Washing trainers in the machine: the dose is the whole story

Can you wash trainers in the washing machine, and which ones must not go in?

This one decision settles everything else, so start here.

These are fine: trainers made of canvas, mesh, polyester or nylon. So very nearly every gym shoe, running shoe and fabric trainer in the cupboard.

These are not:

• Suede and nubuck. Water turns the nap hard and patchy, and that does not come good again. Those you brush dry.
• Leather. Leather dries out and cracks. Wipe it with a damp cloth, then feed it afterwards.
• Trainers with lights or electronics in them. That one speaks for itself.
• Trainers that are already coming apart. A wash turns a sole that is lifting into a sole that is off.
• Walking boots with a membrane. Check what the maker says, because detergent can clog up the breathable layer.

Not sure? Look at the sole. If it is glued on and you can see a line of adhesive round the edge, wash cold and do not spin at all.

How to wash trainers in the washing machine, in four steps

The preparation takes five minutes and it does most of the work.

1. Take the laces and the insoles out. The laces go in with the load in a small bag of their own. The insoles do not: they shrink and lose their shape. Those you wash by hand in lukewarm water.
2. Brush the dry dirt off, the underside of the sole included. Sand and grit do not belong in your machine. This is the step that protects the machine, and there is more on that further down.
3. Put the trainers in a wash bag or a pillowcase and add two towels. The towels absorb the banging about and keep the drum in balance.
4. Wash at thirty degrees, delicates cycle, spin on the lowest setting or off altogether. And dose for the weight of the load, not out of habit. That is the next section.

The dose: this is where it usually goes wrong

A pair of trainers weighs almost nothing, and that changes everything.

A detergent dose is designed for a full drum. A pair of trainers with two towels in with them comes to something like two kilos. Dose that the way you always do and there is three to four times too much detergent in the machine.

That excess does not all dissolve, certainly not at thirty degrees, and it does not rinse out either. It sinks into the fabric and dries there. What you see afterwards is pale, hard rings on mesh and canvas. They look like limescale or like a stain, and they are nothing but detergent.

So: half a dose. With ours that means half a wash sheet, because a sheet is dosed for four kilos and a load of trainers sits well under that. If you use liquid detergent, take half of what the cap tells you.

Washing powder is the least helpful choice here, because powder needs heat to dissolve completely and you are deliberately washing cold. Our sheets are at laundry detergent sheets.

And no fabric softener. It lays a film round the fibre that holds on to dirt instead, and on mesh it goes grey.

Which programme, what temperature, and do you spin them?

Three settings, and they hang together.

Temperature: thirty degrees. Hotter is not cleaner, it is only riskier. The adhesive that holds the sole on softens in heat, and then it lets go while the shoe is banging about. If your machine has a trainers programme, use that.

Programme: delicates or wool. Those turn more gently and with fewer revolutions, so your shoe hits the drum less hard.

Spin: as low as it will go, or off. This is the setting that prevents most of the damage. At 1,200 rpm a shoe slams into the drum wall with real force, over and over again. At 400 rpm it does not. The drawback is that your trainers come out of the machine wetter and take longer to dry, and that is a trade worth making.

Will it make my washing machine dirty?

A fair question that almost nobody answers.

The risk is not the dirt on the shoe. It is the sand and the grit sitting in the tread of the sole. That does not flush away, it sinks to the bottom, and it stays lying in the rubber door seal and sometimes in the pump.

Two things prevent that. Brush the sole dry before the trainers go in, and wipe out the rubber rim of the door with a cloth when the wash has finished. Then there is nothing to worry about.

What you do not need to do is run a cleaning programme after every trainer wash. That is worth doing when your machine smells musty, and that has nothing to do with shoes. How it works is in cleaning a washing machine.

Two pairs at once, and can other washing go in with them?

Two questions everybody asks, and the answers are connected.

Two pairs at once is fine, and it is actually better than one pair. Four shoes spread themselves more evenly round the drum than two do, so the machine runs more steadily. More than two pairs and it gets too full, and then they start battering each other.

Other washing can go in too, and towels are the best thing for it. They cushion the blows and they fill the drum up. What you do not put in is good textiles: you are washing on a programme chosen for shoes, and the impact of a sole is no good for a blouse.

Nor should you put in whites you want to keep looking white. More comes off a dirty sole than you would think.

Drying: this is where most people go wrong

The tumble dryer and the radiator will cost you the shoe.

Heat is the enemy of adhesive. A shoe standing on a radiator or turning in a tumble dryer lets go along the edge of the sole and loses its shape. That does not come back.

So: dry them in the air, somewhere with a bit of movement through it, and not in full sun. Stuff the shoe with kitchen paper or newspaper and change that after a few hours. Then it holds its shape and it dries from the inside out.

Allow a day, and two days for thick canvas. Do not put them on while they are still damp inside, because that is what makes them smell.

How to clean white trainers: soles, mesh and laces

White trainers need three things the machine does not do on its own.

White soles do come out of the washing machine clean, but not white. Yellowed rubber is discoloured material, not dirt. What does help is a scouring sponge with a little washing-up liquid, before the wash, along the rim of the sole. For the black scuffs on the side wall, an eraser works surprisingly well.

White laces you wash separately in a bag. If they have gone dingy, soak them for an hour first in lukewarm water with oxygen bleach. That deals with the grey, while the wash only deals with the loose dirt.

White mesh is precisely the fabric on which too much detergent shows. See the dosing section above, because on white trainers that is not a detail, it is the main event.

If there is a grease mark or an oil mark on the toe, treat that separately beforehand. See removing grease stains.

Suede and leather: by hand, and differently

The greater part of the mistakes are made here.

Suede and nubuck must not get wet. Brush them dry with a suede brush, against the nap. For a mark, use a suede eraser. If the shoe has got wet anyway, let it dry slowly, stuffed with paper, and brush the nap back up afterwards.

Leather you wipe with a damp cloth, not a wet one. Then let it dry and feed it with a leather grease or a leather cream, because washing takes the oils out and then it cracks.

These two sit in a section of their own because the advice for fabric trainers destroys them. That is exactly what goes wrong when somebody reads one general article and puts their suede shoes in the drum.

How to clean trainers at home by hand

For when the machine is not an option.

Fill a bowl with lukewarm water and dissolve half a wash sheet, or a small amount of detergent, in it. Brush the shoe with a soft brush or an old toothbrush, in small circles, and work from the toe back to the heel.

Then rinse thoroughly. That is the step people skip, and it is precisely the same mistake as with the machine: whatever does not get rinsed out dries as a ring.

Blot the shoe dry with a cloth before you set it out to dry, and that saves you half a day.

What will not come out any more

The limit belongs in here as well.

Yellowed rubber, a shoe that has lost its shape, and canvas that has gone grey from years of wear: that is material that has changed, not dirt. A wash makes it cleaner, it does not make it newer.

What does work is starting earlier. A trainer that gets brushed down dry every few weeks, and where a fresh mark is treated straight away, hardly ever needs the machine at all.

Frequently asked questions

More around the house

Our cloths are at cleaning cloths, and everything sorted by job under cleaning.