Cleaning satin dance shoes

Hi!

I know I shared this post already a while ago, but since there were many people who found this
tutorial helpful, I decided to re-post it.

Many ballroom and latin dancers own satin covered shoes. I think most of these shoes look very nice, but the satin tends to trap filth very easy. Especially when the downside of a shoe hits the upper side, large black spots are left behind.

A filthy, black spotted shoe.

The inside doesn't look really good as well...

Read more about the cleaning of those shoes after the jump!
For my training shoes, I don't really mind that black spots occur. However, for competition I like to have neat and clean shoes. I went to our local shoe repairer, but sadly he didn't have anything special to clean those shoes. He recommended trying a soft detergent and a hand brush to clean my satin shoes.
So, I went to the drugstore and bought a little flask of Dr. Beckmann's Roll-On detergent. As the name suggests, the flask contains a roller, which makes it fairly easy to clean extremely dirty spots.

Dr Beckmann Roll-On detergent with a roller on top
for precise application of the detergent.

With lukewarm water, I wetted the whole shoe, both inside and outside. Preventing that the inside got wet was quite difficult, and as I showed in an earlier picture, the inside could use a clean-up too.

After complete wetting, I rolled Dr Beckmann over the shoes. I treated the filthy spots extensively. With a hand and nail brush, I gently brushed the satin. I brushed in the direction of the fibers of the satin, to prevent damage. I brushed the darker spots more often, but still, I didn't exert any pressure. 

A hand brush and a shoe covered in detergent.

With lukewarm water, I spooled the complete shoe. Then I cleaned the inside, again softly brushing and using my fingers to clean the sole extensively.

Then again, I spooled the shoe, making sure there was no soap left. 

After removal of the soap, I dabbed with a hand towel onto the shoes. Then I stuffed the towel inside the shoe, so that the inside would dry as well. I left the shoes at the warming. After a day I replaced the towel with a new dry one. 

Stuffing the towel into the shoe to dry the inside.

After two days of drying, the shoes were all dry again and ready to use!

Clean! There is, when looking closely, some filth left, but I
think they are clean enough for another competition!

When looking closely, there is still some black left, but I really didn't want to damage the shoes. I would not recommend to do this weekly, but it can't hurt to freshen your shoes every once in a while. 

At the moment, I have a separate pair of shoes for training and a special pair for dancing competitions, just because this saves me the work of cleaning them. However, I think this is quite a decent way to freshen up your used shoes. When you work carefully, this is a nice way to clean your competition shoes, so that you don't have to buy new ones everytime someone steps onto your foot ;-)

Hopefully you find this tutorial helpful!

If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!