Rub it into the shoe. Do this about 15-20 times for new shoes. (If you just want to get your beautifully cared-for parade shoes even better, scroll down). Lads, you only need to do the welt, the sticky-outty toecap bit. Girls, sorry, but yours need to be done all the way around.
When the shoe surface is smooth, or near-as-dammit, take the parade gloss. Be warned, Kiwi parade gloss reeks of turpentine, so don't get it over mummy's favourite cushions. It also burns very well...but anyway. Put one coat of parade gloss over the welt (or bit of the shoe you happen to be doing, ladies). DON'T RUB IT IN! Put one coat of regular polish over the welt, on top of the gloss. Don't rub this in either. Just to finish it, put one coat of parade gloss over the top of that. You should have a welt with 3 coats of various polishes on it, with no trace of a shine. Spit on the shoe (it works! Trust me... or don't). Now rub it in. 8-9 coats of this treatment gives your shoes that parade-ready glass finish. In theory the coats of polish underneath the gloss improves the shine. Try a coat of brown every now and again (dark tan), that makes the shine deeper and less likely to look grey in sunshine.
Kiwi parade gloss does turn grey after a while without any care. Just give it a wipe with a little black polish or parade gloss. This will turn them black again. For best results, give your shoes a quick wipe before parade night. You don't have to do it with polish, just as long as you use a soft cloth. Cotton wool works well but tends to roll up into long stringy useless lumps after a bit.

For boots, they don't need to shine. So long as they're clean and black nobody really minds. Well, not at my squadron they don't.

What the finished products should look like
Links table