No more Teva odor!
I love my Teva’s. I’ve had them for years. Really. I bought them back my senior year of high school to use as camp shoes for my back packing trip that summer. I’ve worn them every summer since then. They have been across the country a few times. I’ve taken them to Colorado, New Mexico, California, Florida, South Carolina, New York, and Illinois. I’ve worn them canoeing, backpacking, walking on the beach and on skydives. They are the most comfortable shoe I have. Typically every summer I get tan marks on my feet from the Teva’s.
An issue started to arise last summer that I overlooked since I loved the shoes… an odor. It usually only would occur after the sandals had gotten wet and wasn’t bad enough to really think twice about unless I had the shoes close to me. Last summer when we went backpacking and had them on the tent floor with us they smelled enough that I put them outside the tent. I originally thought it was my hiking boots but other then that they never really bothered me. Soon enough winter came around again and the Teva’s were put away and I didn’t think about them until this spring again once it warmed up. I started wearing them every day again (perk of W@H) and they really started to smell.
I tried throwing them in the washing machine with some bleach but that did’nt help. I tried spraying them with Lysol and that didn’t help I sprinkled them with foot powder and they were as bad as ever. They got to be so bad that my feet started to carry the odor. I saton the couch one night and Kristi could smell my feet even though she was on the other end of the couch. I thought I was going to have to throw them away since the odor was just horrible. I searched on line and tried most the solutions but they didn’t work until I tried probally the easiest one. I soaked and scrubbed the sandals with anti-bacterial hand soap and a nylon brush. The water coming off in the first rinsing was brown so it took a few scrubbings and then like magic the odor was gone. I am so happy that the nasty teva funk is gone and I can wear my sandals for hopefully another 10 years!