TOMS Shoes - How awesome, how smelly, and how to wash them!

TOMS Shoes are quickly becoming a favorite where I live --

Mobile, AL.

I'm not going to act like I'm the biggest TOMS advocate out there because I'm not. i do LOVE my two pairs and will probably invest in more in the future, but I'm not going to join in on wearing NO shoes today. I just did a blog post on how plantar warts are CONTAGIOUS! Do you think I'm an idiot? But I will be wearing my TOMS. I think that counters my support.

For every pair of TOMS you buy a child in need gets a pair. To check it out and buy yourself some sweet TOMS visit:

TOMS Shoes.com

Anyways, the one down side of these shoes is that they get smelly fast, especially if you walk in water. I highly recommend NOT walking in water. Also, I have sweaty feet so they get smelly even faster. I thought I couldn't wash these shoes because the insole is made of leather so I bought some Odor Eaters and kept truckin, but now I have found a way to successfully clean them!

How to clean TOMS Shoes:

First, you'll want to wash them by themselves on the most gentle cycle you have in the washing machine. Add laundry detergent, whatever. Wash.

Second, you'll want to dry them on LOW or NO heat and you'll want to do that with a bunch of WET towels, or if you have a dryer rack (They're sold with all Sears appliances, just repping.) then dry them on there. I prefer the dryer rack option, but we don't have those here at college. I also use a dryer sheet.


SIDE NOTE: When you get them out of the dryer and put them back on your feet they may feel shrunk or the leather inside may have curled up. NOTHING to fear. Just wear them for like 10 minutes and they're back to normal, dear!

Now go out and wear some TOMS, support kids in need, and don't be smelly unless necessary!

For more great How to's and articles, I currently blog at www.katieallred.com

the truth about plantar warts, and how to get rid of them!

Recently, I had a plantar wart. First off, these are CONTAGIOUS and I got it from living in the dorms, not just cause I'm weird and dirty, cause I'm not, but from going barefoot in the dorms. I no longer do that. Anyways, my biggest piece of advice for people living in dorms is to wear some kind of slippers/flip flops all day. I wear my TOMS so it works out great.

Anyways, I hate plantar warts. I only got one once before when I was like seven and had it frozen off. I barely remember that memory but my mom reminded me when I got this new one.

Luckily, I found it when it was brand new and still pink and not quite white with blackish veins. Plantar warts grow in your feet; therefore, they are the hardest to remove. In my desperation of being a college kid (poor in other words), and not wanting to ruin my one year stint of not going to the doctor, I sought Dr. Scholl's. I heard about it on TV commercials. However, I read online that the Freeze off stuff DOES NOT work and I wasn't about to spend my precious $18 on that junk to just hurt my foot and get no results.

So I bought the OFF brand, Walmart style Liquid Wart Remover. It was about $3.97. I took it back to the dorm, soaked my foot in very hot water (it tells you on the directions it needs to be clean) and put on some good ole liquid wart remover (LWR). Well the LWR didn't do much but kill all the skin inside and in a good centimeter around the wart. I didn't know if this was a good thing or not, so I called my mom and she was like... just go to the doctor, but I was like, "NOT YET!" So I googled some home remedies. At this point, the wart had turned all white and it looked more like heap of dead skin than a wart, but I figured it was still in there.

I saw online that a lot of people talked about Red Apple Cider Vinegar. Now I never heard of such, so I called my mom who just said, it was worth a shot cause it's not like vinegar can make your foot fall off. So that night I went to WalMart, bought the medium size Red Apple Cider Vinegar (I now realize I could have bought the small), I bought some cotton balls, a dish tub, and some Johnson's Water Repellant tape. That night and for about two weeks that followed I either soaked it in the RACV, or taped it with a cotton ball to my foot. I continued for a bit to put the LWR on my foot as well during the day time. One day a chunk (for lack of a better word) fell off of that spot with some dark black roots attached to it. The vinegar had made my foot so soft that basically the dead skin fell off. There was still black stuff inside though, and I'm no doctor so I left it alone. I put some more LWR on it but this time it burned. I didn't know if that was a good sign at all so I stopped that. I got really tired of the whole ACV routine too so I stopped that. Basically all I did everyday was put a piece of tape over it. Then about a week later it all fell off and it's healing now!


This was over a span of 3-4 weeks, so if you don't have patience, go to a doctor.
For all of you who want to copy/paste this into word and take it to walmart and do what I did:

One wash tub - $3
One bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar (I used Red, but I heard it didn't matter) $3
One bottle of liquid wart remover - $4
One bag of cotton balls - $1
One Johnson's Water Repellant Tape - $3

Put the LWR on in the daytime and soak/tape the ACV on in the nighttime.

This will cost you about $14. Yes, it's about the same as Dr. Scholl's, but this actually worked. I'm the only one I know also who is a real person and actually blogged about it. (It is kinda gross) But I will take any questions anyone has. I'm no doctor, I just got rid of a wart!