HOW TO WASH CONVERSE _ Clean converse chuck taylor all star shoes & resize them the quick & easy way

Well , hey , guys , how's it going ?

So , as you may remember last time , uh , we looked at beach shoes .

They were a fair wack shinier , fair wack cleaner , nicer .

They were brand new .

I was doing it unboxing .

Yeah , it's not really been that long .

It's been , what , four or five months I've been wearing these pretty consistently , but especially over the last couple of weeks I was working , uh , in the Caribbean .

Unfortunately , they got pretty scuffed up , pretty dusty .

It was really sunny there , but we did get a Trent downpour , uh , every couple of days and every time that happened , obviously these got soaking wet and they would dry in just minutes , but they weren't always drying when I was wearing them .

And that meant that basically they didn't hold their shape perfectly .

You know , the same thing that happens if you throw shoes in the washing machine and then the dryer , they're gonna shrink .

So they were really comfy at the beginning of the trip and by the end I was getting blisters on both feet .

Uh , and I haven't honestly worn them since I got back .

So today we're gonna talk first about cleaning and then secondly , we're gonna talk about restoring the shape and , or size of your converse .

If you've got into a situation like I have where they have shrunk , it's my first pair of converse .

I've never cleaned canvas shoes before .

I've cleaned other types of canvas .

I've done some Google and I've done some youtube and , uh , come up with a lot of different cleaning methods for canvas shoes .

None of them though .

I'm entirely convinced they gonna work really great on a color like this .

Most of them apply to kind of the classic like white , um , converse or van .

These ones , at least they used to be pretty vibrant .

Now , they're quite dusty and faded , but I want to restore as much of the original color as possible .

And I certainly don't want to make them more faded .

And a lot of the methods that I've heard about have the potential to do that .

For instance , one thing I've heard a lot with commerce is basically machine wash them and use bleach .

Uh Those are both things that Comverse themselves basically really suggest you don't do with Chuck all stars or any of their canvas shoes and the bleach .

In fact , well , it might make white converse look a lot cleaner .

It's actually going to basically eat away the canvas itself , make the fabric thinner more delicate and your shoes just won't last as long .

So that's just completely out of the question , even if these were white I would not use bleach .

What I will try though is just a little bit of everything else .

I'm gonna leave one completely soapy here just so we can do a side by side comparison as we go .

All the cleaning supplies I'm gonna use today are household items that you probably have lying around .

None of them are specialty shoe care products .

Not to say those are not good .

Just I'm guessing most of you don't have them around and I think you can do without them .

So without further ado with a little video magic here , I'm just gonna make all the cleaning supplies up here .

That's a little embarrassing .

Ok , let me try again .

Ok , I'm just gonna get milk .

It's intermission .

So these are obviously like giant containers .

I'm not gonna use this much laundry detriment .

I'm not gonna use this much vinegar .

Uh It's just what I have around .

Basically .

We've got some baking soda , we've got some vinegar .

You can tell this is just the cheapest stuff I could find at the Dollar Store .

I basically use this exclusively for cleaning .

Um , but it's just basic white vinegar .

We've got some laundry detergent .

This is a little more heavy duty than what I would normally actually use .

It's Armstrong .

So it's already got baking soda infused in it .

This is some plain old uh dish detergent for , you know , hand washing , not for a machine .

We've got some toothpaste here .

You wanna make sure it's like a white paste type , not uh gel or not color , an old toothbrush and a plain old white eraser .

Got a couple of rags like an old dishcloth and sort of some softer cotton rags as well here .

So the first thing we're gonna do is actually just take the laces out of the shoes .

We'll deal with the laces in a sec , but right now we're just gonna focus on the shoe and just using our hot water and a little bit of dish soap .

We're just going to wipe down the shoe .

Um , basically just to get any excess dirt , uh , dust off of the uh , canvas and the rubber in the soles .

And we're doing this first so that the canvas itself has a chance to dry a little bit while we focus on the uh the soles and the rubber necks .

They didn't take out the insoles too .

My insole is actually still sort of glued in here and I don't actually want to remove it .

So I'm gonna choose not to do that today if I was machine washing these , which I don't really recommend anyways , I would definitely suggest removing the insoles first .

Right now , I'm just wiping um kind of the inside of the shoe off again , trying not to soak the fabric completely .

You can already see , obviously , the water is going to make it a lot darker , but it also looks like I'm taking a lot of dust off So , I mean , it already looks considerably better .

Again , a lot of that's just because it's wet right now .

