Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Email her. Are you still dirty? Subscribe to Ask a Clean Person: The Podcast on Acast, iTunes or Stitcher, and like Ask a Clean Person on Facebook. The other day my editor told me a story about terrible subway behavior that resulted in two grimy patches on his knit sneakers. First of all, Good People of NYC: Please do not tread on my editor. And certainly do not scoff at him when you do so, as if you stepping on his feet — both of them! — on the F train was his fault. Rude! (I'm protective of him.) But the story reminded both of us that we'd put a pin in a future discussion of how to clean knit sneakers, specifically. We've covered general sneaker care in this space, as well as instructions on how one might go about cleaning a pair of kicks in the washing machine, but there are definitely some specialty topics we should address. And we'll do so over the course of the next few months, so if you've got questions about cleaning sneakers that require special care, hit me at with those queries.
Today, we'll cover knit sneakers, which covers everything from Nike Flyknit and Adidas Primeknit to Puma EvoKnit and all those other knit uppers you see on the market nowadays. The Best Way to Clean a Knit SneakerA word of warning before we get into the details of how to clean your knit sneakers: The instructions don't convey the level of patience that's often required in this type of operation. That's not to scare you off! Because it truly is very straightforward. But time and repeat applications are often needed, and you should know that heading into things. Cleaning a pair of knit sneakers is a good task to take on while, say, watching baseball, what with all its downtime, or listening to a favorite podcast. May I suggest one you might like? The tools you'll need are:
And here's what you'll do with them:
Machine Washing a Knit SneakerSo look, I would prefer you not machine wash your knit sneaks. The problem with machine washing knit sneakers is that if anything catches on one of the yarns, the shoe could come unraveled. And obviously we don't want that!
However, if you do choose to machine wash—either for convenience, or because your knit sneaks just aren't that precious to you, which is fine!—here are the things to know:
Does anyone who has NoBull shoes have any suggestions on how to wash them? I have light gray ones that are pretty dirty but the instructions say to not wash them in the washing machine. Any tips? |