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Mix one part baking soda and one part laundry detergent. Depending on how much you need to clean, you likely won’t need much baking soda or laundry detergent. Begin by mixing a tablespoon of each in a small bowl thoroughly. You can always add more of each ingredient if you find you haven’t made enough.[2] The baking soda will act as an abrasive to help the soap remove dirt and grime.
Avoid using laundry detergents with bleaching agents.
If your shoes aren’t super-dirty, you can also just use a warm water with a few drops of dish soap.[3] 4
Scrub the rubber with your cleaning solution. Use your brush to apply the combination of baking soda and laundry detergent to the rubber portion of your shoes, then scrub it in. Using a circular motion with the brush is often the most effective way to remove dirt and grime.[4] You may want to avoid using this cleaning combination on the fabric of your shoes, as the baking soda may be difficult to thoroughly rinse off.
You can make a separate mixture of just detergent and water to clean cloth portions of your shoes.5
Use a different sponge or cloth to thoroughly rinse the rubber. Once you’ve adequately scrubbed the cleaning combination into the rubber soles of your shoes, take another clean cloth or sponge and soak it in clean water. Run it along the rubber, rinsing it with each pass until all of the mixture has been rinsed away..
[5] Failing to remove all of the cleaning mixture can leave the rubber looking discolored.
Leaving the detergent mixture on the shoe can also make them very slippery and dangerous.
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Dry the shoe completely. Once you have rinsed all of the soap off of the shoe, use a clean towel to dry the rubber before you wear the shoes again. Once you have the shoe dry, you’ll have a better sense of how well the cleaning mixture did, and you can repeat the process at this point if you need to.[6] Leaving the shoes wet could lead to them beginning to smell.
Wet shoes can be dangerous to wear, so be sure they’re completely dry and free of soap before putting them on.
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