Five Fast Tricks to Fix Smelly Jelly Shoes

Do you want to know what literally every kid in the 90s and early 2000s wanted to wear? Ok, maybe not all of them, but I know that my siblings and I just thought that they were the coolest things. 

I mean, jelly shoes can come in almost any color or level of total glitterization (clearly that’s not a word, but I literally have no other idea on how one could possibly describe how gorgeously sparkly little me found those jelly shoes). Those jelly shoes are a veritable, captivating rainbow of choices for any kid to choose from in terms of footwear, that’s for sure.

Whilst most other shoes tended to come in more plain, banal colors (and had far fewer sparkles adhered to ‘em) these jelly shoes presented all kinds of offerings for one to pick over at the shoe store.

I mean, what’s also pretty fabulous about those jelly shoes is that they’re pretty indestructible. Granted, I suppose a fair part of that comes from the soft, squishy plastic that’s their main material, but it’s still pretty rad, I think. Especially when you’re a kid (or a parent of one who doesn’t want to deal with a gazillion sets of shoes for their children), such indestructible qualities tend to be supes helpful. Those jelly shoes can really go through it and still come out looking as trendy and fashion-forward as ever without a single scratch.

But what about shoe stank? Sadly enough, jelly shoes can be just as likely to become a little rank as any other kind of shoe. How is one supposed to clean them, you might ask? While nigh-on indestructible, jelly shoes need a little TLC, just like any of your other footwear, funky or not. 

So here are some really quick and easy ways to make your jelly shoes better. Deodorizing hacks that are fairly simple and really work!

 

  

1. Rotation

 

We’ll be going over rotating your jelly shoes first. Yep, rotation. You see, rotating your fabulous (if a wee bit funky) footwear actually has a point for fixing the stank– it’s totally not just for giving you a really swell opportunity to show off your varied and fantastic selection of jellies to wear.

You see the success of rotating your shoes actually is all based on the why of your stinky jelly shoes– psst, the bad smell totally isn’t the fault of your actual feet! Your footwear’s funk actually hails from bacteria that just so happen to live on your feet and they’re the ones that produce that (unfortunately) familiar old cheese smell emanating up from your fabulous (and now sadly stinky) shoes. 

All of that stank-producing bacteria likes to feed off of the moisture from the sweat on your feet and in your shoes (they just slurp it all down like a milkshake in midsummer) and also off of the dead skins cells that sort of naturally slough off of your feet (moisture+old skin cells= a well-rounded diet for the source of your shoes’ dreadful dank stank).

So rotation is totally an excellent solution to the rather rank smell of your fabulous jelly shoes’. All you have to do for this easy and quick shoe deodorization hack is make sure that you alternate between at least two different sets of shoes in order to avoid making any more smell. Depriving the stank-producing bacteria of their favorite variety of food (AKA the moisture from your sweat and extra dead skin cells on your feet) is sure to set ‘em back on the smell production (which is simply swell for all of those of us with any kind of functioning nose hairs left standing after all of this time spent with stinky shoes). 

At least two different sets of jelly shoes to go between is the bare minimum, although you can totally take this opportunity to rotate between a couple of extra sets of shoes in order to work around the smell and the bacteria that make it.

2.  White Vinegar

 

Plain ol’ white vinegar is another super easy and successful shoe deodorization hack to use on your fave set of fabulous (if a bit funky) jelly shoes. Now, I know that you may or may not think that white vinegar is just another old, random thing chilling on a dusty shelf in the back of the kitchen pantry, but trust me when I say this stuff totally is a multipurpose item.

And I’m not just talking about your fourth-grade science fair project– although those volcanoes are totally amazing– shoutout to any people who used vinegar to learn all about them acids and bases (baking soda exploding with vinegar will never not be cool, and that’s a fact). Beyond those rad, foamy volcanoes, however, did all y’all know that vinegar (with its acid-based superpowers) can also take on the super stank wafting up from your utterly fabulous (and literally so close to not being funky) jelly shoes?

Acid (which vinegar is a weakish version of) can totally be a whammy to the whiffy bacteria, and that absolutely ROCKS for all of us who want to fix our stinky shoes ASAP.

Any kind of vinegar will do, btw, although white vinegar tends to be on the cheaper side of things, and you also probs already have a bottle ready and waiting for you and your stinky jelly shoes in the kitchen somewhere. I mean, if you want to use some of your fancy balsamic vinegar, go on and be my guest, but in all honesty, the cheap stuff will totally work just fine for this.

How to deodorize stinky jelly shoes with white vinegar: 101. Listen up, ma’ dear yet stinky reader. All you need is a few cotton pads or rounds that you’ve already soaked with your white vinegar and then you can go on ahead and stuff said white vinegar-soaked cotton rounds straight on into your smelly shoes.

Leave everything in for at least overnight, but if you can manage to part with your jelly shoes for just a bit longer, then all the better so that we can give the white vinegar all of the time it needs to really take care of the dreaded shoe stank.

