No, It’s Not Too Good To Be True: This Simple Tea Bag Trick Freshens Musty Winter Boots Overnight – And It’s So Easy To Do

Big winter boots are essential for cold, wet weather and keeping your feet warm. However, they often come with the less pleasant side effect – sweaty feet and lingering shoe odors in your entryway.

Rather than stick it out and accept a musty-smelling entryway, there is a quick fix sitting in your pantry and, for a change, it isn't baking soda. Rather, it's tea bags, and they work overnight without leaving any mess behind.

Here's how this unexpected hack to get rid of musty smells in your entryway.

Using Tea Bags to Stop Shoe Odor Overnight

While the usual go-to for removing odors is cleaning with baking soda, this hack can be messy and time-consuming. The last thing you want is to sink your foot into a boot, and it feels like it is full of sand.

Tea bags, such as Lipton's from Target, on the other hand, provide a handy, affordable, pre-packaged moisture and odor absorbing packet that can be slotted right into your shoes and boots as soon as you take them off. Simply leave overnight.

Petya Holevich, house cleaning expert and supervisor at Fantastic Services, explains, 'Most dried tea leaves naturally absorb moisture, which is key because dampness inside your shoes creates the perfect environment for bacteria and fungi that cause odours. By placing a dry tea bag inside each shoe, the leaves absorb some of that moisture, keeping the inside drier and less hospitable to odour-causing microbes.'

In very cold or damp entryways, this moisture-absorbing hack can also help to prevent mold and mildew in damp shoes, too. Simply add one or two teabags to your shoes and leave them in a well-ventilated spot.

Better still, Petya adds, 'Tea leaves also contain compounds that have mild antibacterial properties,' helping to maintain good foot health. 'They can slightly inhibit the growth of bacteria responsible for the smell. The tea also gives off a subtle, pleasant scent, masking any residual smells.

Why Boots Smell In Winter

There are several reasons why shoes can cause a house to smell musty, but they all come down to a buildup of bacterial and fungal spores. Closed shoes and boots offer the ideal environment for these to multiply, offering a dark, stuffy space that is difficult to dry out.

The problem gets worse when we stuff our shoes straight into entryway storage when we take them off. While this is a good habit to avoid visual clutter in an entryway, a lack of ventilation slows the drying process and can shorten the lifespan.

Worse still, it can result in a turned-up nose whenever you try to leave the house.

Other Tricks to Prevent odor

One thing people with nice-smelling entryways never do is shove their damp boots into closed storage as soon as they take them off, even with odor absorbers such as tea bags stuffed inside.

Instead, they use open storage designed to improve ventilation, such as this open four-tier shoe rack sideboard from Wayfair, to enforce a clear-floor policy without sacrificing a nice-smelling home.

Alternatively, if you are easily stressed by the visual clutter of open storage, you can use a well-designed shoe cabinet such as the BRUSALI cabinet from IKEA, which has an open back to allow for ventilation without display.

For boots that are especially damp, or knee-length boots, it can be helpful to either undo the laces and pull out the tongue, or use cedar boot trees from Amazon to open them up before leaving the shoes in a warm, dry space to speed up the drying process before storing them away.

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Meet the Expert

Petya Holevich

Petya Holevich is an experienced house cleaning expert with over five years of dedicated time at Fantastic Services. 

Looking to reduce unnecessary trash at home? You can also use broken bath bombs in shoes to remove odors and scent your entryway.