It's a little this evening just gonna clean my desk up here and then we're gonna focus on the laces and the sole separately .

So now it's the laces turn , they're gonna have a little bath in here .

The shoe laces uh is probably the one thing I would actually use bleach for if I had it , it might still kind of degrade the fabric a little bit .

But I mean , shoelaces are pretty cheap , easy to replace compared to the shoes .

So it's not as big a deal .

Obviously , if you can put them in a little bag , you can put them in the washing machine and probably save yourself a lot of time .

You guys can see probably how dirty this water is already becoming just with the dirt coming off the shoelaces , just gonna let those sit in so be water for a while .

Uh And then we'll get back to them later .

Let's move on to the , the white rubber .

This is where there's the most different cleaning methods that I've heard of .

Uh it's usually a combination of baking soda , water , baking soda and vine bear , baking soda and detergent and , or like a magic eraser used for apparel and shoes specifically .

What I'm gonna be trying is just a common white eraser like you have for pencil and paper found .

It's great in getting scuff marks out of other types of rubber and plastic .

So we're reintroducing our um , laundry detergent and our baking soda .

And no , I'm not sponsored by Armstrong .

I wish I was maybe sort of I'm doing , as I said , this detergent already actually had baking soda in it for our purposes today .

I think it could probably be even a little uh more abrasive and heavy duty again because this is just for the rubber .

This is not for the fabric .

So I put about three tablespoons of laundry detergent in here and a couple of tablespoons of baking soda .

I'm just gonna stir it up uh with the tooth brush until it's sort of a thick paste .

Uh You might need to add more baking soda depending on the detergent you're using .

On the other hand , if you find it's just way too thick , regardless , you could add some just lukewarm water and I'm just dipping my toothbrush in there and scrubbing away at the rubber .

If you had like a more valuable pair of shoes , I might even consider covering the canvas while you do this .

It's probably really boring .

So I'm gonna turn the camera off for a while .

Mr projectionist .

Stop the show .

Here's great news you ought to know .

Ok .

So I've been brushing my teeth or , I mean , my shoe soles for about a five minutes here .

It's still not perfect .

It's not quite the way I want .

Um If I had a wire brush .

Uh , I would probably move on to that now .

Um , I don't , unfortunately , so I'm just gonna wipe the , uh , excess detergent off here with my Rusal rag and I'm gonna dry these off and I think I'm gonna try the rubber eraser .

I think it's basically where the rubber was actually scratched and then dirt sort of got in the scratches and those are the areas that I haven't really been able to clean as effectively .

Obviously , you wanna make sure that the eraser is clean to begin with .

And this is sort of one of these nicer white state la erasers .

Um , but any eraser should work softer rubber probably will work better .

The eraser is working pretty well on the smooth portion up here .

Um , down here where there's sort of this texture going on .

I think it's basically eating away the eraser a lot more than the eraser is eating away the dirt on the shoe and I'm just gonna eat through the whole eraser .

So I'm just gonna focus on the smooth parts of the rubber for now .

So because I don't have a wire brush .

Um , and I don't know what else to try here .

This is looking quite good after the eraser and the detergent , but it's not quite as clean as I want .

It doesn't look like new .

I'm gonna cheat and try adding actually another , um , cleaning solution here that you probably have around the hose , not abrasive kind of powder type cleaner that you would use for um , ceramic or your bathroom or your kitchen .

And I'm just gonna go ahead and actually add that to the detergent solution I already have here .

Probably also just add it to um , hot water and just using my toothbrush again to go over the white rubber one more time this time with added comment and I got to say , I think already this is working quite a bit better .

Again , we're not touching the canvas if at all possible , if the rubber on your shoes uh is bright color uh or has any kind of patterns on it or on , you know , the printing here like on the back , you want to preserve that .

I would be a little cautious about using um something like comment on .

But for the , the main just white rubber around these all star chucks , I think it'll be just fine .

So I'm actually really pleased the way that comment worked out on our converse .

Uh just again on the white rubber portions and we're gonna move on to the part .

You've all been waiting for the actual canvas , see if we can keep this looking this nice navy kind of green blue teal um without causing any fading , really clean it up on both the inside and the outside .

So now's the time for our giant container of vinegar , our baking soda .

We have another little tray of just warm water here .

We're gonna add some vinegar .

I would say you want about uh one third part vinegar to two third part water .

And this is actually a lot more liquid than I need .

I don't know why .

And I'm gonna add some baking soda and be prepared here and there's gonna be a chemical reaction .

You're gonna get this nice lava effect here that we all remember from our first grade science project .

