Most trainers survive about four machine washes.
Then something gives. Usually the glue. Sometimes the drum.
Nobody tells you this, because nobody counts.
Standing in front of the machine holding a pair of trainers, most people in Britain have the same thought.
Not will this ruin my trainers.
Will this ruin my washing machine.
You are not being precious. That is the right question, and almost nobody answers it.
Here is what one person in the UK paid to find out.
The £180 trainers looked lovely afterwards. I was less happy about the £85 necessary to get somebody in to replace the £49 drum seal where one of them wriggled free of the towels and tore it in half.
£134.
Plus the launderette while he waited for the part.
He was not careless. He did what everyone recommends. He packed the drum with towels.
The trade is blunter about it than we would be:
The number one cause is people washing trainers and suchlike in their washing machine. Most manufacturers will tell you that they make clothes washers, not shoe washers.
It is not the water. Trainers get rained on.
It is not the detergent, as long as you keep the temperature down.
It is the slam.
Loose in there, that shoe is not being washed. It is being thrown, against the paddles, the seal and the glass, several thousand times per cycle.
The sole separates at the toe, or the heel collapses, or the cushioning never comes back. Four or five cycles is where most trainers stop looking like themselves.
One shoe per bag. Not to sell you two. Because one shoe is the weight the padding can actually absorb, and two is the weight that breaks paddles.
Padding, not mesh. The bag is built to take the hit instead of passing it on. That is the difference between a bag that protects your machine and a bag that just holds your laces.
And a separate pocket for the insole.
That last one takes a sentence to explain and it is the part nobody else has.
Pull the insole out of a shoe you have worn for a year and look at it. It is absorbent, it never dries fully, and most people have never once washed it.
the smelly foot sweat and gunk for which I am washing my shoes is mostly collected on the insole, and you tell me don't actually wash that
Nike, ASICS and Merrell all say the same thing in their own care guides. Merrell puts it in one line. Remove the sock-liner or insole and wash it separately.
Every other bag makes you choose. This one has a pocket.
Loose in the drum, four or five washes.
Held still, at thirty degrees, in a padded bag, with the insole washed separately: thirty and counting.
Same shoes. Same machine. The only thing that changed is whether the shoe was allowed to move.
There are mesh bags on the high street for under a tenner. Brabantia do a good one for £9.50 and we would not pretend otherwise. What they do not have is padding, one shoe per bag, or anywhere to put the insole.
The comparison that matters is not the bag. It is the pair of trainers.
A professional trainer clean in the UK runs £25 to £50. Per pair. Once. This is £40 for two bags, and you keep them.
If it does not work on your shoes, send it back within 365 days.
We would rather you tested it than believed us.
Save your shoes.
Loose in the drum, a trainer gets about four or five goes. Held still, it gets as many as you want to give it.
Wash your shoes for a year. If they are not better for it, send the bags back and we refund you.
Two bags, £40. A professional trainer clean is £25 to £50. Per pair. Once.
One shoe per bag, padded walls. The bag takes the hit instead of your machine.
A pocket for the insole. Nobody else has it.