Care and Cleaning of Doll Shoes

No outfit for your dolls looks complete without doll shoes, except perhaps for a bathing suit, and even then a pair of sandals completes the picture.

To keep your dolls' shoes looking their best after lots of hard play and walking through everything can be a challenge, but thankfully there are solutions.

Doll shoes are made of many fabrics today and if you have an older pair of doll shoes or even an antique pair, they will require very careful cleaning so they are not damaged. The method will depend on the materials in the shoe. The uppers, the tops of the shoes, may be a different material than the inner and outer soles.

Very old dolls may have shoes with cardboard soles and these must only be dusted - no liquids applied. Cleaning products would disintegrate the cardboard even if the product does not contain water.

To get into the inner crevices of cardboard inner soles I recommend short bursts of air from the kind of bulb syringe that is used to clean computer keyboards. You could even use the air only attachment on your hairdryer.

For vinyl shoes, using a wrung out washcloth and dabbing on a little clear dish detergent or shampoo is a good cleaner. Make small circular motions and blot off the residue with an almost dry washcloth. Be very careful not to get the insoles or outer soles wet if they are a different material.

For leather shoes, saddle soap is the tried and true cleaner. It is usually available in stores where shoe polish is sold. To use, apply carefully with a damp washcloth or old piece of soft cotton. An old tee shirt is practical - just cut it up into squares and then you'll have several washcloths for cleaning your dolls and their shoes.

When the saddle soap dries, buff dry with another of the clean and dry cloths. Be careful to clean the space between the uppers and soles. A toothpick covered with a layer of cotton cloth and run in the seam should clean that hard to get to area.

The doll shoes in the photo are on my Kathe Kruze. Next to her is Floppy, our doll mascot.



I think the hardest doll shoes to clean are canvas fabric shoes. If they are white try using a very soft old toothbrush dipped in water and a drop of clear shampoo, or clear dish detergent, and gently use scrubbing circular motions. If the cotton canvas is colored, first try using just plain water on the soft toothbrush.

Remove the residue the same way using just clean water on the old toothbrush, repeating till clean. Blot as dry as possible with a terry wash cloth.

After any cleaning application with doll shoes, allow them to sit upside down on a terry towel to thoroughly air dry!

If you need help with sewing techniques for doll costumes I recommend consulting my book.

Article and photograph copyright Susan Kramer