How to Clean Dirty Sneakers

Guys, as I’ve mentioned before, shoes are one of the things people notice right away, so it’s critical that your shoes are always looking as good as possible.  Since its summer time, I’m finding myself wearing a lot of lightweight casual sneakers.  The problem I’m running into since I’m wearing them so often is they start looking dingy pretty quickly.  I figured if I’m having this problem, you guys might be having a similar problem, so I decided to make this post to help you with a solution.

First up, this is just my experience.  Try this at your own risk.

I bought these Ben Sherman sneakers at Nordstrom Rack several months ago and I wear them quite often (as you can see).  They’re really comfortable and I like them a lot so I want to keep them looking nice.  I heard in passing (and I can’t remember where) that some sneakers can be simply washed in the washing machine.  I decided to give it a shot.

I’ve never washed a pair of shoes in the washing machine before, so I was a little nervous about it.  Since the shoes were only about $30, even if I destroyed them, I’d go get more and still have a blog post to share with you about what NOT to do.

I took the laces out and threw in a few dark towels to help take up some space so the shoes wouldn’t bounce around too badly.  I washed them with cold water, normal laundry detergent and a light load setting.  When the cycle was over, they weren’t as clean as I had hoped, so I decided to use the Shout scrubber stain remover thing (which I should’ve used in the first place) and re-washed them.  They came out of that cycle looking great so I threw everything in the dryer.

I’m totally happy with the results and the shoes were just fine with no side effects.  The soles didn’t separate and the insoles are still attached.  Based on this, I would recommend that you give it a shot.  I have some white canvas sneakers I’ll be trying next.