Unique Ways To Keep Your Shoes From Smelling Horrible

Have you ever been in an elevator when the atmosphere just totally changes as someone's body odor envelopes the space? How about trying to speak with someone (maybe even someone you are on a date with) and their breath stinks to high heaven? Being around someone with smelly shoes can be just as terrible. Surely no one ever wants to be in this situation, but it does happen — a lot.

Among other things, smelly shoes can be caused by smelly feet — aka bromodosis (via Healthline), a medical condition suffered by 6 out of every 10 people, per the Institute of Preventive Foot Health. Another reason for smelly shoes includes wearing the same footwear repeatedly, thereby letting sweat accumulate in it, per Soft Star Shoes. So you have a situation where your feet stink, and therefore your shoe stinks. Best not pull them off where people are gathered.

How do you ensure that you never find yourself in this situation? And if you have once been embarrassed by this, how do you ensure that it never happens again?

A well-known useful trick is to always wash your shoes (via Home Made Simple) and ensure that you wear them only when they are dry. Any moisture in those shoes is bound to cause an unwelcome smell if you don't let the shoes dry out properly first. You can get spray cleaners to clean the soles while using a towel to wipe the shoe's body, per Home Made Simple.

Sometimes, cleaning may just not be enough. And no matter how long you leave your shoes to dry out, sometimes the smell just clings to them. A trick in such a situation is to get two socks filled with baking soda, push the powder-filled socks into the shoes, and leave them in place for about 6-12 hours, per Good Housekeeping. The powder will soak up whatever dampness is left in the shoes.

Cloves can be just as effective for this purpose, per Medicine Net. Just tie some in a handkerchief and leave it in the smelly shoes for a few hours. If the stink is particularly horrible, you may want to leave the cloves for longer. You can also try medicated foot powder. If sprayed on the insole before and after using your footwear, these powders can help absorb the moisture that would otherwise cause a stink, per Very Well Fit.

Other things that can help get rid of the bad smell include deodorizing your feet, freezing the shoes to make them uninhabitable for any odor-causing bacteria, wearing clean, dry socks, and wearing your shoes in rotation so as to give each one a breather and enough opportunity to air out before the next wear.

If nothing changes after trying all of these tips and tricks, maybe the shoe has just gotten to the end of its shoe-life and needs to be discarded for good, per Good Housekeeping.