Friday, July 26, 2013

Dealing with Stinky Boots!

Now that there's a lot of humidity where I live,  I noticed that my boots were starting to stink.

First I tried putting those balls you put in sports shoes in my boots. All that did was put a scent to cover the stink. And the scent wasn't very pleasant.

What I needed to do was either get a mechanical or chemical dehumidifier for the boots.

There's lots of boot driers on the market. Usually these are long tubes connected to a fan. Some are electrical heaters that you insert in the boots. If I was skating so much that my boot sweat was really bad, I'd go for the mechanical solution. I had a friend who poured sweat out of his boots after skating. I gave him a boot drier for his birthday, and it worked fine.

I don't sweat  in my boots that much, so I decided to go with a chemical dehumidifier.

My big box store had a sale of Pingi sachets. These are similar to the dehumidifier packs you find in new purses, or sometimes packaged food. Those packs are the sized of a thumbnail. The Pingi sachets start at the size of your fist, and work up.

I threw a 150 ml Pingi sachet into my boot bag, and it worked miracles. Boots stopped stinking 24 hours later. You don't have to put a sachet into the boot, a 150 ml sachet is designed for a chest of drawers, so it can easily handle a boot bag. When the Penguin changes color, just follow the directions and pop it into the microwave for a few minutes. That dries it out and it's ready to go again.


So there's your little skating tip for the day!

6 comments:

  1. I put drier-rite in old socks and stick one in each boot. I've heard that other peeps do the same thing with kitty litter, which is basically bentonite clay. Both will pull the moisture out of boots.

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    1. Those are good suggestions. The advantage of the Pingi, is that it's rechargeable in the microwave, so less messy.

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  2. Sounds like a great solution. I wish I could find a store near me that carried them.

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  3. Interesting. I haven't noticed any odor from my skates yet, which is surprising since I sweat a ton. The inside of the ankles of my boots are noticeably wet when I take them off. And I'm bad...I never let them air dry. They just sit in my skate bag in my car until the next session (I do dry off the outside thoroughly, but there's no way to dry the inside). I'll keep this little idea in mind.

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    1. I didn't have a problem with my skates until the humidity got so high for days on end. It was up to 100%, which I didn't think was possible! :-)

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