Foot Odor Treatment

Tagged with charcoal, foot odor, powder, pumice on January 27, 2024

The most common foot odor is caused by perspiration on the feet. Most people can take off a pair of shoes and a faint odor will exist for a short period of time. Others aren’t so fortunate, when the foot odor is caused by bacteria or fungus in the skin of the feet. It’s usually concentrated between the toes.

I write from experience because I used to have some really stinky feet.

Preventing Foot Odor

Preventing foot odor is far easier than eliminating it. Foot odor is frequently caused by wearing shoes that don’t breathe for far too long of a time. The best way to treat your feet in this situation is to wash your feet and change your socks at least once a day. More than once is better, but most people don’t have the time to do it more than once.

Shoes made with vinyl or patent leather (both are plastic) are almost waterproof, which means they’re also almost air-proof. The perspiration stays trapped inside your shoes, keeping your feet and everything else inside your shoes moist. If you can avoid wearing these types of shoes, your feet will thank you.

When I was in the military, I hated wearing dress uniforms because I hated the types of shoes I had to wear with them. Those dress shoes caused both me and my wife, Josie, to treat my feet with extreme care. She used to complain that my feet smelled like dried fish, which made her hungry. At first, I didn’t know whether to take it as an insult or a complement.

Foot powder will help cut the odor and absorb some moisture, but not all of it. It works better in shoes that breathe than other types of shoes. I used it when I wore athletic shoes most of the time. I would put it on my feet before I put on my socks, and then sprinkle a liberal amount inside my shoes.

Elimitating Food Odor

One technique I’ve read about helps to reduce foot odor by causing your feet to perspire less. Stinky feet usually start as sweaty feet (where bacteria thrive), even while wearing flip-flops. I’ve never tried the black tea remedy, but you can search for it if you feel like trying it out.

Way back in the late 1990s, Josie “forced” me to soak my feet in alum (“tawas” in Tagalog) and water for a couple of hours a day for a week to kill the bacteria causing my foot odor. She couldn’t stand the smell when I first came home from work. Even though I’ve had issues with foot odor a couple of times after that, it was never again that bad. There are very few times when I need to wear shoes for more than a couple of hours at a time.

If you have a minor odor problem, charcoal inserts may be enough to take care of it. There are thousands of foot care products being sold over the counter and very few of them, other than the inserts, are worth using.

These days, I scrub my feet every time I’m in the shower, at least once a day. I use pumice and scrubbing sponges on the bottoms of my feet and the tops of my toes. I also dig out all the crud under my toenails when I cut them. As long as I maintain my routines, no one at all has to be bothered by any odor coming from me.

Image by Akitase, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons