The way to Hide Vinyl Tile Scratches With Shoe Polish
Vinyl flooring manufacturers provide products especially designed to conceal scrapes in vinyl tiles, but in case you’re a guerrilla do-it-yourselfer, you might prefer to rely on household things along with your resourcefulness. If so, go ahead and hide the scratches with shoe polish, so long as the polish is a fantastic color match. If you have no-wax flooring, coat the scratch with a hardwood flooring finish that fits the ground finish sheen. But because you’re a DIY guerrilla, you might opt to perform it with polyurethane varnish rather than the maker’s recommended product.
Wash the area around the scratch, using a solution of dish soap and water. If the floor is waxed, rub some mineral spirits on the scratch to remove the wax before applying shoe polish. Otherwise, the polish will quickly rub.
Apply the polish to the scratch with a cotton swab to get it deep into the scratch while decreasing the amount you get on the remaining portion of the ground. Use enough polish to bring the level of this scratch flush with the rest of the ground.
Wipe the repair down with a clean rag to remove polish from the area surrounding the scratch.
Restore sheen into the repair using glue wax and buffing it up with a rag, but avert wax if you have no-wax flooring — which has a polyurethane layer. Instead, thin a small amount of polyurethane varnish having an equal quantity of mineral spirits or water — based on which type you use — and rub it on the affected area. Let it dry; then apply a second coat if necessary.