How to get the stink out of your workout shoes

As if regularly working out wasn’t hard enough, are you now dealing with stinky workout shoes?

If you’re anything like In The Know’s Phoebe Zaslav, you probably have been wearing the same gym shoes for over a year. For those of us who aren’t workout fiends, airing out our sneakers isn’t something we get around to on a regular basis.

But cleaning your gym shoes doesn’t have to be an extra expense. Phoebe found a super easy two-step hack to making your shoes smell brand new again.

“This odor eliminated only requires two common ingredients: Baking soda and your favorite essential oil,” Phoebe said. “The essential oil is even optional, so if you don’t have that and all you have is baking soda, then you’re still good to go!”

In addition to the baking soda and essential oil, you’ll need some coffee filters and rubber bands to make little homemade odor eliminator pouches.

“Combine 3 tablespoons of baking soda and five to 10 drops of essential oils into the center of your coffee filter,” Phoebe explained. “One coffee filter is going to go into each shoe, so make sure you’re filling up two coffee filters.”

After, twist up the filters and tie them securely with a rubber band before placing the satchels into each shoe.

“Just let them sit overnight and when you wake up, the baking soda should have absorbed whatever funky odors you have going on in there, and the essential oil should add a nice aroma,” Phoebe said.

Baking soda is a natural neutralizer that combats the acids that cause bad smells. That’s why you’ll sometimes see people store open boxes of baking soda in their refrigerators.

“If you want to go the extra mile, you can put your shoes in a Ziplock bag with the satchels inside and store them in your freezer overnight,” Phoebe added. “The freezing temperature will kill any remaining bacteria that are causing the odor.”

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