How to clean your satin shoes

How To Clean Your Wedding Satin Shoes

We suggest to our brides to at least practice once in their wedding shoes to be more prepared for the day. However, during the dancing, your shoes might get stepped on or scuffed, now what? Wedding shoes are normally made of satin and if they get dirty it has to be cleaned very carefully.

NOTE: We haven’t tried these tips that I have found on the internet so please be cautious when cleaning your shoes. If you are worried about damaging them rather take them to a professional to clean.

Here are a few steps to keep in mind:

  1. Prepare your shoes: Firstly wipe your shoes clean with a dry cloth to remove all dirt and dust.
  2. Cleaning the stains: There are various methods mentioned on the internet. I’m personally skeptical of making the satin wet in any way as this does cause watermarks, however, this seems to be a popular way to do it.

Method 1:

Using liquid soap or a bar of soap in a bowl of warm water and mix to make some foam. Dampen a cloth with the mixture and dab, not rub, the shoe all over following the grain of the material. Using circular motions focus on the visible stains till they are removed. Finish off with cleaning the soles.

Method 2:

In this method, certain products are used and I’m not entirely sure if they are available in South Africa. Moisten a cotton ball with a Dryel product, a dry cleaning product, and wipe the stain following the grain of the material. Otherwise, with lighter stains, you can use Seltzer water using the same method. Or for more difficult stains you can use Oxy Clean powder by dipping a moist cloth into the powder and gently dab the difficult stain.

3. Dry: Wipe your shoes one last time. Then your satin shoes can air dry but keep them away from the sun to ensure they don’t discolour. You can also either wrap them up in paper towels to absorb the excess water or preferably dry them with your hairdryer in a cool setting.

4. Finish: Mix a small amount of white vinegar in a new bowl of warm water, take a sponge and softly dab the whole shoe and allow to dry again. This is optional but mentioned that it helps to keep the satin’s glossy finish.