How To Get Your Shoes Looking Brighter/Cleaner

If you're like me, you never bother to clean your shoes. It either takes up too much time or you don't think it's necessary to do. I wear sneakers almost everyday and I trudge them through sun, snow, and rain so the dirt collects fast. Cleaning my shoes is not something I normally do, but after all that they have gone through these past years, I think they deserved some TLC. And now they look like I can wear them for a few more years!

Although this method isn't exactly "new" out there, I wanted to share this because I have never seen my shoes looking this nice, and I was so impressed by the outcome that I thought you may want to try it out too. I also don't like getting the entire shoe wet so this way worked out well for me. I picked up a few tips from Melissa at Clean My Space and altered them a bit, and used them on a wider range of shoe surfaces.

If you're looking for squeaky clean shoes, then this may not be the DIY for you. It gets a lot of stains out, but if you never clean your shoes like me and have stains from things other than dirt, the solution used below won't be able to get out everything.


What you'll need:
Toothbrush, baking soda, and laundry detergent
Melissa from CMS suggests mixing equal parts baking soda and detergent, but I found it working best when there was a little more baking soda. Adding more baking soda thickened the solution which made for an easier application and reduced the mess. The baking soda doesn't really dissolve either so a little more acts as an extra scrub. Don't worry about measuring it out perfectly.

Take your toothbrush, dip it into a bit of your solution, and start scrubbing it onto your shoe surfaces. Work in circular motions as I found that helped get dirt off better than using a straight brushing motion. This does not work on every material, and results will differ depending on how long your stains have been on your shoes. Once the dirt has come off, wipe it off with a damp paper towel or cloth.

I found that it worked best on the rubber soles of my shoes and the leather of the Jack Purcell's. Surfaces that are easily "wipe-off-able" would work well, such as rubber and leather. I tried some of it on canvas and it got a bit of dirt out, but not all, though canvas stains are usually recommended for hand or machine wash. I highly do not recommend this on suede and fur.

If your surface is a dark colour, a white residue may be seen, but don't fret! Just use a paper towel to wipe off the excess solution and then scrub over the area with a DRY toothbrush. The rest of the white colour should come off and you're left with a nice shoe.

Although the canvas on my shoes have lost quite a bit of colour, you can see that the soles on my Keds are looking brand new. My Jack Purcell's also finally look white again!