Originally Posted by
southpier
since having noticed a poignant bouquet emitting from my riding pumps, i now saturate the cork innersoles with used, albeit filtered*, mineral spirits.
*pro-tip = dry out and shake your coffee maker filters to re-use for this.
What also works great for shoe odor is windex, or more cheaply, just household ammonia (I like with lemon) diluted with water. I used it diluted 9:1 for household cleaning, might require stronger for shoes. Last I had shoe odor, I still had window cleaner, a couple sprays into each shoe, it permeates inside as it evaporates, smell gone by morning. If insoles are removeable, best to do that and then spray in shoe and rinse or spray insoles. If you want exact concentration as window cleaner, there are recipes online, usually with a drop of soap in the bottle as a surfactant. No blue dye. I like no soap, as no need to rinse fabrics and carpet after cleaning, it all evaporates. Soap can actually feed mold, according to info on washing sails, they say soap must be rinsed out completely.