How Do I Keep My White Sneakers White??

To paraphrase Stephen King, the sneakers you put up there ain't the sneakers that come back

First, hi love it's Amanda hairdresser. 

I am a bit obsessed with keeping my white sneakers (trainers in the UK) white. I have bought a number of 'magic' cleaning products on instagram and they are crap. How do I keep the outer sole, midsole white. Also the laces get dirty. I have soaked them in bleached water and not much luck. An improvement but not great. 

Two things before we get into the important matter of keeping your white sneakers white: 

-1- I'm going to stick with the old AaCP rule of not publishing names unless you ask me to, but I made an exception here because I love that Amanda, who is, as you may have guessed, my hair stylist, calls herself Amanda Hairdresser the way I call myself Jolie Cleanperson. Jolie Cleanperson was, of course, not my invention — it's lost to time now, but someone once addressed a question to me, "Dear Jolie Cleanperson," and I was so delighted by it that I kept it!

-2- I'm going to use a trope that I realized recently I use in a thousand ways and it is this: I love to describe things as being "like the Pet Sematary," which means, basically, it will come back, but it won't come back the same. I used the saying the other day to describe how I come back to life after a nap, I've used it to describe washing an L.L. Bean Boat and Tote, and I used it recently to describe cleaning white sneakers.

Sidebar: Are you asking yourself, "Has Jolie ever written about how to clean an L.L. Bean Boat and Tote?" because the answer is yes, of course I have, and obviously I did so for Town & Country. God, I absolutely loved my time contributing to T&C, it was so, so perfect in every way.

But let's get back to the matter at hand, which is your sneakers, and save tote bag matters for another day (I have thoughts on your tote bags, oh yes I do!) and talk about keeping them white. I prepared you for this and here it comes: You can absolutely clean white sneakers and get them white again, but they're never going to be exactly the same as when you bought them. I know that’s not what anyone wants to hear but I’m a big believer in being honest and managing expectations, and with that bit of honesty and expectation management out of the way let’s get into how to clean your white sneakers to get them looking (mostly) like new.

Wash Them First

The first thing to do is to wash the sneakers in the washing machine, which will do most of the hard work of removing stains and soil from the fabric and rubber parts of the shoe. Sneakers require some TLC before laundering — you can't just chuck them in the washer and expect a brand new pair of Supergas to emerge. Here's what to do:

-1- Remove the laces

An unholy amount of grime builds up under and around the laces of sneakers, so before washing them, remove the laces so that water and detergent can fully penetrate the entirety of the shoe.

-2- Spray the sneakers liberally with an enzyme-based stain remover

Dirt and grass are protein stains (our favorite kind of stain!) and are best treated using an enzyme-based stain removing formula. Two that I really like are Zout and Krud Kutter Sports Stain Remover, but truthfully just about any multi-use commercial stain remover will contain enzymes, since protein stains are everywhere.

I'm usually a stickler for reminding you not to overuse your laundry and cleaning products, but in the case of white sneaker remediation you can go ahead and get pretty wild with your Krud Kutter or Zout — spray 'em up! Don't, however, do the same with laundry detergent; use a sparing amount, maybe a tablespoon at most, to prevent detergent buildup, which will leave your kicks looking a lil dingy. If possible, skip the use of pre-measured laundry pods or pacs for this operation, which will be more detergent than is called for.

Do you need help sorting out how much detergent is too much detergent? Sure you do, it makes no sense to anyone! I tried for literal years to get this info out of my pals at P&G, and finally I did! So I wrote about it for BHG. 

-3- Wash sneakers separately from your other stuff

Wash the sneakers separately, or in a load with other sneakers. This is more for the benefit of your other stuff than for the sneakers because sneakers are definitely covered in stuff you don't want cross-contaminating everything else you own. (Dog waste, you guys.) Also sneakers will bang around in there and beat up all your other stuff so, yeah, just wash them on their own.

-4- Change your washer settings to cold water, delicate

Even though sneakers fall into the "heavily soiled" category of launderables, I want you to wash them in cold water, and I'd like you to use the delicate setting, if you'd be so kind. Hot water can cause the sneakers to pucker, and can weaken any glues that may have been used to fuse parts together. The delicate setting is a slower moving sitch, which will keep the sneakers from banging around in the drum, which can cause the rubber components to crack or split. 

FYI: The delicate cycle sometimes goes by the names "gentle," "hand wash," or "slow-slow" and one day I'll talk to you about those aliases but not right now because we're still working on getting your white sneakers white. Which leads me to …

Dry Them Outside

After washing, take your sneakers outside — weather and outdoor space permitting! — flip the tongue over the toe box and let them dry in the sunshine. Sun is a natural brightener and deodorizer, so drying them outdoors will add a bit of extra cleaning power to the operation. You can, of course, dry them inside; just don't dry them on or near a heat source, which can weaken the rubber parts. 

Detail Them with a Magic Eraser

Once the sneakers have been washed and allowed to sunbathe for a bit, it's time to do any detailing work that may still be needed. For this, you can use a toothbrush (but not the one you use in your actual mouth) and dish soap or all-purpose cleaner to scrub the outer soles, midsoles and toe cap OR you can use a Magic Eraser, which is what I use and which is what I think works best.

Do we all remember our Magic Eraser Sidebar from the instructions on how to clean hardshell luggage? I'll save you a click and repost it here:

Interlude: Magic Eraser Sidebar

To use a Magic Eraser or any other melamine foam eraser sponge, you must wet it first. Saturate the sponge with water, then wring it out very well so that it is just barely damp. (At least one of you is hollering, "DAMP, NOT WET!" and I love you for it!) You may need to re-wet and wring out the sponge as you work, and that's okay. Also, Magic Erasers disintegrate as you use them, much like a pencil eraser, so you should expect that. Sometimes that throws people off!

The Magic Eraser is going to get rid of all those scuffs and etc, and make your sneaks look as close to new as we're going to get.

Relace Them with Fresh Laces

By now you're probably like, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE LACES, JOLIE CLEANPERSON?? AMANDA HAIRDRESSER SPECIFICALLY ASKED YOU ABOUT THE LACES AND ALL YOU'VE DONE IS CAST THEM ASIDE!!!"

Yeah, I did. And here's why: Dirty shoelaces are, like, the one time I'll tell you to throw it away and get a new one. Shoelaces are cheap, and sure, I could help you get your old set back to white but they won't ever look as fresh as a, well, fresh pair. Do you hate the idea of wasting a perfectly good set of shoelaces? LPT has some good suggestions for how to reuse old shoelaces. (My first-ever Reddit AMA was with LPT, so I will forever love LPT.)

Before I leave you, I'd also like to talk you into a set of Fancy Laces. I am a Fancy Lace gal, and I get so, so many compliments on my Fancy Laces. I'd like the same for you! I have two different types of Fancy Laces, this set of gossamer laces in 12,000 colors that I use for my leopard canvas sneakers, and this set of satin laces that I use on my Gucci Aces, because Gucci Aces simply were not flashy enough for me on their own.