I've rinsed off my toothbrush since uh using it on the rubber and again , took the toothbrush in the solution and we're gonna get started on the actual fabric .

The idea again for changing it up is just that um depending on the detergent you use , if it's too strong , it could actually fade canvas .

Uh There's no chance of vinegar doing the same , the baking soda if you have a lot too much , I don't know , depending on the inks that we use on the canvas , there's a small chance that it could um take some of the color out .

Never really heard of it happening with Converse though .

Uh including custom printed canvass in case you're wondering about that or patterned um Converse truck , all stars or bands .

As I go through this , I'm just realizing really how much these shoes have shrunk you can see here just like how the fabric is all kind of bunched up and pulled and of course , the way that the toe is curled up as well .

So again , that's something we're going to trying to address at the end of this video might be a little bit more of a challenge .

Now again , I'm using this solution in particular because I have colored shoes and I'm trying hard to maintain the , the color that they have .

If these were white converse or vans or other canvas running shoes , I wouldn't hesitate to use detergent or other things that might sap the color out because you want to sap the color out .

If there's color in there , it's stain , right ?

The only thing I would don't use again his bleach .

And that's just because it would have a negative effect on the actual material .

I also wouldn't use , you know , obviously Comet or other really harsh cleaning agents , but laundry detergent would be fine .

Honestly , the dirtiest part of these shoes is the inside .

I don't know if you can tell again , it's black kind of stain all around the eyelids .

I'm just going to follow up all that brushing by going over the shoes one last time with the rag using the vinegar and baking soda .

If you were able to take the insoles out of your shoes , you would probably want to do this with the same solution separately on the insoles and let those dry , uh , separately as well .

The inside of these shoes were always sort of off white to begin with , but now they're really off white and you can see while the vinegar and baking soda work really well on the outside , the inside is still pretty muddy , uh , especially around these islets again where you get this weird black stain .

So I'm gonna go back to my uh detergent and baking soda solution where my laces are soaking and I'm just gonna get the toothbrush again and use that sort of harsher um solution on the inside only of the shoes .

So it may still not be perfect , but you can see that it's a big improvement on the inside as well .

And with that , uh , we're pretty much done the cleaning .

I'm just gonna give it one final wipe the whole shoe and then I'm gonna rinse these under lukewarm water briefly and then let them dry .

So we can see a side by side comparison with the shoes dry .

So with the shoes rinsed off , wipe up the excess water with a dry rag .

Now , I'm not actually bringing the shoes out because I don't want to create any more wrinkles than they already are , but I can soak up a lot of water by just squeezing the fabric with a dry rag .

So once the shoes are as dry as I can get them , I'm gonna just stuff some scrap paper basically as far into the shoes I can and as firmly as I can , um , and this will just help the shoe maintain its shape and avoid shrinking as it dries .

So now that I've got the paper in here , I can actually just let this shoe sit to dry .

I wouldn't actually use a hair dryer .

I would never leave this shoe to dry under direct heat , put it by a fireplace or a furnace or anything like that .

Unless you actually find that your shoes are too big and you want them to shrink because it will actually shrink the canvas .

And even if you do find your shoes are too big and you deliberately want to shrink them , you should know that they're not gonna be the exact same thing but smaller .

It's basically because the canvas is gonna shrink .

But the rest of the rubber and the components of the shoe are not what happened to my shoes is going to happen to yours .

And that means that basically uh it's going to kind of pull on the actual sole and it might just not fit your , your feet as well as you would hope .

And furthermore , it might actually damage the shoes in the long term .

Um You might find that some of the stitching or the glue because it's pulled , there's extra tension on it .

It might start to fall apart earlier than expected .

So commerce advises not using a machine dryer or drying with any direct source of heat .

If you really find your shoes are too big , I would say , you know , see if you can trade with somebody or if you can take them back to where you bought them .

Worst case scenario .

You know , sell them on Craigslist and just get a new pair of shoes because honestly , it's just going to work out long term , probably much better for you than trying to reshape what you currently have .

I actually have the opposite problem because , uh , my shoes fit me just fine before I accidentally shrunk them .

Uh , and they no longer fit .

Once these are dry , I'm gonna try a little technique that I heard about try and make them a little bit bigger , try and make them fit a little bit better .

I'm starting to notice , um , there is some sort of discoloration where the laces were on the shoe .

Probably a good reason to clean these more often and or just remove the laces more often and clean the laces separately .

