Your most beloved pair of shoes require regular cleaning to keep them presentable all the time. It could be even more challenging for the running shoes with their usual white soles that are more vulnerable to catch dirt.
The challenge is also imposed that where and on which surfaces you use your shoes. For every condition and pair of shoes, the steps in the following section would help to get your shoes as good as a new one.
Sometimes it appears to be unnecessary to clean the bottom of the shoes because you may not have to look at the most of the time. But the fact is that the dirt on the bottom of the shoes may prove to be more problematic hen you have to walk or run on the muddy ground. This causes mud and mess to tuck into the shoe crevices and sole indentations.
The dirt may be considered enough to make your floor dirty, it may also cause trouble in keeping the shoes neat and clean as well. No matter how clean your shoes are from above, if you have pale, dirty, mud-laden shoes sole, you will never feel confident as having a perfect pair of trainers on your feet.
So, we can say that we need to clean the bottom of the shoes properly if we have to keep ourselves confident as having well-maintained shoes that will keep their shape and color for a longer time.
Here are some of our guides and tips to keep the bottom of your shoes clean and maintained.
Steps To Clean The Bottom of The Shoes:
1. Removing the Loose Bits of Dirt
- The easily visible dirt or buildup should be first treated. You can simply slap both the shoes together to knock off all the loose bits from it. A butter knife may also be used here for scraping-out all the mud from the grooves in the footwear.
2. Get Hold of A Dry Brush
- A dry brush used here could perform much finer scraping of the loose dirt. It works typically well for rubber soles, which is the case in most of the running shoes. The more the dirt is cleaned here, the easier would it be to clean the shoes with the actual shoe cleaning solution.
3. Nail Polish Remover for Scuffs
- If the bottom of your shoe has any scuffs, then nail polish remover can do the trick. A cotton ball can be used here by dipping it in nail polish remover and then gently apply them over the scuffs. Scrub it gently until the scuffs are gone.
4. Preparing the Cleaning Solution
- The prime ingredients to prepare the best shoe cleaning solution are baking soda and laundry detergent. The baking soda typically helps here as an abrasive agent to complement the soap for removing any grime and dirt. Make sure that the laundry detergent that you select does not have any bleach traces. The quantity of the ingredients is quite low, even if your shoes are significantly dirty. You need to begin here by mixing 1 tablespoon each of both the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl.
5. Treating The Bottom With A Cleaning Solution
- This is where scrubbing comes into play. You need to employ a brush here for applying the cleaning mixture of step 3 above. Once applied then scrub it gently. Make sure to make circular motion while scrubbing with the brush as it helps more in removing the dirt easily. Moreover, don’t use this solution for cleaning the top fabric part of the footwear. It is because the baking soda can be tough to rinse off.
6. Rinsing The Shoes
- Once you are done with adequate scrubbing of the bottom of your shoes with the cleaning solution, it is time to rinse it off. For this purpose, you need to get hold of a sponge or a clean piece of cloth. Whatever you select, dip it in clean water. Now run that sponge or cloth all along the sole of the shoes. Rinse it with every pass you make until you see all of the cleaning solutions have been rinsed off completely. It is a critical step in the procedure. If you are unable to rinse all of the cleaning solutions then it may lead the rubber looking discolored. On top of that, the residue cleaning solution over the shoes can make them quite slippery and extremely dangerous on some surfaces.
7. Drying The Footwear
- Once you have completely rinsed all the cleaning mixture from the bottom of your shoe then you need to get hold of a clean towel. The target here is to dry the bottom of your shoes well before you wear them again. Drying the shoes the usage of your footwear immediately right after is critical or else they can stink very badly. Once the shoes have got dried up thoroughly then you will come to know about the effectiveness of this cleaning procedure discussed here.
The method discussed here for cleaning the bottom of the shoes can be used as frequently as you want. It mainly depends on the usage of your footwear and how much dirt they have gone over time.
You may repeat the process whenever you see dirt piling up your shoes because you will never want to have dirt stuck on your shoe soles and keep using them as they are.
Conclusion:
If you are not caring for their cleaning and maintenance of your footwear then you will struggle to keep them in next to new condition. The bottom of the shoes is more vulnerable to catching dirt and requires more attention than the top part.
There is a definite and effective approach for cleaning the bottom of the shoes. The procedure discussed here is applicable only for the bottom. Make sure that you don’t use it over the fabric of your footwear. For fabric cleaning and keeping the shoe top clean, there are other specific methods to follow.