Smelly Feet, No More!

Your feet smell bad, you have already tried several methods without any one being effective and you still do not know how to get rid of these bad smells. It is all the more important for you that your partner, your spouse now blames you ... This situation reaches you deeply and you want to put an end to it or at least try to strongly limit the smell of your feet.

Having smelly feet does not mean that you have poor personal hygiene (even if in the case of poor hygiene or non-existent stench will quickly reveal itself), but particularly drastic hygiene will allow in most cases remove these bad smells.

The solution is simple and inexpensive because it is called vinegar. Simply take a foot bath every 2 days and take care of your feet by removing the excess skin that is there and then rehydrate because the vinegar treatment will dry out your skin.

In my previous job I had to wear safety shoes all day, Summer and Winter. So I knew this problem and I will guide you to get out of it.

You are ready ? Follow me !

How to kill bacteria and prevent their proliferation?

We have already seen in previous articles, the bad smells are not caused by the sweat or the dirt but by the bacteria which feed on it and reject smelly gases: that is where the bad smells come from.

I urge you to read this article on UV Sanitizers or the one on Homemade Odor Absorder for Shoes.

The fact is that if you let the bacteria settle, especially in your shoes, the efforts you make on the hygiene of your feet will be useless.

What you need to remember is that your feet need to breathe. They need air.

Why is it necessary to remove the thickness of skin from your smelly feet?

We must first understand why our skin is so thick under our feet. You must have noticed, but our feet absorb the weight of our body when we walk. If this is not the case for you, it is because you are walking on your hands! ;)

Our feet protect themselves from pressure, friction and blows by producing a lot of skin cells. As this skin develops rapidly, the upper layers become conducive to the proliferation of bacteria and fungi.
The problem, as far as we're concerned, is that bacteria and other fungi love to feed on our dead skin and hide in it.

Fungi and bacteria are not just on the surface, they are mostly safe between 2 layers of dead skin. This is why it is difficult to overcome and it is necessary to destroy their habitat.
In other words, we will remove successive layers of skin by bathing and care of our feet. All this is not going to be done in a few days, be patient.

Is vinegar really effective against smelly feet?

Of course, for several reasons:

Vinegar contains acetic acid that will help soften dead skin for easier removal. It is therefore more aggressive than water and will allow us to remove more skin in less time. Your treatment will be faster!

Then vinegar has 2 great and essential properties:

1. It is antiseptic, so it will act as a disinfectant and kill our bacteria!
2. It is antimycotic or antifungal, which will also destroy the fungi!

It does not make coffee though ... :(

So you can easily understand why vinegar is going to be very useful for making our feet look new.

How to properly use vinegar to clean your feet?

Vinegar is not to use anyhow. Not that it is dangerous, but despite its low price, you simply do not want to spoil it in a useless way.

For our foot baths, we will not use pure vinegar. We could have but it is not really useful.

Prepare a basin of hot water. Not too hot either, you do not want to cook your feet! You need to feel the heat for 20min to 30min because this is the time you will take for your foot bath.

A basin usually contains 5 liters or about 1.3 gallons.

To have the right dosage, you have to pour 2 glasses of vinegar in it. This is not to be followed exactly, so do not worry if you only pour a glass and a half or 3 glasses.
This gives you an idea: about 2 glasses for 6° - 8° vinegar.

Note that a foot bath salt (salt, soda) will have the same effect on the skin, the concern is that the salts are bacteriostatic, that is, they do not kill bacteria but only prevent their development . As proof of this article in the well-known scientific journal Nature about a dormant bacterium found in a crystal of salt 250 million years old!

How to remove dead skin from our feet?

Now that your feet have taken a bath, it's time to get down to business: remove excess skin! This is called exfoliating. Dry your feet and remove your skin immediately. If you wait too much the skin will be hardened and everything will have to be redone.

If you're very lucky, a layer of dead skin will easily peel off by hand, like when your skin is peeling.

Otherwise you will have to use a pedicure skin remover. There are two types: manual or electric. Personally I opted for a manual but also spent a lot of time on my feet ... Your choice.

Only remove what comes easily! Do not try to remove a skin still very attached, you could hurt yourself. It would be a pity especially with all these bacteria around!

Once the dead skin layer is removed, add some moisturizer. Indeed the vinegar and abrasion of the rasp will have attacked and dried your feet.

Repeat every 2 days or 3 times a week, until you can not remove any dead skin.

Note that there are creams that can take off your dead skin, or even exfoliating foot mask if you want a faster result. Not knowing if they are over-the-counter in your country, you can always see with your doctor.
From this moment on, you will find that your feet already feel much less bad than usual.

How to maintain your feet once the dead skin removed?

It's been a month since you continued your treatment and you have overcome your dead skin and your feet do not feel the cheese: bravo!

It will now be necessary to maintain them.

Bacteria and fungi do not know the rest, we must now prevent their return.
For this I suggest a very simple thing: after bathing or showering, pour a little vinegar so as to moisten your washcloth and rub your feet.

Once a month, a vinegar foot bath and use your skin remover if necessary.

That's all !

I have been doing this for a number of years and I have no more problems with bad foot smells!

If you want to go further, you can still buy charcoal soles. This can help if you produce a lot of toxins in your sweat.

Conclusion.

Today we have seen the beneficial effects of vinegar on bad foot odor. We have also seen a complete treatment that you can perform at home without resorting to a complete pedicure. You have learned that vinegar is effective against odors and why it is useful in this case.

This method I did not invent for you but used it many years ago and continues since not to be ashamed to take off my shoes.

I sincerely hope that all this will be useful to you and will solve your problem as soon as possible.

Good luck to everyone !

Introduction.

Every time you wash your cloth, it starts to smell bad after drying. It smells moldy. The smell disappears with time but it worries you. Is your washing machine defective? Is there a bad smell coming from your washing machine? Do you your wash your laundry well? Are the products you use responsible? Does a particular cloth contaminate your other linen with its smell?

We will go through all of these topics in this article to unravel the true from the fake.

The materials that make up our laundry.

To understand where these bad smells come from, you need to know all the elements involved in making these smells. We will start with the main thing, namely the laundry itself.

At the beginning of human history, we like to imagine our distant ancestors dressed in animal skins. The reality is that they had to use products at their immediate disposal ie leaves. This behavior is observed in monkeys using leaves as umbrella, so it is easy to imagine that humans have also used this strategy at the beginning.

Which brings us to the natural plant fibers still used today in the clothing industry: cotton, wool or linen to mention only those there. (There are many others!)
The fibers are natural and composed mainly of cellulose, and they degrade.
Not as fast as a plant that would degrade in nature, but it degrades anyway.

You feel the thing coming, dare I say?

Humus with a particular smell, a musty smell that is also found in our laundry!

Part of the bad smell of your laundry comes from the degradation of the natural fibers that compose it: it degrades.

But our laundry is not only made of natural fibers, today, our technology helping, we know how to manufacture synthetic fibers, chemical. In large part these new fibers are composed of hydrocarbon. You've already seen their names at least once in your life: Polyester, Polyamide, Polyurethane, Elastane, Acrylic

They also suffer a degradation even if it is small, and thus releases odorous particles adding to our mixture.

Cleaning products, another smelly source.

They are there to help with the washing, to take off the dirt and to guarantee us a clean cloth.
But they too are added to the list of products generating bad odors in your laundry. Indeed, the action of heat due to the hot water washing will also degrade detergents and other detergents.

Imagine the chemical cocktail that happens when you wash your laundry machine ...
I'm saving you the long list of products that can be found in a laundry.

Obviously much will be flushed out of their rinsing, but not everything! You will rinse many times, it will always remain.

Which will also lead us to a future article about the bad smells coming from the siphons and filters of our household objects and how to get rid of them.

The water quality, an element to take into account.

In our rare modern societies are those who still wash by hand. Yet many will tell you that the laundry was cleaner! At the time people used public wash house, close to a watercourse. The water did not stagnate like in a washing machine, the laundry was not washed in its own 'juice'.

But the water was also purer than today. Because we have to admit, we have abused chemicals and our waters are now polluted. These pollutants are present in minimal amounts in our reclaimed waters but add to our smelly mixture.

The return of bacteria, but not only!

Now that we have seen everything that could be a bad smell, here comes the return of bacteria. And yes, again our friends the bacteria are at work! We do not get rid of them like that! Especially with the feast that we prepare for each wash ... but they are not alone at the table: molds are also part.

According to major brands of washing machines, washing between 30 ° C (86ºF)  and 40 ° C (104ºF) produces the most odor.

You read correctly: the manufacturers are perfectly aware of this problem.



Always according to them, you need to air your washing machine to limit the development of bacteria and mold, as well as dust mites. If you do not, they will develop and colonize the linen you put in it.

Moreover, and it can be understood, washing at 30 ° C is not enough to kill the bacteria. This is also an optimal temperature for them!

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I did not know the existence of shoes sanitizer. And if you're here, I guess you do not either.
So I asked myself the question of their usefulness and I share with you what I discovered.
This article will follow the one called Homemade odor absorb for shoes.

What is a shoe sanitizer?
What is its purpose?
How do we use it?
Is it beneficial?

So many questions that I will answer now.