If it's dry , you'll probably want to remove the scrap paper in them a couple of times , uh , and replace it just because that paper will absorb a lot of the moisture , the shoes will dry quicker , uh , and more effectively with , um , with the paper being changed every couple of hours .

But for now , let's just let this dry and see how it turns out and how it looks when it's dry .

So it's actually been a few days just waiting for this uh , shoe to dry out .

After cleaning here .

You can see basically the before and after .

Hopefully , you guys can really see the difference on camera .

I think if I saw complete pairs like this side by side at a thrift store .

I would guess that these shoes were a lot older than these shoes .

That's for sure .

One thing I'm not entirely happy with is actually the canvas .

There's still some discoloring sort of on the stitching , mostly visible at the very back .

It's hard to tell , but a little bit on the tongue under the laces .

So basically , I'm just gonna go over the actual canvas again .

Um , with just detergent this time , I also realized that I totally forgot to try out the toothpaste method for cleaning the rubber .

So this time around on this shoe , I'm gonna just use exclusively toothpaste and the same basic process on the canvas and I'll catch you guys up again once I've done that , it's been another day because I had a chance to dry .

And yeah , basically , here is the end result of the cleaning .

I'll be honest with you .

I'm still not 100% satisfied with the canvas .

It's a little more faded than when I got them .

You know , it's not as new , but it's definitely a lot cleaner and a lot more consistent than it was when they were really grubby , the rubber .

On the other hand , it basically is almost good as new overall with very little work , very little time and just household items .

I think it's a huge improvement comparing the two shoes .

Now , they're close enough that I'm actually getting them mixed up .

But I'm pretty sure this is the second shoe that I cleaned using just detergent on the on the canvas .

It's a little more spotty than the one that I use with baking soda and detergent .

And also this is the one that I use the toothpaste on the rubber and the rubber is not quite as glossy or shiny even after using eraser on it .

And what's more , I think on the sections that I got toothpaste on the canvass , it looks a little more patchy like .

Maybe it's affected some of the color .

So for my limited experience , in summary , for the rubber , I found detergent and baking soda worked best by far .

The toothpaste gave much more of a matte finish if that's something you want .

Give it a go , but I didn't find it nearly as effective .

The white eraser worked great for getting out scuff marks and just adding an overall nice shine to the rubber as well .

For the canvas vinegar and baking soda worked best by far , laundry detergent and not really .

I would skip that dishwashing liquid , you know , good for getting the worst of the dirt off .

Maybe give it a go of your shoes aren't too bad , but move on to vinegar and baking soda if you find you need it for the laces .

I kind of just left them in lukewarm water forever in this video .

That's not actually how you clean the laces .

Of course .

Sorry guys dropped the ball on that one .

I did end up having to just scrub them vigorously in laundry detergent .

You could also try throwing them in a bag in your washing machine , I think would be fine .

I still had some kind of black stuff from like , kind of stay from the eyelets on the shoes personally .

Um , so , I mean , if that's something that bothers you , you go ahead and just buy new ones , you know , for the price of them , they'll make your shoes look a lot better and it's kind of a pain in the butt to clean and they do start to wear out with some vigorous cleaning .

So those are the methods that kind of work best for me .

But I'm really curious what has worked for you guys .

So be sure to drop a comment below and let me know how you guys clean your converse .

I think I can see that you're pretty impressed with our laundromat .

It was really sunny there , but we did get a trencher down for every couple of days and every time that happened , obviously these got soaking wet and they would dry in just minutes , but they weren't always drying .

Uh , when I was wearing them , I haven't worn them since then since the trip .

Um , I don't know whether , you know , they would give me blisters again , but rather than try that , um , I wanted to try something else , which was a little technique I heard about on some Diy blogs .

That's basically an interesting method to actually stretch any converse shoe uh without the use of a shoe tree .

That's great because I don't have any shoe trees .

If I did , obviously , that would be the preferred method .

This is something that maybe is a little more risky .

I don't if I put a lot of faith into it , but I'm willing to give it a shot .

And you guys have likely heard of this method .

It's basically a freezer method and it just involves pouring water in a bottle or a bag or a uh Ziplock stuffing it in your shoe , putting in the freezer for a few hours and basically the process of the water freezing expands the bag and ideally , um , actually expands your shoe with it going by the official instructions .

They advise not use a washing machine for these shoes , let alone a dryer .

I'm pretty sure that would mean that they also would advise not putting your shoes in the freezer .

Um So this is really not an official method .

Uh It is not endorsed by converse or the Nike company , see it at your own risk , but I'm gonna let you guys know not only if it works for actually changing the shape of the shoes , but if I can kind of see if there's any damage or if there's any noticeable difference in the material after I've conducted this little experiment .

