Putting shoes in a washing machine is one of those things people either do constantly without thinking or consider completely forbidden. Both camps are partly right, because it depends entirely on the shoe.
Done properly it works well and costs nothing. Done carelessly it wrecks the shoe, the machine, or both.
What can go in
Canvas sneakers. The ideal case. Canvas and rubber take a wash easily.
Most synthetic athletic shoes. Mesh and synthetic uppers with rubber soles are generally fine.
Cotton and polyester slippers, if the tag allows and they have no foam sole insert.
What stays out
Leather and suede, always. Water strips the oils, and leather dries stiff, cracked, and a size smaller. Suede is worse. These get brushed and treated, never washed.
Anything glued rather than stitched. Look at where the sole meets the upper. Hot water and tumbling dissolve shoe adhesive, and a shoe that comes apart in the wash is not repairable.
Dress shoes and boots with structure. The internal stiffeners and shanks are cardboard or composite in many shoes, and they turn to mush.
Shoes with embellishment, beading, sequins, or anything applied to the surface.
Anything with lights or electronics, which includes a surprising number of children’s shoes.
Genuinely expensive footwear. If replacing it would hurt, clean it by hand.
Preparing them properly
The preparation matters more than the cycle.
Bang them together outside and knock off every bit of dried mud and grit. Grit is what damages a machine, and a pair of muddy shoes puts a genuine amount of it into the drain path.
Take out the laces and the insoles. Both wash separately and both dry faster on their own. Insoles in particular hold odor, and washing them inside the shoe barely touches them. Laces go in a mesh bag or they tangle around everything.
Brush the soles with an old toothbrush and get the tread clear.
Pretreat stains before they go in. A little dish soap or laundry detergent worked in with a brush handles most of it.
Put them in a mesh bag or a zipped pillowcase. This is not optional. Loose shoes bang against the drum hard enough to damage it and hard enough to be genuinely alarming.
The wash
Add towels. Four or five old towels cushion the shoes, balance the load, and stop the banging. This single step makes the whole thing quiet and safe.
Cold water, gentle cycle. Heat is what dissolves adhesive and warps soles.
Half the usual detergent. Liquid, not powder, since powder does not dissolve well in cold and leaves residue in the mesh.
No fabric softener and no bleach. Bleach yellows white synthetic uppers, which is the opposite of what people intend when they reach for it.
Low or no spin if you can select it. A high spin bashes shoes against the drum.
Drying, which is where shoes get ruined
Never put shoes in a dryer. Heat warps soles, melts adhesive, and shrinks the upper, and the tumbling is hard on the structure.
Air dry them instead. Stuff them loosely with paper towels or newspaper, which pulls moisture from the inside and helps the shoe hold its shape. Change the paper after a few hours.
Put them somewhere with moving air, not in direct sun and not on a radiator. A fan pointed at them cuts the time significantly.
Expect a full day, and up to two for thick athletic shoes. Wash them when you will not need them tomorrow.
Dry the insoles separately and flat, and do not put them back in until both are completely dry. A damp insole in a dry shoe is how the smell comes back immediately.
The Baltimore winter problem
Road salt deserves its own mention, because it is the thing that ruins footwear around here and it works differently from dirt.
Salt draws moisture and leaves white tide lines, and left on leather it will crack it permanently. On canvas and synthetic it is mostly cosmetic but it keeps returning as the salt wicks back to the surface.
Deal with it as soon as you can rather than at the end of the season. A cloth dampened with equal parts white vinegar and water lifts salt lines off canvas and synthetic. Rinse the cloth and go over it again with plain water so the vinegar does not stay in the fabric.
For leather, the same vinegar solution applied lightly, then a leather conditioner once it dries. Never soak it.
Winter boots that have been through slush all week benefit far more from being dried properly overnight than from being washed. Wet linings that never dry are what makes boots smell.
When the load is more than the machine wants
Several pairs of shoes plus the towels to cushion them is a full load, and it is a load with grit in it, which is exactly what a household drain pump does not want.
The machines at our self-service laundry on Merritt Boulevard have the capacity for shoes and cushioning towels together, and they move considerably more water per cycle, which is what carries grit away rather than settling it in the drain path.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily, so the load after a gritty one is not running through what it left.
Nou wash-dry-fold service covers everyday laundry, though shoes are a job worth doing yourself so you can control the drying.
The short version
Canvas and synthetic athletic shoes wash fine. Leather, suede, anything glued rather than stitched, and anything with electronics stay out. Knock the grit off outside, remove laces and insoles, and put the shoes in a mesh bag with four or five towels to cushion and balance the load. Cold water, gentle cycle, half the detergent, no bleach, low spin. Never use the dryer: stuff them with paper, point a fan at them, and give it a full day. And around here, deal with road salt promptly with vinegar and water, because salt left on leather cracks it permanently.
WaveMAX Dundalk is at 1774 Merritt Blvd, easy to reach from Dundalk and the surrounding area. If a load is more than your machine should take, call us at 443-216-7091.