Love them or hate them, Birkenstocks are having a bit of a moment on the fashion scene thanks to the likes of Celine and Isabel Marant. I've written about my love for my Gizeh Birkenstocks and how to style Birkenstocks in a chic way and today I thought I'd dedicate a post about my attempt to clean my Birkenstock's footbeds.
After owning my Birks for nine months or so, my sweaty feet have made unattractive footprints on the cork footbeds so I decided it was time for a clean. My Birks were not in a bad state (they didn't smell or anything like that!) but the footprint on the footbed was definitely getting darker as you can see in the photo below.
My Birkenstocks before cleaning
I came across City Girl, Country Girl's guide to cleaning Birkenstocks so I thought it was worth a try to see how well baking soda would work on my Birks. Because my Birks were not in a bad state, I altered City Girl, Country Girl's cleaning instructions slightly (i.e. I decided not to leave the baking soda paste on the footbed overnight). If your Birks are in a worse condition than mine, you may want to consider the extra step of leaving the baking soda paste on the footbed overnight.
The cleaning instructions are simple. You'll need:
- About half a cup of baking soda
- A small amount of water
- One disposal cup or any sort of container
- Something for stirring like a plastic spoon
- Old toothbrush
- Old towel
STEP 1: Pour about half a cup of baking soda into a disposal cup and add a very small amount of water to turn the baking soda into a thick paste. Add the water little by little and stir it to ensure the paste is not too watery and runny. The baking soda paste should look something like this:
Baking soda paste to clean Birkenstocks
STEP 2: Wet the Birkenstock's footbed. Then, using an old toothbrush and the thick baking soda paste, start scrubbing the Birkenstock's footbed. The white paste should start turning a brown color. After scrubbing, rinse the paste off the footbed with water.
With my Birkenstocks, I repeated this step three times on each foot. I noticed the baking soda paste was significantly less brown on the third time when I scrubbed the footbed. So depending on the condition of your Birkenstocks, you may want to repeat this step more or less times.
STEP 3: Give your Birkenstocks a final rinse with water and pat them dry with an old towel. Leave them to dry away from direct sunlight.
My Birkenstocks after Step 3
FINAL RESULT
My Birkenstocks dried after 24 hours and as you can see in the before and after comparison below, the footprint is still visible, but it is definitely significantly lighter after cleaning. Although it's not possible to totally remove the footprint mark by scrubbing the footbed with baking soda, my Birkenstocks do feel and look a lot cleaner.
If your Birkenstocks are in a similar condition to mine or you're looking to maintain the good condition of your new-ish Birkenstocks, I would recommend this baking soda cleaning method.
Do you have a good method of cleaning your Birkenstocks? I'd love to know!
My Birkenstocks before and after cleaning with baking soda
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