Quality shoes are an excellent way to keep yourself outstanding in the crowd. Both men and women, we all like and appreciate a pair of decent, lovely shoes while walking. And with pleasant-smelling shoes, your feet and personality perception will be in heaven.
People basically care about their shoes and clean them regularly. But one thing most people usually forget is to pay close attention to the shoes inside as well. As such, their shoes tend to develop a foul odor, such that when you put them close or in front of others, they just give a bad impression. You don’t want to damage your personality.
Footwear is a much-needed yet influential companion to us. On that note, you certainly have to take care of your footwear interior and get rid of the bad smell with tea bags. Besides the impression, your feet will also feel better within fresh and cool shoes.
One major concern is that the market is flooded with branded shoe deodorizers, most of which won’t eradicate the smell completely, or just work for a short span of time. This post will be focused on a recipe on how you can raise and maintain a pleasant odor for an admirable period of time. Plus, you won’t have to dish a whole amount of money on purported odor powders.
Tea Bags and Smell Shoes
Besides being an aromatic beverage, tea is a wonderful substance to do away with shoe odor. With a black tea, the high content of concentrated tannins can expel the bacteria that lead to odor build-up. Black tea, in particular, is associated with the ability to cast aside those bacteria that result in an awful smell.
Moreover, tea not only kills the smelly bacterial but also delivers a pleasant, decent smell. You can pick any tea flavor or scent for that matter: apple spice, lavender, or peppermint scented shoes. Anyone.
We preferred categorizing this general tea bag application concept into two: Simple or Moderate and Extreme Method.
Also Read: Are Minimalist Shoes Good For Walking?
Moderate Method of Deodorizing Shoes Using Tea Bags
If you’re looking forward to eradicating stickiness, then you will have to use at least two tea bags for every shoe. Grab a couple of tea bags and put them in the shoe. Keep the shoe in a dry area and leave the substance to destroy the bacteria. Dry conditions will enhance the process against smelly fungi. Leave the tea bags in your shoes for at least one day.
This is because tea bags are absorbent and will need time to change the condition or environment of the shoe interior. Just get the tea bags and plop them inside the shoes and wait without interfering with the process.
You can start up by adding two bags into each shoe, and later on, go for maximum freshness with three tea bags in each shoe.
The bad smell in the shoes is caused by bacteria and the warm moisture inside the shoes. Eradicating the moisture will destroy the bacteria and cut down the awful smell as well.
One thing that makes teabags effective in eliminating odor is they are highly absorbent. They will normally absorb quite a deal of moisture during tea brewing. So basically, this shoe deodorizer technique involves putting those properties in effect for other means and wicking the moisture and odor right out of the shoes.
After a day or so, your shoes will not only be odor-free; they will smell oh so nice too. You can even let the tea bags last in your shoes for two or more days. Those extra hours will only make your shoes smell even more pleasant, decent, and tea-like.
Extreme Method of Deodorizing Smelly Shoes Using Smelly Shoes
It’s recommended to use black tea because of the high tannins content, which is the enemy of the odor building bacteria. For extremely smelly shoes, you might have to steep the tea bags as you do while making the tea.
The first thing is to pick a tea bag with the scent or aroma that you like. Boil the water up, pour it in a cup, and toss the tea bags into the boiling bags. Leave them for two or three minutes.
Then remove the tea bags, but take caution not to burn your skin with hot water or tea bags. Ideally, you can use a fork or such utensils to help get the bag out of the hot water. Also, you cannot plop the hot burning tea bags right into your shoes. It can damage the insoles or footbed of your shoes. As such, give some time to cool down.
Now go ahead and place the tea bags into the shoes. Make sure the tea bag is warm enough to exert the moisture. You might need to use multiple tea bags for extra smelly shoes.
How it works is that the moisture exerted by the teabag soaks the insole of the footwear. The tannins present in the tea bag will occupy the shoe and fight bacteria. With this approach, the teabag is required to stay inside the shoe for one hour or two, after which you will remove them from the shoes.
The process should get rid of the foul odor from your shoes and, in place, deliver a fresh smell with the scent of the teabag.
This procedure is likely to involve some wetness in the shoe’s interior. That means the shoes will soak from inside. Thus, we recommend not to wear shoes until they are properly dry. You can expose them to sunlight or place them in a dry place. Still, you can use an air dryer in case you need to wear your shoes immediately.
The Bottom Line
The whole process will have absolute results. After letting your shoes rest for a day or so, you can shove your nose into the heel and confidently take a big whiff. You don’t have to spend your bulks on branded powders, and if you do, don’t set your expectations too high. This is particularly true if your shoes are extremely stinky. Teabag is an ideal method to fight odor from your shoes. In fact, there’s quite a number of household items that can help eliminate the smell from your footwear. This includes baking soda, lemon peels, rubbing alcohol, and essential oils.