Shoe Deodorizer

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Sometimes, our shoes stink. We may not want to admit it, but they do. No one likes to walk around in smelly shoes. And your family may not like it that much either!

My husband’s dress shoes have recently developed an unpleasant odor. He has good Under Armour socks that have helped keep his feet from smelling for quite some time. But, shoes get used, and then they begin to smell. It just happens. But we wanted to figure out something to fix it.

So, naturally, I went to my essential oils. I chose tea tree oil because it is antibacterial and anitfungal. Instead of just masking the smell, I wanted to get rid of the source of the smell altogether!

And then there’s good old baking soda. Inexpensive, and great for drawing out odors!

I dumped about 2 or 3 Tablespoons of baking soda in a small plastic container. I didn’t measure, I just covered the bottom of the container with a thin layer of baking soda.

Then, I added 2 drops of tea tree oil to the baking soda and shook it around to mix it in a bit. I have added a drop of lemon essential oil before as well, just to give it a little better smell, but it isn’t necessary. If you’d rather stick with just tea tree oil, that works just fine.

I poured about half of the baking soda mixture into each shoe. Again, I didn’t measure. I just eyeballed it.

Once the baking soda was in the shoes, I spread it around. I tilted the shoes in different directions and tapped the sides to try to cover the bottom as completely as possible.

I would advise against doing this right after you take off your shoes. We did that the first time we tried it, and my husband’s shoes were damp with sweat. The baking soda stuck to the insoles and wouldn’t spread out very well and looked to be a problem to get out of his shoes. So we are now careful to wait a while after he took his shoes off to fill them with baking soda!

I try to let the baking soda sit in the shoes for at least a few hours, although all day is preferable.

To remove the baking soda, I used my vacuum cleaner with the corner attachment and carefully swept out the shoes. If you wanted to tap out the extra powder into the sink before vacuuming them out, you could do that as well.

Once all of the mixture is removed, you should be able to smell a difference immediately! It has effectively removed the odor from my husband’s shoes every time we have used it.

With that being said, it does not last forever. My husband has to keep wearing his shoes, so naturally they are going to become stinky again. We have had to use this baking soda mixture every week or two as a refresher.

My husband and I are both very glad to have this natural deodorizing solution!

How do you handle smelly shoes? If you are not sure where to begin, I highly recommend this solution!