I have a confession: I collaborated three years of tennis shoe trials for a sister publication of Better Homes & Gardens, and while doing so found out all of the very best practices for shoe care along the way. In spite of that intel, and despite the truth that everyone from device brands like Maytag to shoes business like Nike advise against it, I often toss my shoes in the dryer.
The Wrong Way to Dry Shoes
Yes, I understand that the heat of a clothes dryer is said to trigger shoes to potentially diminish and the glue to get too hot and come loose. If I clean my canvas shoes or tennis shoes in the washer and allow them to dry for a complete day, sometimes they still leave me with damp feet. Some of our best clothes dryer picks include handy drying racks that lock into location in the center of the drum, but as the third or 4th renter of my unit, any rack that came with my clothes dryer has gone MIA.
So sometimes, when I’m desperately seeking the pair of shoes to wear with a particular attire, I have thoughtlessly tossed wet shoes into the drum and pretended like I didn’t hear the “thud-thud-thud” echoing throughout my townhouse. It’s probably not the best relocation for the durability of the shoes– or the clothes dryer.
The Right Way to Dry Shoes
After investing a week traipsing through vineyards in my once-white Converse Chuck Taylors, I was passing time in the airport. In what felt like a moment of kismet, I was scrolling through social media waiting for our boarding call, and came throughout a TikTok technique that virtually had me running to the laundry space when I arrived home.
Janitor and self-proclaimed “clean freak” Brandon Pleshek (aka cleanthatup) explains how it’s carried out in his buzzy TikTok tutorial.
” Here’s a peaceful and easy method to dry your shoes. Tie your shoe strings in a knot, and close them in the drawer of the clothes dryer,” he states in his video. That way, the shoes will not move around.
,” referring to the reality that her clattering shoes would strike the door and pop it open. I followed Pleshek’s lead, tying a knot on the laces near their outermost point from the shoes, locking the different shoes together. After one cycle on low heat, my now almost-just-like-new Converse shoes were fully dry and all set to wear.
” This was most likely the most beneficial thing I’ve discovered on TikTok,” another fan said after seeing. It certainly ranks right up there with cottage cheese ice cream and the garbage bag trick for me. Whenever I’m crunched for time and in need of dry shoes stat, I’ll be turning to this cleaning hack.
Alternative Ways to Dry Shoes Safely.
If you ‘d rather not risk running your sneakers through a shift in the clothes dryer, no matter if it’s a silent, clunk-free procedure, you have a few other alternatives to dry your shoes,.
Allow them to air-dry in a well-ventilated place that receives direct sunshine inside.
On mild to warm precipitation-free days, position them in the sun outside to speed up drying a bit more.
Things the within damp shoes with balled-up pieces of newspaper. Given that the material is very absorbent, it can possibly lower required dry time. If your shoes begin extremely wet, change the sheets every hour or so to ensure they do not start promoting mildew.
Purchase a shoe dryer; we love the stand-up designs, especially to play double-duty as a boot-dryer throughout snow shoveling season.
Now that I have that confession off my chest, and have five reliable services to dry my shoes more securely, I’m off to study up on what other cleansing mistakes I may be making …
