(upbeat music)
- What's up y'all?
My name's Ian Williams.
I'm the owner of Deadstock Coffee
and I'm a self-proclaimed sneaker enthusiast.
- Hi, my name's Charlie Kirihara.
I'm a color material designer at adidas
and a shoe customizer
and I'm also a self-proclaimed sneaker enthusiast.
- We're here in my house next to Deadstock Coffee.
We call this space the Fun Factory
and we're going to show you how to clean your shoes at home.
I've had to clean some pretty ridiculous stuff off my shoes
before and I know a whole bunch y'all have as well.
So I reached out to the Instagram family
and I asked y'all for some of those responses
of what has happened to their shoes
and your boy got some right here.
Should I start reading?
All right, you wanna know?
All right. Number one, ate too much red licorice
at the theater, walked out,
puked all over a fresh pair of sneakers.
All right? Why don't you go ahead
and hit that next one.
- This person, this is not good.
Kicks fresh out of the box, fresh white,
met a tipsy girl with a full glass of Pinot noir
and butter fingers.
You don't even have to finish that story.
- I wonder if they're still dating.
- Might be.
It's a good meet cute. (Ian laughing)
- These are gnarly.
We're gonna help y'all get these shoes right.
Today we are cleaning the iconic adidas Superstar.
I love these cause I could dress 'em up.
I could dress 'em down.
No matter what, they always look good.
What do you like about 'em?
- I like the fact that even when they're dirty
on the outside, they're made with clean materials.
So at least 50% of the upper is made outta recycled content.
And today for this tutorial, they're nice and leather,
which gives you an opportunity to go pretty deep with them.
- Before we start cleaning
we gotta gather all the essentials, all right?
So I got some microfiber towels, some warm water,
a spread of cleaning solutions.
Some bleach water for the laces.
I got some socks I'm gonna use the stuff up in the shoe,
keep that form nice and tight.
A tray right here so we can put the shoes on.
What you got?
- [Charlie] I have some nitro gloves.
A couple different options of brushes,
a soft bristle brush, a hard bristle brush,
got a toothbrush for smaller areas,
and some dirt picking tools.
- This one right here is a tool that I love a lot.
We use this one to clean new buck and suede,
but it works really well for rubber.
So we're gonna... if we have to,
we might have to erase some stains.
- And if you don't have sneaker cleaning solution at home,
dish soap is a great alternative.
It works really well for a few different materials.
And with leather, your bristle really matters.
You want to use a soft bristle brush,
but put some elbow grease into it.
- We're gonna put our gloves on
and go ahead and get started.
These joints is adequately dirty.
I don't know what they was doing last night, but...
- Gloves are good for when you don't know what the mess is.
- Yeah. Facts only.
- Before you get your brushes wet,
you want to use them to knock off any loose dirt
on the upper, on the midsole, on the outsole.
And you really want to pay attention
to which bristles you're using on your brushes.
So for the upper, we like to use a soft bristle brush
because it's not gonna mess with the leather.
- While I'm in here in this bleach water,
I'm actually trying to massage some of this bleach
into the laces.
Get all up in there.
You can already see it's getting some of that dirt out,
you know?
- The other thing that works nice
in some of the smaller areas is the toothbrush.
You just get in there, work through the dirt.
How's that looking?
- Yeah, it's looking pretty good.
Take that firm brush and get out some of the dirt
that's in that rubber.
That's already pretty clean, you know?
We pretty much done.
Knock off some of that on the bottom, too.
Ooph.
- [Charlie] That's the bad stuff.
- That's the bad stuff right there.
That's the money.
Now that we got these looking pretty good
almost prepped to start doing some of the wet stuff,
you wanna go ahead and stuff these socks in there
to keep that form.
So when the shoes get wet,
then they'll start to kind of sag
and break down a little bit.
So we're gonna throw some socks in there.
You can also use a shoe form to help it keep that form.
- Try to get it all the way up to the toe so you can have,
you can see all the space.
- Yep. Perfect.
We're gonna take a hard brush,
spread a little bit of this solution.
This is just warm water right onto the brush.
I like to use the hard brush for the outsole,
these more troubled areas.
But I like to save the toothbrush
for the harder to reach areas, you know what I'm saying?
Do you agree?
- I agree. That shows your practice in this.
- I've been in this.
- Then let the grooves of the outsole
guide the motion that you're brushing.
- Yeah, this is also a good opportunity
if you need to use that dirt pick.
Get up it in some of those harder to reach areas
like in here in the laces.
Don't touch that collar lining.
You gone transfer some of that dirt in there.
Just be really safe, be really careful.
Use your microfiber.
You can wipe it off as you go.
Look at that... already looking good.
- Minty fresh. - Minty fresh.
- And once we get the sole nice and clean
we'll move on to our uppers.
- I got myself some fresh water here.
I'm gonna take my soft bristle brush
that I'm gonna use for the upper.
Apply some cleaning solution, little soapy water here.
Pick that upper up.
- And it's important to take your time
when you're working with the upper
so you don't wear away the materials.
- You wanna really get after those stains and smudges
with the brush.
You know, some areas a little worse than others, but...
And then you can actually use your towel
to wipe away over time.
Yeah, lemme get that dirty one back.
No, use in wasting a good one yet.
- Now that our upper is good,
you want to just take another close look.
Make sure you didn't miss any areas.
- Looks pretty good, right? - Mhm.
- [Ian] Move on to our laces.
Always keep this workstation looking good.
Ring these out real good.
You can see here, that's where all that dirt is now living
but not in our laces.
We gone pat 'em dry.
- So we'll just lay down a clean towel here,
spread the lace out a little bit.
Just take the other side of your towel, press.
You just want to squeeze out any excess moisture
into the microfiber.
But we'll need to let 'em air dry as well.
- All that excess moisture
also carries some of that dirt too.
So while you're patting it out,
you're also squeezing out some of the dirt
that might be left over in the laces.
Now the last step in the shoe cleaning process
is actually the easiest.
We gone let it air dry.
- [Charlie] Be sure to dry your shoes and laces
at room temperature.
- And depending on the materials,
it could take up to eight hours for those shoes to dry.
So it's okay to let 'em sit for a bit.
Your shoes are meant to be worn.
It's perfectly fine for them to get a little bit dirty
'cause they're supposed to experience life with you.
That's what shoes are for.
- Now you know the step by step of deep cleaning your shoes.
Thanks for joining us.