Picture this – it is a beautiful and sunny day and you decide to go for a stroll in your local park in your brand new white converse – when out of nowhere, it starts pouring with rain! The ground soon turns to slushy mud and before you know it, your once clean and white converse have turned brown!
As soon as you get back home you chuck them in the laundry but no matter how many times you wash them, they’re never as perfect and white as they once were.
Keeping your converse looking new and fresh out of the box is a struggle we all know and a struggle not many of us know how to solve. Although white converse are a great fashion staple, they can be one of the hardest items to keep clean!
It’s like dirt is attracted to the color white! And once the dirt is on there, it’s super hard to get it off. Nothing likes to stain more than a white pair of shoes.
However, worry not! We are here to help! We’ve found the most useful ways to clean your converse that will provide the best results. So, if your white converse requires a deep clean, keep on reading…
Preparation
The first step to getting converse that looks brand spanking new is to prepare the shoe itself for the cleaning process. To do this first remove the laces.
This will help to get into all the little crevices of the shoe that may have been hidden with the laces still threaded. This way, you can also clean the laces separately, or even purchase new laces to give your shoe a new look.
Once you’ve removed the laces, run the shoes under cold water and ensure that the whole shoe is wet. This is important because that is what the cleaning agent is going to work the best with, thus creating the best results and the whiter the shoe.
Now, we suppose you are wondering what exactly the cleaning agent we mentioned is. Well, we’ve researched and found the top three best cleaning agents to clean your shoe, so let’s get into it.
Option 1: Baking Soda and Vinegar
The first method for you to try is the baking soda and vinegar method. Of course- this does sound very bizarre, however, it is always the strange combinations that create the best results. For this method, you will need the following:
- Baking Soda
- Vinegar
- Scrubbing Brush
- Bowl
- Hot Water
The first thing you will need to do is add one part baking soda and two parts vinegar to the bowl. After this add a small amount of warm water and mix to form a paste. You can adjust the amount of products you use depending on how much of the mixture you need for your shoes.
Use a scrubbing brush (you could even use an old toothbrush for this) to apply and rub the paste over your shoe. Do this for a couple of minutes, repeating the process if it is necessary – especially for those stubborn stains!
After this, rinse with cold water or throw them in the washing machine. Then all you have to do is hang them out to dry, rethread the laces and your shoes are white and good to go!
Option 2: Toothpaste
If perhaps you don’t have access to baking soda or vinegar, a great alternative is toothpaste, and luckily we all have that lying around in our homes! Yep – not only is toothpaste good for whitening your teeth, but also your converse. For this process you will need:
- Toothpaste – this needs to be a paste rather than a gel, and it must be completely white.
- An old toothbrush or scrubbing brush.
This is one of the simplest methods, just use the old toothbrush to rub the product into the dirty parts of your shoe. Make sure to fully scrub the area you need to, and then leave the shoe to soak for at least 15 minutes.
This is when the magic happens! As before, rinse the shoes under cold running water or alternatively put them in the washing machine. After that, leave them out to dry!
Option 3: Bleach
The last method we’re going to talk about today is the bleaching method. Bleach is a common household product used for cleaning or removing color from things. It is a very strong and potentially dangerous product so always be careful and use gloves when handling it. For this method you are going to need:
- Bleach
- Baking Soda
- Toothpaste
- Old Toothbrush/Scrubbing Brush
- Warm Water
This method mixes the two above to create the ultimate shoe whitener. Simply use around 50ml of the bleaching agent, a tablespoon of baking soda, and around the same amount of toothpaste (remember this must be a paste and it must be white).
Add a small amount of warm water and mix the formula into a paste. It should be relatively runny, rather than thick. Use the old toothbrush or scrubbing brush to apply the paste into your shoe. Let the shoes soak for a few hours before rinsing them under cold water or putting them in the washing machine.
Afterwards
After you have applied any of the above three cleaning agents, let the shoes soak before you wash them. Rinse them under cold water or chuck them in the washing machine to ensure all of the product has been washed out. Hang them up to dry, rethread the shoelaces and you will have yourself a pair of white converse that look as good as they did the first day you got them!
Conclusion
Hopefully one of the above methods will work for you and you’ll have sparkling new converse once again! So, no worries if you find yourself with muddy shoes or anything else, you now know how to get them back to what they were before. Remember, you can always repeat the processes, or combine them all to create the results that you want.