3. Baking Soda

 

And as long as we’re on this tangent about making the best 4th-grade science fair volcanoes in the land, we might as well also bring up baking soda as our next of our absolutely fabulous and supes successful hacks for cleaning stinky jelly shoes. 

Oh yes, BAKING SODA! It’s actually kind of great at breaking bad smells from your beautiful jelly shoes, beyond all of its more obvious uses. I mean, where would we be without all of baking soda’s utterly fabulous usefulness in helping make our baked goods rise to perfectly lofty heights (I mean, we’d all probably have fewer heavy carbs in our diets, but that is totally beside the point)? Or how about how baking soda can easily make your fried chicken that much more crispy with just a lil’ dash in the floured dredge!? All amazing things for sure, and that’s on top of baking soda being totally able to deodorize those smelly jelly shoes of yours. 

Now, exactly how do we use baking soda to clean stinky shoes, one might dare to ask? An excellent question by any account, and there’s a solid reason as to why this stuff works to take the funk out of your absolutely fabulous footwear. You see, baking soda is actually kind of amazing at absorbing any and all kinds of moisture (it just slurps said moisture down like a milkshake and it’s a baking 100 degrees outside). Having the baking soda absorb all of that extra moisture leftover from the sweat on your feet is swell for your stinky shoes because, if you’ll care to recall, the stank-producing bacteria absolutely loves to chow down on that stuff.

So, basically, if there’s a lack of moisture for the smelly bacteria to eat up, then there’s going to be a lack of stank that they’ll be able to produce. All of that is totally swell for us and our (def) soon-to-not-be) stinky shoes!

You can easily use the stuff to deodorize stinky jelly shoes– all it takes to fix stinky shoes with baking soda is a couple of tablespoons dashed right on into your smelly jelly shoes. Alternatively now, if you’re worried about future you having to deal with a slightly difficult clean-up, then you can for sure make it easier to deal with afterward by stuffing a sock with the same amount of baking soda and tying it all off securely with a rubber band or something similar. 

Regardless of what you end up deciding on, you’ll want to make sure to keep the baking soda inside of your pungent peds for at least overnight, although having it in there for just a lil’ bit longer can for sure help you to deodorize your stinky shoes extra thoroughly.

4. Sunny Storage

 

Up next we’ve got one of our best easy fixes for smelly jelly shoes, although it might totally just seem like common sense– but isn’t that how it goes for most of the best sort of solutions? Fixing the footwear funk wafting up from your gorgeous shoes shouldn’t have to be mind-bogglingly difficult, right? I mean, being so fabulous all of the time with those stunning jelly shoes of yours is already taxing enough on its own, so why would we want to add anything on top of that?

For real though, storing your stinky shoes somewhere sunny is actually one of the most successful ways to really get rid of the shoe stank for good. Yep, just a tiny lil’ bit of fresh air and sunshine is one of the best and most thorough shoe deodorizers out there– I mean, yeah that makes our stinky shoes sound like plants, but hey don’t bust it ‘til you try it, ya’ know?

It’s all because of that smelly bacteria that we’ve been going on about– it turns out that those stinky suckers just aren’t all about sunshine and fresh air. Think of them as vampires– just don’t go on stuffing garlic into your stinky shoes (unless you want that fun and funky fresh garlic/stinky foot smell combo to become the new scent of your poor pungent peds– and hey, you do you, but I’m just going to go out on a limb and say that *maybe* that’s not precisely what we’re trying to go for here).

Sunshine+fresh air= busted shoe stank. All you have to do is store your stinky shoes somewhere outside where they can get a good amount of sun each day and perhaps even a beautiful breeze gusting by every now and then.

Now, if you don’t have a backyard or if the present weather is just a touch too inclement for ya’ to feel good about keeping your fave set of fabulous (if a bit funky) footwear outside– and I totally can feel ya’ on that one, given the wall of winter-gray clouds presently settling in right outside my window– then you can also just store your smelly jelly shoes inside where there’s just a solid patch of sunlight or at the very least a solid current of fresh air moving over the shoes (ie a window or by an air vent).

5. LUMI’s Lavender Tea Tree Natural Shoe Deodorizer

 

Our fifth shoe deodorization hack on our list of super easy ways to fix smelly jelly shoes is LUMI’s Lavender Tea Tree Natural Shoe Deodorizer. LUMI is an all-natural and all-fabulous shoe spray that can quickly and also effectively take on the terrible stank from your poor pungent peds.

Ok, and you totally don’t just have to take just my word for it– LUMI’s Lavender Tea Tree Natural Shoe Deodorizer quite literally has over 800 utterly perfect five-star reviews uploaded on Amazon, coming out to a solid 4.4-star rating overall. Amazon reviewer KP here says that LUMI was both quick and simple to use and that the fresh smell also lasts on their kids’ shoes for days!

