muddy river rollers - moncton roller derby

I hate admitting this, but my gear stinks.  One night at practice, moments after taking off my skates, one of the most beautiful of our players says "what the f--- is that smell?"  I told her it was my skates.  When she didn't believe me I held them a little closer to her and she said "yup, it's sweat."  I make no excuses for the scent of my gear, only apologies.  At the same time. I'm not the only lady in the locker room whose skates come off smelling less than roses so I thought it would be a good idea to share my gear cleaning journey with you.  I do believe I have tougher than average odours.  I also have a limitation to what I use because I skate bare footed and am sensitive to the chemicals that I will absorb into my system as soon as my feet start to sweat.  

When I first came across this problem it was very minor.  After all, my gear was brand new, and simply airing was enough for it.  It took awhile before we started to search for the dead animal in the house.  Once the culprit was discovered to be my gear bag then it was a simple process of washing gear immediately after practice, including the bag, and leaving it all to air dry.  That lasted for awhile, and then the honeymoon was over.  Sunlight became my newest friend.  I would wash the gear and lay it in the sunshine, including the skates with their laces open as wide as they could go and the tongues hanging out.  Finally, a solution that was simple, and healthy.  As much as I continued to clean my gear though, I also continued to sweat every practice, and I added some gaskets to the mix.  It made matters worse and soon, no matter what I was doing, nothing was getting the smell out.

Then, it was Google to the rescue.  After all, I cannot be the only one with this issue.  I was right.  It's a huge issue, and there are hundreds of solutions.  Among them were all those listed above.  So, I started trying some of the simplest ones.  I found a bottle of Fabreeze™ and sprayed all of my gear  liberally.  I ended up with a migraine the next two practices.  I then filled my skates and coated my pads with baking powder and left them to sit for hours to absorb the smell.  It made no difference.  A few sports products exist on the market to eliminate odours and kill bacteria, and they just don't make a difference, and they also led to migraines.   I tried washing the pads and spraying my skates with three different kinds of vinegar and it made no difference.  Isopropyl alcohol was one of the highest advised products out there to kill athlete odour in its tracks.  It never was up against my gear before because, it made no difference.  I considered bleach at one point, but even if it did kill bacteria, it was going to deteriorate everything at a rapid rate if used consistently.  Somebody recommended Gold Bond Powder.  So again I filled up my skates for hours, vacuumed them dry and put my nose too close to unfortunately discover, you guessed it, no difference.  I even tried vodka (such a sad waste) and the smell was still so bad that my husband thought someone may have vomited in the van after I had skated the PRIDE parade with my teammates.

I had nearly given up though when I jokingly said "maybe gin will work better".  So, after soaking my skates in the laundry tub with a generous portion of gin and a moderate portion of natural laundry detergent, I am proud to admit that my gear finally smells less like roadkill and more like beloved equipment.  I think the essential oils in the detergent might be key too.  It was a matter of finding just the right chemistry for my own body type.  And, I am very grateful, because I was seriously considering investing in all new gear.  Yes, it was that bad.  I think I might market my cleaner and call it Skate Martini®.