how to clean shoes without shoe cleaner

 

A while back I wrote a blog post titled "How To Remove A Stuck Bolt". The topic of this article is how to remove a stuck bolt.

 

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Unfortunately, many people don't know how to remove a stuck bolt and choose to stick their hands in the dirt or use shoe cleaner which mostly does more harm than good. 

 

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This blog is here to teach you how to keep your shoes clean and looking new without using harsh chemicals.

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Who this article is for: This article is for people who want to keep their shoes clean and looking new without using harsh chemicals. If you wear athletic shoes, this article is most likely for you.

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What I did: I followed the steps in this post and did a bit more research online and it worked out very well for me. 

 

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There are a few different methods available, but I found the one above to be the easiest to apply given my shoe cleaning routine. You can find links at the bottom of this article that go directly to each method so you can decide if they're right for you.

 

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Tools I used:

How I did it:

1. Get some boiling water, a clean white cloth, a razor blade and some cornstarch. Boil the water in a tea kettle and pour it into a shallow bowl.

 

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 The bowl needs to be shallow so that your shoe doesn't make contact with the bottom of the bowl because it will burn through the material and you won't have much of a shoe left by then. Next you want to take your razor blade and clean off all the dirt on your shoes. 

 

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Once you've completed this step feel free to move on to step 2 if there is no more dirt on your shoes or continue with step 3 if there is still dirt on your shoe that needs removing.

2. Pour a small amount of the cornstarch into the bowl with the boiling water and stir it around until it's dissolved.

 

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 Once you've dissolved all of the cornstarch into the water take your cloth and dip it into the bowl and squeeze out all of the water from your cloth so that there is no excess moisture in your cloth. Next, start applying some pressure to one area at a time. 

 

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Start at one area and apply pressure for about 10 seconds, let go for a minute then move on to another area.

 

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 This should take about 3-5 minutes. If you're applying pressure to all areas of your shoe try to keep a consistent amount of pressure at the same place on each part of your shoe.

 

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 After you've applied enough pressure for about 5 minutes let go of the cloth and lift it off the surface gently to release any excess heat.

 

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3. After you've applied enough pressure for about 5 minutes take your razor blade and scrape all the excess glue off of your shoe. 

 

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Then go over each area using the razor blade and/or scraping again with the razor blade as needed to get any remaining glue off.