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How to Prevent Mold and Store Leather Shoes

2024-09-19

The formation of mould on leather shoes is a common problem especially in some parts of the world during some periods of the year, when humidity is high, but everyone can have mould issues appear on their shoes. Sometimes to a small degree but sometimes the whole shoes can become full of mould. Here I go through, how you can avoid it, and how you remove it if you have footwear that gets affected.

How to prevent that mould is formed on leather shoes
We have two main reasons that affect mould creation on leather footwear: the condition of the shoes, and the condition that they are stored in. Starting with the condition of shoes, if you’ve been out in heavy rain and your shoes are soaking wet, you really need to be extra careful. First, wipe them off with a damp dish cloth or similar to remove any dirt and residues. Do let them dry in an airy place, ideally outside during a sunny day (not always the case though if they’ve been soaked from rain, and they should not be outside in rain or during night since then humidity is higher), but inside in regular room temperature is fine as well. Do not attempt to have them dry faster on some kind of direct heat, like a radiator, floor heating or similar, it will stress the leather massively and in worst case it can crack. Make sure that air can circulate around the shoes, leave them laying on the side, standing on a non-even surface which lets air through, or solve a way to have them hanging. It’s quite common to find mould on leather soles, if they’ve become wet when walking in rain and stored on a flat surface with no circulation, it easily builds up since the soles often are dirty from much more than the uppers as well, stuff that mould spores like. Here how they are stored when whet is key.

Do not insert shoe trees in the shoes if they are soaked, they will dry better without any shoe trees or with newspaper pages stuffed in them which can absorb moisture, and ideally be exchanged when the paper is totally moist. First once the shoes have dried up a bit you insert wooden shoe trees to retain the shape. Wooden shoe trees do absorb some moisture, and even more importantly lets the leather breath (compared to plastic shoe trees which clogs the pores), which is perfect after regular everyday use when the shoes are a bit moist from sweat, but as mentioned if they have become soaked even wooden shoe trees can prevent the leather to dry up properly.

For the condition to store shoes to prevent mould, there’s actually some common mistakes that is often done. Usually shoes are stored in a closed closet, which is not ideal since air can’t circulate in there. If you have them in a closet, try to create the possibility for an airflow, either simply by making sure to leave a door slightly open, or perhaps drill larger holes in hidden places. Also it’s best if they don’t stand on a solid flat surface, have a ribbed carpet or similar which lets air circulate under the shoes

What is good is to have moist absorbers of some forms where one store the shoes, that can attract moist instead of having the leather of the shoes do that job. Wooden shoe trees do this job to some extent, and is enough in cases where it’s not too humid. For seasonal storage it could be good to add bags of cedar shavings and/or the classic bags of silica gel that you often find in packages you receive (don’t throw those away, put them in a box at home to have at hand when needed). In extreme cases, for example if you live in very humid locations, a dehumidifier can do a big difference, if it’s possible to solve in a practical way.

If you often experience problems with mould on your shoes, then you have to be more careful with all the things above. As mentioned, in some places of the world conditions are more humid and mould is more easily created, and it varies through seasons as well, and you can live in a house which has more problems with mould spores which will risk settle on your leather footwear. So you can learn when you have to be extra careful