My kids love their Converse shoes but it drives me crazy how quickly the white rubber toes get dirty. At $40 a pair, I’d like them to last longer than a few months. I stopped my daughter from wearing hers last week because they just looked so dingy. At the annoying thought of buying a new pair, I went onto Pinterest to see what others have used to clean their Converse. I’ve washed other pairs in the washing machine before but it yellowed the rubber and didn’t clean it well. It can also make the canvas fade. I knew Pinterest would have ideas! There were some crazy concoctions but I chose the easiest first. OxiClean. Oh, My, Gosh. I was amazed!
I filled the sink with warm/hot water. The OxiClean bottle says 1-4 scoops per gallon of water for “soaking” and to soak for 1-6 hours. So I used three scoops for a sink full and soaked them, face down, for three hours. I don’t believe any of these were “magic” numbers, but it’s what worked for me.
So here are the shoes. I almost forgot to take a “before” picture. Yes, that is already nasty dirt soaking off of them.
After about three hours I drained the nasty water and scrubbed the rubber with a brush like this (I am not promoting this company by any means, it just happened to be the first one I found that resembled mine). Side note- my dad grew up in the dry cleaning business and was a master of getting stains out. The brush I have is a professional grade but I’m sure any laundry brush will work fine!
The scrubbing was a quick and easy process. Then I rinsed them, stuffed the toes with clean rags, and let them dry.
Tada! Can you believe this!?
After the first pair, I did two more and I still can’t believe it. It looks like I just got three new pairs of shoes! My dad would be proud of my stain fighting skills! The OxiClean did NOT do a superb job of cleaning the laces, so those I will just throw in the wash. But this was one of the easiest and most rewarding cleaning projects I’ve ever done!