The hunt for bad smells.

The problem that this product wants to meet is still that of shoes that smell bad.

As explained in a previous article, bacteria feed on the compounds of our sweat and proliferate there. A confined environment like our shoes is conducive to their development. It is therefore once again to attack these bacteria.

Yes, there are many...

Ultraviolet rays to the rescue!

Ultraviolet, UV for short, are of the aggressive kind.

The human body resists but not prolonged. Indeed our skin does what it can to protect us but quickly shows its limits. That's why we wear sunglasses and put sunscreen. Simple to understand: protect us. Because UV is aggressive, so aggressive that it destroys our cells or makes them mutate. We all know the sunburns but the UV also participate in the development of skin cancer!

Now think about it for a minute. Imagine what UV rays would do to bacteria.
You are there! Destruction.

And that's where our shoes sanitizer comes in.

What is a shoes sanitizer?

You surely got the idea now.

This is a device equipped with a UV lamp that you will be able to slip into your shoes in order to destroy the bacteria responsible for bad odors.
Obviously this does not exempt you from a drastic body hygiene. ;)

The icing on the cake, the device can also destroy germs and other fungi!

So if you have this kind of recurring problem, it may be good to look into this solution.
With the help of vinegar foot bath 2 times a week, your feet will thank you! (your nose and those around you too!)

Where can i find this?!

Well you could take a look at your local store, i don't know if for example Wallmart sell that kind of products. You can always ask them.
Personally, i found this product on Amazon: UV Shoes Sanitizer Sterilizer
They have different types like the 2 below.

This one is pretty cool, i like the design.

The second is less sophisticated but is efficient and a little cheaper than the previous one.

Conclusion.

We have seen today a rather original but effective way of getting rid of the bacteria responsible for bad odors, and for a reasonable price compared to the service rendered.
In a later article we will leave our shoes that smell bad for another subject: bad smell dishwasher!

Introduction.

You come home from a hard day's work, it's hot today, you're exhausted and the first thing you want to do is take off your shoes to relax.

At this moment, your nostrils remind you to order: your feet and shoes give off an unbearable smell!

And the worst thing is that you'll have to put those stinky shoes back tomorrow to go back to work ...

In this article we will see how to remedy bad foot odor as well as solutions to allow you to quickly eliminate them from your shoes.

We won't talk about Shoes UV Sanitizers Sterilizer as this article is about Homemade DIY.

Know the enemy to better fight him.

The first question to ask is: "why do feet stinks?"

The feet do not smell more than the rest of our body. It is the fact of putting them in shoes that causes bad smells.

Sweat is produced by glands under our skin that allow us to evacuate excessive heat from our body. This is what happens during an effort for example.

These bad smells are due to the transpiration and proliferation of bacteria that thrive there. Sweating, and therefore aqueous media, dead skin: bacteria love it and make you feel it!

Sweat is a mixture of water, salts and toxins.

Bacteria are precisely the cause of our problem.

Did you know?
Deodorants do not hide odors, they eliminate them with an antiseptic agent whose job is to kill the bacteria responsible for bad odors.

Let's move on!

Since this article focuses on what we can do from home products, we will not discuss other solutions that will be the subject of another article.


Now that we know the cause, let's take action.

We can act urgently on 2 points:

Remove moisture from shoes

• The first solution if your shoes have soles and well it is simply to remove them to dry. If you have a hair dryer, it will be even faster! Otherwise it will be necessary to mop up and let dry all night.

• The second solution is to stuff newspaper into your shoes. The paper will serve as a moisture absorber.

• The third solution is a bit more technical. Slip a clean cloth into your shoes as if it were a sock but without your foot inside. Instead, pour some salt. The ideal being coarse salt. Indeed salt is an excellent moisture absorber!

Destroy the bacteria present

• Baking soda everyone knows. You can pour some sodium bicarbonate directly into your shoes and let it work all night. Place it here is not quite valid because it is not "bactericidal" but "bacteriostatic", ie as for other salts, it prevents the development of bacteria but does not destroy them. This is an intermediate solution but not useless!

• Here is a radical solution: freezing! Do not laugh, that's what we're going to do. Dry your shoes up and then pack them in a sealed plastic bag. Put your shoes in the freezer from a few hours to all night and I guarantee that it will be the hecatomb in bacteria!

I suggest watching this video

Conclusion.

In this article we have seen how to use current products from home to fight the bad odors of our shoes.

I could have mentioned other products or mixtures but their effectiveness is not proven or these solutions only serve to hide the odors instead of destroying them. They had no place here.

Regarding the last solution, we could have thrown them in the fire too but I doubt that we can reuse them after such treatment ...;)

Good fight against bad smells!