Comments on: You can wash shoes

By: John August=Martha Stewart?

John August=Martha Stewart? — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:53:10 +0000

I love getting random advice from my favorite screenwriter advice columnist!

By: Coreen

Coreen — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:38:45 +0000

I wash mine and never have thought to remove the laces beforehand, and it’s just fine. I use a very old and noisy top-loader, too.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:34:34 +0000

-Fred-

     You make a valid point, if you live outside of the Southwest it might take more than a day to air dry your shoes.  The argument I was trying to make was that no matter how long it takes to dry your shoes the end result is a lot safer then the dryer.  We often use a hair dryer to pull the outsole off of running shoes and that process takes 15 minutes at the most.  Imagine how much more damage the dryer could do at 2 or 3 times that length of time.

By: Synthian

Synthian — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:49:02 +0000

I like the new Alien-Replacement Martha Stewart John... I vote he replaces Regular John full time!

I can vouch! This works for UGGs on COLD if you got the gonads to toss 'em in!

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:11:36 +0000

-Ben-

If you're in the -southwest- it takes a day to dry your shoes. If you don't live where the relative humidity is zero it may take longer. Drying them in the sunshine helps, but if you leave them outside and it rains you must start over.

By: san francisco

san francisco — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:26:21 +0000

Oops – I called Chuck Taylors “Bob Taylors” – I’m very sleep deprived the past few weeks due a grueling high tech schedule. Anyway, threw them in the wash today with OxyClean. I crumped up a piece of newspaper and lightly stuffed each shoe, and now they’re air drying by a window. They look very clean! Can’t wait until they’re dry and I can wear them.

Oh, and BTW, I washed them with a pillow. Bad move – the pillow looked like it was beaten up. Hopefully the dryer is refluffing it. Otherwise, I ruined a pillow.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:02:18 +0000

I’m a dishwasher fan, myself. On the rare occasion that I would wash my sneakers, it would be in the dishwasher with the laces in and inserts removed. Never had a bad result.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:33:58 +0000

I learned that you can wash sneakers twenty years ago when I was a student living in Spain. At least back then, Europeans liked wearing clean sneakers, unlike us slovenly Americans. My host mother told me in Spanish that she was going to wash my “playeras.” I had no idea what “playeras” were but thanked her anyway. An hour later, I couldn’t find my sneakers. “Where are my shoes for tennis” I asked in Spanish. “Tus playeras estan en la machina,” my host mother replied.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:55:42 +0000

Great post with one exception. I’m a manager at a specialty running shoe store in the Southwest where we specialize is Gait Analysis, we deal specifically in high end running shoes. It is very true you can wash your shoes, I myself tend to wash them 3 or 4 times during their usage. As long as you’re under the 300-500 mile range you’re fine, but I’d advise against using a dryer at all. The glue they use to connect the midsole to upper and outsole isn’t anything special, even leaving them in a car during a hot day will cause them to separate. Although most dryers have low heat settings, letting them air dry takes a day maximum and keeps them in one piece. You can wash them 5 or 6 times in a row and see almost no difference, use a dryer once and they’re ruined.

By: Phreesh

Phreesh — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:53:52 +0000

bobR,

That's awesome. I'll take a stab at interpretation:

First, take out the laces - Hmmm. Maybe, take out all the extraneous stuff from your story. Find the spine. Yeah, that's it.

Take out the foam inserts - Similar to the above, but this second pass should concentrate on 'killing your babies'. Are there scenes still in there that you love, but just aren't moving the story forward? Well, take out those metaphorical foam inserts.

Use half the normal amount of detergent - Keep your story gritty. Don't take out messy bits that make it unique.

Add one scoop of oxygen bleach - This is a bit more cryptic, but how about...add a splash of the unexpected. Keep your reader guessing. Oxygenate your story with, you know, the 'bleach' of creativity (or something).

Wash them on a normal cycle, warm water, with a towel to dampen some of the banging - This one's pretty obvious. Wash your script on normal cycle = have your friends read it. Warm water = Accept their notes with grace, don't alienate your friends. Dampen the banging = Don't immediately make all their suggested changes. Take a few days, mull them over, wrap a towel around those suggestions before you...

Let them air-dry, unless you have a special rack for your dryer - Send out the script to everyone (into the 'air' natch). Unless, of course, you have an existing relationship with a studio. In that case, use your 'special rack' if you know what I mean.

John August may be an enigma, but make no mistake, he's ALWAYS talking about screenwriting. Even when he's not.

By: Einar Árnason, Iceland

Einar Árnason, Iceland — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:19:49 +0000

I have done this with many, many basketball shoes. Twice a season to be excact. If the shoes are made out of leather I recomend rubbing them with leather lube when they have semi-dryed. This prevents cracking.