 

And on top of all of that, LUMI actually just so happens to be a pretty rad company. As already mentioned, they’re all-natural, but they also only source the highest quality ingredients for their products, never (ever, ever, and yet another ever) test on animals, are a small, family-owned business, and they also make all of their products in the United States. Yeah, you can definitely cue all of the applause and glitter cannons right about now because they truly are that cool.

All it takes for how to fix those stinky jelly shoes of yours is a spritz or two of LUMI’s Lavender Tea Tree Natural Shoe Deodorizer directly into the soles and that’s it! You’re all ready to go and live your best, fashionable life with the most rad (and totally not rank) shoes out there.

Let’s just try and summarize everything though, shall we? I don’t know about all y’all reading this, but as for me, myself, and I, a summary is one of the best darn things out there, given that I have the memory of half a squirrel (no offense meant to the squirrels of the world of course). So a summary, yes?

Rotation is the name of the game when it comes to taking down the extra funky smell from your stinky jelly shoes. It’s all because of that super stank-producing bacteria that lives on your poor pungent peds and also (sadly enough)  in your funky footwear. As we’ve been chit-chatting on about in this here article, said stinky bacteria just goes nuts for the moisture leftover from your sweat and also any dead skin cells that have naturally just sloughed off of your feet– all of this is pretty regular and nothing to be ashamed of, even if it does produce a rank smell that makes it kind of difficult to wear beautiful (if a bit bad-smelling) jelly shoes whenever we would like to. Rotation is an excellent solution to this dank-smelling dilemma, as it gives each set of shoes that you’re rotating between a good chance to just breathe (*great smells in and stinky ones out). The sweat can dry up some, and the smelly bacteria won’t have access to any new sources of food from your feet! So rotate between at least two pairs of shoes, although a couple will give each set of shoes even more time to get stink-free.

How can you use white vinegar to clean stinky jelly shoes, one might be so bold as to ask? Easily– that’s how. The acid in the vinegar and the stinky bacteria aren’t precisely huge fans of each other, so using vinegar to clean stinky shoes is totes a no-brainer. For real, and in all utter and totally complete honesty, using white vinegar to get rid of smelly shoes is actually pretty simple (and successful, which is pretty rad for us and our pungent peds). Literally all you have to do is soak some cotton pads or rounds in the vinegar of your choice (although regular old white vinegar tends to be the cheapest of the lot), then you can go on and stuff the vinegar-soaked cotton pads right on into your stinky jelly shoes for at the duration of one night, although going for several nights wouldn’t do more than make your fabulous (and probs not funky) footwear smell better than ever.

Baking soda is the second on our list of super easy ways to make stinky jelly shoes smell better than ever, and trust me when I say that not only is this one easy, but it’s also really rather effective. It’s all because of how baking soda has the actual superpower of absorbing practically any moisture out there, which is going to help take the stank out of your pungent peds. Just evenly dash a couple of tablespoons of baking soda directly inside of your funky footwear (or place the same amount in a securely tied-off sock and stuff said sock straight on into your smelly shoes if you want to go for an easier future cleanup), then make sure to leave the baking soda in there for at least overnight. Go for longer if you can, of course, because we really want to make sure to give the baking soda a solid chance to work its magic on our smelly jelly shoes. 

Solving shoe stink by storing your uber stinky jelly shoes somewhere sunny is super simple, I pinkie-promise. I mean, you literally just need to make sure that your gorgeous (if a bit stinky) shoes get some solid time spent where there’s plenty of good old-fashioned sunlight and a whole lot of fresh air (outside has both of those, obvs). The stinky bacteria, as it so turns out, are not huge fans of that stuff– which means that we definitely are! Bring on all of the sunshine and fresh air! You can go on and make sure to store the stinky jelly shoes you want to make smell better outside, especially where they can get a whole lot of sun and a good, solid breeze to really take out that shoe stank. If going all out(side) isn’t precisely a good option for you at the moment (which is totes all good–it may be March, but that doesn’t mean that winter is done with us all just yet, and I totally wouldn’t want your beautiful jellies to become jellicicles), then you can also for sure feel free to just store your solidly stinky jelly shoes inside by a window perhaps, where they can get lots of sun, or even just near an air vent that can circulate some fresh air currents by your funky footwear.

LUMI’s Lavender Tea Tree Natural Shoe Deodorizer is all we need to wrap up this wee lil’ summary of super easy ways to save your smelly jelly shoes from the dank destruction they’d otherwise be facing. Trust me when I say that all of your worries about footwear funk will be gone ASAP with literally just a spritz or two of LUMI right on into your stinky shoes and then you’ll totally be all good to go!

That there is the summary of stinky shoe solutions! Easy ways to quickly deodorize stinky those stinky shoes of yours on speed dial! Try one or even a few of them, and you’ll for sure be all set to go with these quick tricks for how to deodorize stinky shoes quickly and successfully.