How to Clean your Cheer Shoes

Don’t get us wrong, we love cheerleading and our cheerleading shoes. BUT whoever decided that all white shoes would be the best decision for a sport that requires them to be sparkly white every single day is clearly insane.

Keeping them clean is next to impossible AND cleaning them once they’re dirty is next to impossible. So since we have sorta been in this business of cheer shoes for a while, we decided to share some inside tips on the best way to clean your white cheer shoes.

And NO, we do not recommend throwing them in the washer and dryer. EVER.

We’ve done extensive research and have tried to clean just about everything off of shoes, so keep reading for the best way to clean your cheer shoes.

First, you should grab all of your materials. Cleaning your cheer shoes does not require the use professional grade cleaning supplies. Instead, you can actually get most stains off with some simple house hold items.

DISCLAIMER: Once white shoes are dirty, it is next to impossible to get them to be 100% white again. The method we list out below will get you pretty darn close to new but it is unlikely that you will ever get them to look fresh out of the box again.

Items you will need:

·         An Old Toothbrush

·         Basic Toothpaste

·         Water

·         Bleach

·         Clean Rag

·         Old towel

·         Rubber Gloves

Okay, let’s get to cleaning.

1. We recommend working on a surface you don’t mind getting dirty or laying an old towel down to protect the table. If you get bleach on your mom’s nice dining room table, guarantee you she will NOT be happy. Trust us, we’ve been there. 
2. Take your tooth brush, dip it into the bowl of water, and then apply the toothpaste to it.
3. Stick your hand inside of the shoe just to keep the shape of the shoe, just makes it easier to apply pressure while cleaning.
4. Begin working in small sections on the shoe in circular motions and using a small amount of pressure. More pressure may be required based on how bad the stains are.
5. After you finish each section, take your rag, dip into your bowl of water, and simply wipe it clean.
6. If your stains are a little bit deeper and harder to get off with simple toothpaste, we recommend using household bleach and some water. Take 1 tablespoon of bleach and mix it in with a quart of water.
7. Using gloves, use the same technique you used with the toothpaste, dip the toothbrush in the bleach solution, and begin cleaning small sections in circular motions wiping clean each time.

For best results, repeat the cleaning process twice on each section. Since you obviously don’t want to clean with dirty soap, once the toothpaste/bleach mixture starts looking a little too brown, simply wipe clean and start again with fresh toothpaste/bleach.

And that’s it! See, it doesn’t have to be super complicated and frustrating. Just takes a little time and a little patience.

We’re still experimenting with the best way to clean your cheerleading shoes. We’ve tried baking soda, a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, Shampoo, Alcohol based spot remover, many other things. While they all worked decently, for some reason toothpaste for minor stains and bleach for the heavy duty stains seemed to work the best.

Do you have any other tried and true methods on how to clean your cheer shoes? We would love to hear them and so would the rest of our readers!

Thanks for stopping by guys! Remember, if you have any questions for us on anything at all, let us know! We’re always here for you!