So I've got a couple of freezer bags here that I've just filled with water .

Um They're actually less than half full .

Obviously , it depends on the , the size of the bag you have .

You wanna have a bag , obviously that will seal and that won't leak .

So I'm just sort of checking for leaks here .

I'm gonna force all the extra air out of the bag before locking the top .

I don't want to take the laces all the way out because I think maybe keeping this flap down a little bit will help kind of keep the shoes original shape .

I'm gonna take the , um , take the license down to the first few islands .

I've seen people do this with water bottles .

I think a bag is probably superior because it'll kind of naturally fit the shape of the shoe better .

So I think the , the bags basically come to about here , but it doesn't want to go any further in .

So I'm gonna actually remove some of the water and try to get about half as much as was in here before .

For me , these shoes were mostly just too tight on the toe area .

So that's what I'm concentrating on .

But obviously you want it to kind of expand evenly regardless .

And I can feel the bag all the way to the , to the toe area .

That's what I want , how not to tie your shoes .

You can see , I'm actually gonna just roll down the top of the bag just in case because I find it often leaks right at the very top where it locks .

So that will add a little bit of extra protection .

Yeah , something like that again .

I think we sprung a very slow leak there .

So I'm gonna go and pump this in the freezer before it has a chance to leak everywhere .

But basically you can see it's sort of maintained the shape of the shoe .

I can feel that the water is all the way to the toe , all the way to the heel and , uh , there's no water coming up the top to be good to go .

Ok .

So here's the deal .

I just think these out of the freezer .

Um , but I think the shoelaces must have got wet because they're actually frozen onto the islets on this one .

So , after a few minutes , I found that I still wasn't able to remove the , um , bags of ice from the shoes , um , until I ran them under hot water .

Now , it's pretty easy to just sort of work the , um , work the eyes out of the soles of the shoes .

I think it's probably pretty important to be careful during this process just because everything is so much more fragile when it's frozen .

There we go .

And that bag either leaked or just spilled over quite a bit because there's a bunch of ice actually in the sole of the shoe , pour it out and let these dry overnight and see what it looks like in the morning .

So fast forward one more day experiment completes the good news is , uh , it did not destroy these shoes as far as I can tell .

It didn't even damage them .

I think they did actually really straighten out when you look at them .

Um , and it is a better fit now but it's just , you know , didn't make a big enough of a difference .

Unfortunately , certainly didn't return them to their original size .

Maybe if I repeated the experiment a couple times , I don't know .

But at that point , um , I would really just want to use a , uh , shoe tree or something like that .

So if you guys know of a better method to expand converse shoes , do , let me know .

Or maybe you've had better luck using this method to increase the size of your own shoes .

Let me know if so , uh , what you did , what you did different , um , how I screwed up and , um , I'll go from there as it is .

I think these are close enough .

I'm gonna try wearing them for a few days .

See what happened .

Maybe just like with new shoes , you know , they , they just need a little bit of time to , uh , to adjust to my feet again .

I don't know .

I hope so because I really don't want to give these guys up , especially now that they are nice and shiny again .

Um , but overall , you know , they're a heck of a lot better than they were .

And I don't mind that they look a little bit worn as long as they don't look , you know , really grungy and disgusting .

Uh And they certainly look much more presentable now .

So I'm kind of sorry to be the bearer of bad news , but I wanted to give you guys the straight goods , let you know uh what was up not to waste your time with that if you're planning on doing so , using the same uh techniques that I did .

Uh Hope you guys found that helpful and if not at least , sort of interesting , I'll catch you guys next time .

Bye .

So guys , I just wanted to provide a little update because I've actually been wearing my covers again for the past few days .

Um Basically , I repeated the freezer experiment on one of the shoes that was a little more stubborn and I wore really thick bully socks and just walked around as much as possible and lo and behold , they pretty much fit again .

No blisters , no other issues .

They're sort of a tighter fit than they were when I got them .

Um But it definitely , so I would say if you have a shoe tree or another method of expanding your shoes , definitely prioritize that .

But if you're in a pinch , um why not give it a go ?

There's not much to lose , right ?

I hope you guys enjoyed this video .

I know it's a bit of a weird one .

Sort of pieced together over multiple days , very collage style .

Uh Hopefully you guys didn't mind that too much .

Let me know in the comments below .

Be sure to hit that subscribe button and that notification bell if you liked it .

Thanks so much for watching .

Catch you guys next time and now on with the show .