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Well it finally happened! I’ve owned a pair of Rothy’s round toe flats for about a year and haven’t felt the need to wash them. Less than a month of owning Rothy’s Sneakers in Bright White and I finally needed to wash my Rothy’s.
My partner and I took a quick weekend trip to New York City and somehow my shoes had some dirt streaks on them. I don’t know if it happened on the train up there, walking around the city, or in the metro, but alas by the time we got to our hotel it seemed the dirt was set in. I dampened a wash cloth and tried to wipe the dirt off, but it was too stubborn. So once we returned home it was time to test out actually washing my Rothy’s!
So per the instructions on the Rothy’s website I washed them… in my washing machine. Yes I was concerned this would ruin my shoes. I first removed the insoles, then the midsoles. The midsoles only go from the heel to midway through the foot, so it’s pretty simple to remove them.
I put each shoe and each insole in separate mesh laundry bags (so 4 bags total). I added these bags into my typical load of towels. I washed everything on the “Delicate” cycle using clear Tide Free and Gentle detergent in cold water. Following the wash I pulled my shoes and insoles out. The insoles were damp but smelled great, so that was an instant success. My shoes… well. Didn’t look very different.
You can see my right shoe looks essentially the same. The wash cycle didn’t seem to do very much in terms of lifting these stubborn dirt stains.
Rather than try again in the washing machine I went ahead and took my shoes to a sink. There I applied OxyClean directly to the stain and used a toothbrush to scrub it in. I let this sit for about 10 minutes then thoroughly rinsed them in cold water in the sink. I had to repeat this process a couple of times, but after 3 total scrub sessions my shoes look pretty good! I’m sure this would work with any stain remover you generally use for laundry.
Importantly, washing the shoes by hand in the sink means there is no spin cycle to get most of the water out. So… while my shoes were very clean after this process they were also soaked. I did this at about 6PM one night, and I just set them out to dry on the top of my drying rack. 24 hours later they were still quite damp. So be sure to plan well in advance if you do this! You probably won’t have fully dry shoes for several days.
But overall I’d call this a success! My Rothy’s are pretty dang white again, and the shape seems totally fine. No shrinkage! I am probably not going to bother putting them in the washing machine anymore, unless they are extremely dirty. Spot cleaning with a toothbrush, some scrubbing, and some patience with drying works perfectly well. Hooray for washable white shoes!
Tryna Have A Life 