The Cure For Stinky Feet
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Maybe this sounds strange, but I love my kid’s feet; especially when they were babies. There’s something about little baby feet that melts this mommy heart! I just wanna gobble them up! Anyone else out there love little feet?
Know what I don’t love so much? Stinky feet! When my youngest baby (Ryder) started walking and wearing shoes, he started getting really smelly feet. Like really, really smelly. He’s 7 years old now and the kid has major foot odor issues. It seems like they get worse with every passing year. Just to give you an idea of how bad his feet stink, here’s a little mental picture for you.
A couple of years ago we were at my brother’s rental house in Arizona. It was a small, 3 bedroom, 1 story house. I don’t know what the heck was up with Ryder’s feet that weekend, but they were extra raunchy that trip. It wasn’t even summer time, so we can’t blame it on the Arizona heat; we were there in winter and the air was nice and cool. Be that as it may, Ryder’s feet had a HORRIBLE stench. They were so bad that when he took off his shoes, the entire house reeked of rotten, sour feet. I’m not exaggerating. There was no corner of the house that didn’t smell like stinky feet. His shoes and socks smelled like something crawled inside and died. And then rotted and fermented for a few months. No joke. His shoes were banned to outside and we threw his socks away because there was no way they would ever smell clean again. If you ask my brother and sister-in-law about this experience, they will tell you just how horrid it was. I dry heave even thinking about it. Worse yet, no matter how much we scrubbed those stinky little feet with soap, we couldn’t get the smell out. Kind of like when you get sprayed by a skunk….no amount of washing is gonna get that smell out! No amount of baking soda or soap or foot deodorant would ever entirely rid that smell.
Now, rewind to last summer (2017). My mom was dying (this isn’t supposed to be a sad post, but this is a crucial part of the story!) During her last week of life, a hospice nurse would come in every other day and help us bathe her. After the first two baths, my mom slipped into a coma and was (obviously) unable to get in the shower, so she got a sponge bath instead. Her bathing nurse let me in on a little secret of how to get rid of the B.O. underneath Mom’s arms. She swore that this one thing worked every single time; if you just put this product under her arms and “wash” her skin with it, the smell would go away. I had to see it (or smell it) to believe it, but sure enough, when she used this particular product, Mom smelled clean and fresh and the body odor was completely gone!
A couple months later, we were sitting in our living room trying to enjoy the evening but once again, we were distracted by the foul smell of Ryder’s feet. I took him upstairs and scrubbed and scrubbed with gobs of soap but his feet still stunk. Then, I had an idea. I thought back to that hospice nurse and the life hack she taught me. If it could get rid of body odor under the arms, couldn’t it get rid of foot odor, too? Anything was worth a shot, so I went into my shower, got the miracle in a can and slathered it on his feet. When we were done scrubbing and drying, guess what?? The smell was gone!! No joke! Who knew that something so simple, something that probably most of us have already sitting in our medicine cabinet or shower, could be the cure all for my child’s stinky feet?
I know you’re all dying to know what it is that eliminates this strong body odor. Drumroll please……here it is!
Yep, shaving cream! Who would’ve thought? Turns out that shaving cream is the solution for stinky feet. And any other body odor you might have. We use Gillette, but I’m not sure if it really matters, although I will say that the store-brand and Dollar Tree shaving creams don’t do the trick. I just stick with what I know works, and that’s Gillette.
After writing this post, it got me to thinking…I wonder if it would eliminate skunk odor? Let’s hope that I never have to test it out, but you better believe that if that days comes, I will bust out the shaving cream. Now, whenever Ryder has a bad case of stinky feet, I order him to march upstairs and wash his feet with shaving cream. It does the trick, every time!
You’re welcome!
Seriously though, are those not the cutest little feet ever?
