# How Best to Clean Stinky Tevas?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 27, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839 "2004-08-27T20:38:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/1 "2004-08-27T20:38:04Z")
I just bought a new pair of Tevas, thinking they’d be easier to keep from getting stinky than my old leather sandals.
Wrong. Just one day of wearing them out and about and **Mrs. Bug** is wrinkling her nose and asking “_What_ is that _smell_?!” And that’s while they were still on my feet. Even if I wear socks, for some reason, _sandals_ plus _my feet_ equals _PU_.
So I hosed them off that night, left them on the back porch to dry, and washed my feet. Smell gone.
But the next morning, I go out on the porch to find the sandals _swarming with little black ants_. :eek:
What’s the best way to clean the foot odor out of a pair of Tevas, and keep them clean? They have a spongy rubber foam on the insole, and velcro straps.
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/2 "2004-08-27T21:16:58Z")
A previous related thread on stinky rubber footwear: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243028&highlight=tevas](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=243028&highlight=tevas)
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### Author:  [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/3 "2004-08-29T19:55:20Z")
Is freezing my Tevas really the best way to defunk them??
I was expecting a “Heloise”-like tip for using common household items like soap or bleach or egg whites or newt urine or something…
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### Author:  [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/4 "2004-08-29T21:26:13Z")
Hmmm. My wife has some heinous pump funk goin’ on (I will be killed for writing this), and it never occurred to me to _freeze_ the shoes. I assume water crystals break the bacterial cell wall.
Snap freezing could be even more deadly!
We got LOTS of LN2 at work…bwah-ah-ahhhh!
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### Author:  [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/5 "2004-08-29T22:09:03Z")
I’ve dealt with this before. I’ve yet to find a way to keep it from happening again, though.
Anyway, when mine get too yucky, I’ll fill up a sink most of the way with hot water and splash a little bleach in. Then I’ll toss the sandals into the sink and scrub them really thoroughly with a stiff brush. If any crud remains in little crevices or anything, I’ll take a toothpick and scratch it off. Usually takes only a few minutes.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/6 "2004-08-29T22:18:13Z")
Glad someone else has this problem too. I’ve been blessed all my life with completely odorless feet. I wear leather boots, with socks, 99% of the time and have never had a problem. Until I got rubber-soled Tevas. We had guests over the other night and I was thinking ‘Jesus, one of them has got some really stinky mofo feet’. Then I realised it was my Tevas.
Gonna stick them in the freezer now. Wonder what the wife will say when she gets back from the Madonna concert and fancies some ice cream…!
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### Author:  [@PussyCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PussyCow)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/7 "2004-08-29T22:23:00Z")
After years and years of wearing my Tevas, all of a sudden they start to stinking.
(I had washed them before, jsut cuz they get dirty) So I washed them with a scrubbing brush, warm soap and water. Left them on the porch to dry. Wore them again. Right away got stinky. So I washed them again, but this time rubbed Sr. Scholl’s stinky foot powder on them, so it got good into the crevices. After that appeared to disappear after a couple days I rubbed some more in again. They haven’t stunk since. I gave it this treatment about a month and a half ago.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/8 "2004-08-29T23:37:54Z")
Anyone else read this as “Texas”? 😃
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### Author:  [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/9 "2004-08-30T00:48:58Z")
I almost wrote it that way…
But I thought I’d save that one for IMHO.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/10 "2004-08-30T02:00:17Z")
Sink the Stink
[http://www.soytek.com/sts/](http://www.soytek.com/sts/)
It is bacteria eating bacteria.
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### Author:  [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/11 "2004-08-30T02:24:31Z")
For you freezers, please report back on the effectiveness! I replied to the thread linked to earlier, because freezing worked for me (after endless amounts of scrubbing failed).
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2004, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-best-to-clean-stinky-tevas/261839/12 "2004-08-30T11:24:18Z")
I tried the freezing method, as suggested in the “heinous booty funk” thread. It worked for a little while. Then I just poured bleach into the booties. Oops. Faded part of them a little, but they’re all right. I bought a bottle of stuff from the dive store (I gather it’s similar to Sink The Stink), but I’ve mislaid it and don’t remember what it’s called. “Mar-something”.