As I mentioned in a previous review, it takes someone with a will of iron to get past the sales desk at Clarks without buying some sort of shoe polish or protection product. Clarks Shumagic is the product that they usually try to push on you when you buy a new pair of shoes. It comes in a dazzling array of colours, so they can usually nab you when buying a pair of brightly coloured kiddie shoes. I got wise to this ploy and now only buy black shoes!!!


I have bought a few tubes of this stuff over the years and the tube in front of me right now is the "mullberry" shade. I must have bought this a few years ago, as I don't really recall buying any mulberry coloured shoes, though I suppose I must have at some point. There is still lots of product left in the tube! The tube is 50ml in size which I feel is an appropriate size, as it makes application to the shoe easier. The tube is made of soft transparent plastic and you can see the product inside, which is a good idea, as you can see the shade and how much of the product you have left in the tube.


The tube is "upside down" with the lid at the bottom. Again, this is a good design as you dont have to spend ages squeezing the bottle to get the product out. The lid pushes on and off rather than being screw on, and again, is made of transparent plastic. This enables you to see the sponge applicator inside. The sponge sits at the bottom of the bottle and is quite a solid sponge, which will not break up or deisintigrate when applying the product. The circular spong has a hole in the centre, through which the product is dispensed. You can remove the sponge and wash it when necessary to keep application nice and smooth and even.


The idea of this product is that it is quite a thick coloured cream designed to fill in scuffed and scraped areas of the shoe, as well as leaving a nice shine and restoring colour. The sales assistants reccommend that you apply a good layer of this before your child wears their new shoes for the first time. This means that if they knock or scrape the shoe, the layer of Shumagic will take the brunt of the damage, rather than the leather of the shoe. Although this sounds too good to be true, I have found that this really does work in practice.


The product is very easy to apply. You just gently squeeze the bottle to dispense a small amount onto the applicator and then spread it evenly over the surface of the shoe. You leave it a few minutes to dry and then buff it to a shine with a soft cloth.


The product is very effective at disguising scrapes and scuffs, although obviously, it won't eradicate them completely once they have formed. I think of this product as similar to a cosmetic foundation cream. It will disguise imperfections, but it won't get rid of them altogether! The product is a very thick cream, so it settles beautifully into cracks and scrapes, leaving a smooth, polished surface. This is an absolute lifesaver for kids shows, which get lots of scrapes and scratches on them. After use, the shoes really do look as good as new. Luckily the product also lasts for ages, as I can testify from the condition of the bottle in front of me, which must be at least 2 years old, but the stuff inside is still quite fluid and hasn't dried out.


Shumagic is a very impressive product, and one that I will definitely buy again. The only slight downside is that it does not waterproof shoes, but Clarks do a very similar product called Rainguard which offers this extra protection. The only slight warning I would give, was a repetition of what I said at the beginning. Stick to buying black shoes, or you will end up with a Shumagic collection of all the colours of the rainbow. Has anyone out there got a pair of scratched Mulberry shoes that need cleaning....?