With every sport comes some measure of perspiration. You sweat. That means that sweat drips all over you, from your head to your toes.
Basketball shoes are not immune from dirt and smells. The odor can be from your feet or it can be from the moisture in your shoe. Bacteria feed off of sweat on your feet and then release a repulsive, strong odor that might be difficult to get away.
Whatever the basis or reason, it is important that you are more interested in getting it under control.
Why Do My Basketball Shoes Smell?
There is an answer well underway above. Physiologically, your feet are estimated to have about 250,000 sweat glands, which means that being trapped, so to say, in a shoe, the sweat from them becomes a virile breeding space for bacteria to thrive.
It is the environment where the bacteria is thriving that has made the odor a huge selling point. To, therefore, dispel the odor, it is important that you try to kill the bacteria first.
However, despite this physiological fact, the odor from some people’s feet are worse off in comparison to others. This is a medical condition called bromodosis. This condition is what causes some people’s sweaty feet to be worse off than others.
How Do You Get The Smell Out?
There are several ways you can do this and that will be the discussed here:
1. Make Use Of Baking Soda
Baking soda is a natural deodorizer and that works well for your shoes as it does for the refrigerators. Many times, people use it to absorb food items with unpleasant smell.
Baking soda is the common name for a chemical called sodium bicarbonate and is widely used in baking. It is a powdery substance and has so many benefits.
Many people use it as a treatment for heartburn; some others use it as a resource for mouthwash or to whiten the teeth, even to relieve sunburn and itchy skin.
When it comes to cleaning, this chemical absorbs odors than mask them, and that’s because odors are generally acidic substances. Baking soda, on the other hand, is basic and it can easily neutralize acidic substances in the air.
To use this acidic cleaning agent, just pour a measured quantity, perhaps 3-4 teaspoons, in your shoes and let it sit in the shoe through the night. The sodium bicarbonate will absorb excess moisture from your basketball shoes and just clean as you want.
When that is done, dry your shoe in the morning. There are also other substances that many add to baking soda in washing shoes, a popular example is vinegar. Anyway, that is not entirely a useful or necessary technique to get rid of shoe odor.
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2. The Freezer Technique
This comes with contemplative possibilities. There are times this doesn’t work for some basketball shoes, but not totally needless.
You can normally keep your shoes in your freezer to get rid of odor. You can do that by putting your shoe in a sealed plastic bag and then put in the freezer overnight.
Freezers will easily kill the bacteria in the shoes because bacteria are known to not be able to survive extremely cold temperature. The freezing temperature of your freezer will kill the bacteria-triggered odor and a morning air dry can make the shoe smell a lot better and fresher.
3. Lemon Peels Or Isopropyl Alcohol
You can place lemon peels in your basketball shoes overnight. The good thing about trying this is that, if moisture is not the challenge, it can give your shoe a new scent that you desire.
Spraying the Isopropyl alcohol, on the other hand, is for drying out possible sources of the odor itself and this allows you to use your shoes again.
As a medical response, it is used as an antiseptic, and rubbing alcohol on surfaces as first aid responses make them dry up quickly.
Same way if it is applied to the sources of your shoe’s moisture, it can evaporate quickly.
4. Use Deodorizer Sprays
As helpful as it is to use baby powder, pour baking soda, use orange peels, or rub alcohol, a very good way to solve the smelly challenge with your basketball shoes is to apply shoe deodorizer.
The deodorizers are more placed to remove every repugnant or foul odors that your shoe has.
Fortunately, they work for all kinds of shoes and not just basketball shoes. Meaning that why some shoe odor deadening techniques might be a little difficult for basketball shoes, the same can’t be said of deodorizers.
Can I Just Wash The Shoes To Remove The Dirt?
Basketball shoes — like perhaps suede material shoes — are better cleaned delicately than an over the top washable technique for other shoes like them.
Generally, shoes that are glued materials, especially because of the arch and all, should not be doused in excessive water. The glue becomes relaxed and loose and that might be the beginning of the end of such shoes.
This is why in discussing techniques for removing smells, the reference was not with water but helpful techniques that don’t make use of many water-cleansing approaches.
To clean your basketball shoe, you can use the old technique of a toothbrush or shoe brush to remove dirt on the sole of your shoe.
You can also use a soft, damp cloth with water that is mixed with laundry detergent to clean dirt at the side-areas of the shoe. This must be complemented with air drying the shoes at room temperature and not with a dryer or washer, nor exposed directly to sunlight.
In taking out the odor in your shoes, you have to also approach by first discovering what the cause of the odor is.
There are times the smells are aggravated because they are from damaged insoles. In that case, washing is not the next move, rather change the insoles or air dry them.
Changing an insole might also be the solvent factor for a smelling shoe as opposed to washing. In other words, never approach the case of an odor or a smelling basketball shoe first and foremost from the point of washing.
Also, before talking about washing, there are some basic tips to adhere to; keeping your shoes clean, the scent better, and the shape longer as expected.
You need to keep your shoes well in racks or boxes, and importantly, wear them only as importantly as to the court.
Important Tips For Washing Feet & Cleaning Of Basketball Shoes
When you take adequate and proper care of your feet, you significantly reduce the incidence of intense smell and odor in your basketball shoes.
Having to clean your smelly shoes regularly using a deodorizing powder spray after use can also be complemented with the following:
- You need to protect your feet from being breeding grounds for bacteria, and you can do that by learning to wash your feet using anti-bacterial soaps, cleaning the toes and nails right to their inner crevices.
- You must dry your feet after washing them very well. Also, make it a personal culture to always do same when your feet are sweaty.
- Avoid wearing the same pair of basketball shoe in a row. Space their usage and always give enough time to let the shoes dry properly. As mentioned earlier, don’t dry your shoes in a dryer or expose them to too much sunlight. Washing in the dryer can be somewhat harsh for basketball shoes and can damage the shoes arch or discolor their materials.
- Adidas advises that part of the way to keep your soles virile is to remove stones from them. For many who don’t play high level professional or athletic game and do so more outdoor, the risk of picking up dirt and stones are real. You can pick out the stones using a toothpick.
- You can make it a routine practice to air dry your shoes outside. That allows your shoe some breathing point. You can also learn to stuff your shoes with newspaper. Newspaper are also good resource for many to absorb sweat after each shoe wear.
Final Word
You must realize that it is your responsibility to ensure that your basketball shoes and feet are squeaky clean at all times. Doing these limits the potential spread of bacteria-induced odor or moisture on your basketball shoes.
There is often no cut-straight approach in dealing with repugnant odor, you can improvise as you go along, but with basic understanding of what kind of materials and/or combination of sorts can affect your shoe or not.
They may not be textbook approaches, since they are about improvisations, but they sure as hell could work for you. Maybe you can try some out and share, too. Goodluck on an odor-free basketball shoe use!
