Spring-Cleaning for your Athletic Shoes
Mar 30 '01
The Bottom Line While there are many products on the store shelves that can treat and clean your shoes, nothing is better than Ivory Soap and ‘elbow grease’.
It's never too late for spring-cleaning. Just like there are always worlds to tidy and nebulae to dust, I’m sure you have a pair of athletic shoes that could use a little spring-cleaning. Athletic shoes depending on their use get dirty and need cleaning.
Although we are mindful or our feet, it’s important that we become attentive when it comes to cleaning what’s on our feet. After all, athletic shoes are the footings of a fitness program that can help us feel better and live longer. Technology has made cleaning tennis shoes easier since most are made of synthetic material that’s easy to clean.
I would love to tell you that you could care for your tennis shoes with good old soap and water. While this may work on some tennis shoes it will not work on all of them. Some tennis shoes require heavy duty cleaning to remove all sorts of dirt or stains that you may have gotten on your shoes.
Regardless of how you clean or what you’re cleaning your tennis shoes with, you will never be able to restore the entire shoe to its original appearance. You may come close depending on the product you use, but restoring your tennis shoes to mint condition is close to impossible.
If you are like me your tennis shoes take a real beating. I’ve worn my tennis though winter’s freezing assault, be it sleet, ice or some miserable combination of the three. And of course, a little dusty wind mixed with all that slushy stuff certainly wears on any tennis shoe. I even remember the time when my left foot landed squarely in a pothole filled with mud which completely immersed the left foot up to the ankle.
Needless to say both shoes looked terrible! So what do you do? My first recommendation is to wash them off with water. Your shoes don’t need hot water but warm water will not hurt them. Most tennis shoes are made of synthetics that don’t mind getting wet, so washing them by hand is just fine. Leather shoes usually clean well with soap and water however too much scrubbing can rub off certain types of leather. Canvas tennis shoes are easy to clean but it’s important that you clean them shortly after getting them dirty. Just make sure you rinse them well and then dry them properly.
Unfortunately there is no way to test the tennis shoe fabric in the store. I currently have a pair of Nike tennis shoes that will not come clean around the white rubber bottom. I’ve used various shoe cleaners including KIWI Sport Shoe Stuff Scrub-Off Heavy Duty Cleaner, without success on this particular pair of shoes. I’ve also used dish washing liquid, window cleaner, liquid bleach and laundry detergent but this particular pair has been permanently stained. It’s important to remember that all tennis shoes are not made equally and even name brand shoes can’t handle much dirt.
While there are many products on the store shelves that can treat and clean your shoes, nothing is better than Ivory Soap and ‘elbow grease’. However, regardless of how hard you clean your athletic shoes the average shoe life for aerobics, basketball, tennis, and cross-training shoes is about six months or so even with the best of care.
Remember the insoles of most shoes usually lose their cushioning ability about halfway into the life of the shoe. Once this happens no matter how clean they are and how good they look its time to start shopping for a new pair.
For most of my shoes, KIWI Sport Shoe Stuff Scrub-Off Heavy Duty Cleaner removes dirt and stains adequately. I don’t put my tennis shoes in the washing machine. I rinse them under lukewarm water first, then brush the soiled area with a shoe cleaner or soap and water. By scrubbing the surface with a cleaner you loosen up the dirt. Since the soap usually gets messy I recommend using a soft white cloth to blot any extra soap or cleaner. Just make sure you rinse the soap off promptly.
The drying process is the secret! Usually I would never go against my Mother’s recommendations but putting your tennis shoes in the Dryer is a No! No! Forget about the fireplace, space heater or oven. I recommend a well-ventilated area at room temperature.
Next remove the sock-liner, orthotics, shoe pad, or whatever is inside of your tennis shoe. Then stuff both tennis shoes with white porous paper or a quick dry towel. Some people use newspaper but I don’t recommend it since newspapers can bleed ink; I suggest using white paper towels.
If your shoes are really soaked with water, it’s okay to dry them with a white towel prior to stuffing them with paper towels. If your shoes continue to hold water, replace the paper towels after a couple of hours and this should do the trick.
I also suggest that you unlace your tennis shoes hand washing to shoe strings separately. If you really want them to look almost knew you could purchase a new pair of shoestrings for under $3.00 dollars.
Finally, storage of your athletic shoe is as important as cleaning them, keep them in a dry, cool place. You can also purchase wooden or plastic shoe shapers to insert in your shoes to maintain the shape.
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