How to Wash Your Sneakers Without Ruining Them

A great pair of sneakers is a beautiful thing. Like your comfiest jeans or your most washed-to-perfection tee, your favorite sneakers have the potential to feel like an extension of your body. Unfortunately, they’re eventually likely to get so dirty that wearing them in public is no longer an option, and—unlike jeans and tees—you can’t just toss them in the washing machine. When this happens, you’re faced with a choice: replace or refresh.The bad news is, no matter how hard you try, nothing is going to restore your sneakers to box-fresh condition. The simple reason is that most modern sneakers are made from a mix of leather, suede, plastic mesh, and foam, and while you can remove dirt from most of these materials, other signs of age are more baked-in. “I don’t like the word ‘restore,’” explains Rory Fortune, co-founder of Goods & Services, the Los Angeles repair and customization studio known for rebuilding and reinventing sneakers. “You can clean a pair of sneakers and make them look good, but you can’t make them look brand new.”Sneaker Biology 101The first step to a sparkling clean pair of sneakers is taking stock of what kind(s) of material you’re dealing with. Because each constituent material wears in different ways, sometimes visibly and irreversibly, each requires a different cleaning method. “Most of the time we're dealing with a mix of fabric and leather,” says Fortune. “Suede can take a beating but with mesh, you’ve got to be a lot more delicate.”Polyurethane is particularly tricky. The lightweight foam commonly used in midsoles has a limited lifespan, and as it ages, it hardens and absorbs moisture and oxygen. After a while, it begins to break down, becoming yellow, crumbly and brittle. “Polyurethane is an open-cell structure. It’s almost like a sponge,” Fortune explains. “When you see these 10-year-old Jordans, and the midsoles just start to disintegrate, that’s from oxidation. It’s humidity and water that gets sucked in and slowly breaks down the structure. Anytime you’re putting lots of water in and then taking it out quickly, you’re accelerating that process.”In other words, cleaning can't remedy yellow or crumbling midsoles, and putting them in the washing machine will only make things worse. Mesh and fabric present a different challenge. Because they’re more likely to trap dirt deep within their fibers, cleaning requires multiple gentle passes rather than aggressive scrubbing. Fortune recommends lathering a dollop of sneaker shampoo with a soft brush and wiping it away, then “rinse and repeat” to see if the stain comes free.On the opposite end of the spectrum, suede is far more forgiving than its reputation suggests.“Contrary to most people’s opinion, suede is actually very easy to clean… it’s not this delicate thing,” says Fortune, adding that a suede eraser and brass-bristled suede brush are often all you need to get the job done. Things get more complicated with other types of leather, however, since many mass-market sneakers use heavily coated and treated material that’s finished with a vinyl-like coating. It looks uniform and resists stains, but once the surface is damaged or begins to peel away from the leather, there’s not much anyone can do to save it. “When sneaker companies like Nike and Adidas say “leather,” it is technically leather, but it’s really the worst kind of leather,” says Fortune. “It’s really just a plastic coating.”Start low and go slow with cleaning suppliesLike eating a weed cookie you bought in a music festival parking lot, cleaning shoes benefits from a gradual approach: just as you can’t un-eat an edible, once color has been stripped away, or materials have been damaged, there’s no going back. That’s why Fortune recommends starting with an all-purpose cleaner and working your way up from there. “You can go up in levels,” he says. “All-purpose cleaners are very safe. Then you can start escalating.”If your efforts gently scrubbing with sneaker shampoo and a soft brush aren’t yielding the desired effects, consider acetone as your last resort. “Acetone is incredibly strong and takes color out, but it can damage material,” Fortune says. “If you have a stain that is just incredibly stubborn, you can take a little cotton ball or a Q-tip, put a little acetone [on it] and lightly rub the stain, but you risk damaging the shoe.”The sneaker cleaning toolkitUnfortunately, the only ‘miracle product’ hiding in a cobbler’s shop is the knowledge of the pro in the back room, and a good clean comes from matching the right tool to the right material in a pair of skilled hands. That said, there are a few trade secrets Fortune was willing to share. One pro tip is to use a handheld garment or household steamer with a little sneaker shampoo on the brush attachment. Work from the inside of the shoe, then scrub the upper while the steam loosens trapped dirt. For regular maintenance, Fortune keeps things simple. Magic Erasers are great for cleaning midsoles and rubber trim, and sneaker wipes are an easy way to remove fresh dirt before it has a chance to set. As for specific products, he recommends Lincoln EZ Cleaner as his favorite dedicated sneaker shampoo, along with the inexpensive and readily available all-purpose cleaner, Totally Awesome, which he says consistently punches above its weight.Embrace the imperfectionsFor years, sneaker culture has coveted the box-fresh aesthetic. Jordans were wiped after each wear. Sneaker cleaning companies went viral for returning faded kicks back to bright white. Fortune says he’s now seeing that trend itself begin to fade. “It seemed like maybe right before COVID it was a thing to have your sneakers crispy clean all the time,” he says. “We don't get nearly as many of those people anymore.”These days, he says he’s just as likely to talk somebody out of a clean as he is to take the job.Professional cleaning, Fortune says, makes sense in certain situations. “If you went on a hike on the weekend and they’re just covered in mud, that's when it's worth bringing them in for a serious industrial shampoo cleaning.”Otherwise, a few creases and scuffs aren't necessarily problems to solve. They're proof your favorite sneakers aren’t precious collectibles that you keep on a shelf, but beloved accessories that carry the patina of years’ worth of daily wear.