how do you stop work boots stinking

[Bassline]

serious question lol

boots are on all day and by friday they are criminal. sprays just make it smell like chemical feet. anyone got something that actually works?

[Wing Chun Wrench]

Dry them properly between shifts. Pull the insoles out and don’t leave the boots in a closed bag or van overnight.

Best fix is rotating two pairs, but I know that’s not the cheap answer.

[Bassline]

two pairs is the rich man solution 😂

pulling insoles out i can actually do tho. cheers

[Heat 74]

Try cedar shoe trees and let them dry fully between wears. If the boots stay damp, the smell just keeps breeding in the lining.

[Object Biography]

cedar helps, yeah, but only if the boots get air too. i leave mine near a fan after shift, not in the truck, which seems to matter more than the fancy spray part

[Paperback-Postpunk]

Two pairs of boots. Look at us, inventing capitalism’s saddest luxury

[Object Biography]

It does feel absurdly managerial, yes. Still, the rotation model is one of the few hacks that has not been defeated by marketing

[Afterhours]

Boot dryers too, if you have one.

The heat is a little dramatic but the boots come back less tragic.

[Dhrupad Notes]

I would trust the drying part more than the heat, honestly. Too much warmth can be unkind to glue and stitching, and then you have a different problem with a stronger smell.

[Object Biography]

Right, and the fan is doing the real work there.
A boot dryer is basically a small apology to your feet, nothing magical but useful

[Paperback-Postpunk]

Dry them, sure. Also rotate a second pair if you can, which is less poetic than…

[Afterhours]

My boots live a glamorous life of newspaper stuffing and regret.

At least they are not…

[Object Biography]

That is, regrettably, an excellent image. newspaper stuffing works until the paper starts smelling…

[Object Biography]

That is the least glamorous advice and probably the best one. A rotation gives the leather time to recover, assuming the boots are leather and not…

[Afterhours]

That might be the most expensive way to admit defeat about one pair of boots.

Still, it works better than pretending the smell is a personality trait

[Civic Fish Stories]

Pull the insoles out when you get home and put some newspaper inside overnight. It is not magic, it just gives the moisture somewhere to go.

Two pairs is the correct answer, but not everybody has two pairs of money.

[Heat 74]

Do they get wet from rain or sweat, or both, and what kind of lining do they have? That changes the fix a lot. If it is mostly sweat, rotating insoles and using a drying routine after each shift tends to help more than spraying. If they are soaking from outside water, you may need a water-resistant treatment and a better dry-out setup, which is annoying but real

[Dhrupad Notes]

Have you tried replacing the insoles first?

Sometimes the boot itself is fine and the little…

[Afterhours]

yeah, insoles first makes sense. The boot can look innocent and still hold a whole little ecosystem in there.

I would start there before buying anything with a label that says odor neutralizer

[Author]

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