Dennis Hackethal’s Blog

My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.

Simple Way to Get Rid of Smelly Feet

Published · revised · 1-minute read

I'm not a doctor. Talk to one before trying out anything in this article. And if you do try it, do so at your own risk. I may receive a referral bonus if you buy any of the linked products.

Many people get smelly feet, especially if they wear shoes all day. I used to experience the same problem, and I've found a simple way to solve it. (Stuff like Gold Bond powder and shoe sprays never worked well for me.)

First, remove dead skin/calluses from your feet. You can use a pumice stone or something like this. You should only need to do this once. Then, after every shower, put this cream called Cerave Renewing SA Cream on your feet after you dry them off thoroughly. Put it between your toes, on your heels, your soles – everywhere on your feet. It doesn't have to be a large amount, a thin film everywhere should be enough. Then put socks on. I recommend showering right before you go to bed and wearing socks while you sleep – that gives the cream time to be absorbed without any disturbance. Wool socks are ideal because wool wicks moisture (as opposed to cotton, which stores it), so your feet will be less sweaty.

This simple procedure takes only a few seconds, and it has become part of my daily routine. I can now wear the same pair of sneakers for fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, for months on end, and if I smell my shoes, I smell nothing. Not even a hint of anything unpleasant. And I don't even wash them.

I do not exactly know why this approach works, but I guess it's because the combination of old/dead skin + sweat creates foul odors, and by applying this cream regularly, you never have any old skin on your feet. The cream contains something called salicylic acid (that's what the "SA" in the name presumably stands for), and I think this acid removes old skin.

This is all assuming your feet are healthy otherwise – no fungi or anything else that may make your feet smell. I know the cream is expensive, but it's worth it. Again, you don't need to use a large amount, but you do want to use it once a day (though if you skip a day on occasion, it probably won't mess with the results). A dermatologist once recommended the cream to me. Be careful, however, as it makes your skin more susceptible to sunburns. If you wear close-toed shoes, that's not an issue. I understand that an added benefit of using the cream is that your feet become less susceptible to warts.

There's also this variant cream from the same brand. It's specifically for feet, but it's a lot more expensive per ounce, and I don't use it.

I hope this is helpful to some.

What people are saying

I’ve been trying something similar for my armpits. Instead of applying deodorant, I now scrub my armpits with soap using these exfoliating gloves when I shower. After I dry off, I apply Cerave SA cream.

Following this routine, my armpits do not smell. (They didn’t smell when I used deodorant either, but deodorant often made my armpits itchy.)

However, unlike the routine I use for my feet, I need to both scrub and apply the cream. Just doing one or the other does not eliminate odor in my armpits. (For my feet, scrubbing is not necessary.)

I looked a bit into the reason why armpits smell. Wikipedia says:

The human body produces perspiration (sweat) via two types of sweat gland: eccrine sweat glands which cover much of the skin and produce watery odourless sweat, and apocrine sweat glands in the armpits and groin, which produce a more oily "heavy" sweat containing a proportion of waste proteins, fatty acids and carbohydrates, that can be metabolized by bacteria to produce compounds that cause body odor. […]

Human perspiration of all types is largely odorless until its organic components are fermented by bacteria that thrive in hot, humid environments. The human underarm is among the most consistently warm areas on the surface of the human body, and sweat glands readily provide moisture containing a fraction of organic matter, which when excreted, has a vital cooling effect. When adult armpits are washed with alkaline pH soap, the skin loses its protective acid mantle (pH 4.5–6), raising the skin pH and disrupting the skin barrier.[6] Many bacteria are adapted to the slightly alkaline environment within the human body, so they can thrive within this elevated pH environment.[7] This makes the skin more than usually susceptible to bacterial colonization.[7] Bacteria on the skin feed on the waste proteins and fatty acids in the sweat from the apocrine glands and on dead skin and hair cells, releasing trans-3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid in their waste, which is the primary cause of body odor.[8]

In short, certain body odor is caused by bacterial fermentation of waste products contained in sweat. Bacteria feed on those waste products and also on dead skin. The skin has a protective acid mantle but it gets disrupted by some soaps, allowing these bacteria to thrive.

My guess is that the salicylic acid in the Cerave cream combats odor by restoring the requisite acidity levels in both armpits and on feet. Scrubbing helps remove dead skin, further reducing the environment bacteria thrive in.

The Wikipedia article also says that deodorants usually contain alcohol, which temporarily kills bacteria. I’m guessing contact with alcohol can irritate the skin, which is why my armpits get itchy sometimes when I use deodorant. I’ve also tried antiperspirants, but those make my skin even itchier.

Using SA cream to restore the requisite acidity levels seems better to me since it prevents the growth of bacteria in the first place (rather than kill them after the fact) and does not irritate my skin.

The root cause, however, seems to be the disruption of the acidity levels by alkaline soaps. (It’s a bit strange how some companies sell both soap and deodorant.) I will be looking into different kinds of soap to see if that reduces the need to apply deodorant or SA cream.

#3656 · Dennis Hackethal (✓ verified commenter)
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