A Founder's Story
I Tried 7 Things to Stop My Foot Odor. Only One Worked.
I dealt with foot odor for years. The bad kind. Where you don't want to take your shoes off anywhere. Not even in your own house, ha. I can still hear my sister complaining about the smell back in the day.
So I tried everything at the store. I'm not exaggerating. I'd stand in the foot aisle at Walgreens and read the back of every bottle.
Here's what I bought, and how each one went. Read this before you spend another dime in that aisle.
The popular foot powder
This is the first thing everybody grabs. Gold Bond, Dr. Scholl's, all of them. At first I'd take my time. Put it on my feet, rub it in good like the instructions say, then socks and shoes on. And yeah, my feet felt dry and cool for a bit. But dry isn't the same as no smell. Then I tried just dumping the powder straight in my socks and inside my shoes, like people online said. Faster, but messier, and honestly worse. When you're desperate, you do it anyway. After a few hours that powder turned into a damp paste in my socks and the smell came right back.
The odor spray
Next I went for the sprays. The ones with "odor-fighting" right on the can. Some are for your feet, some for your shoes, some say both. You spray, it smells nice for a bit, then you're right back where you started. I figured out pretty quick it was just covering the smell with scent. Some of them were weird scents too. It was like spraying cologne over it. The second it wore off, there it was again.
If you just want the solution I landed on. Here it is.
See the kit now →The antiperspirant
At some point you read, or somebody tells you, that sweat is the real problem. So I bought the heavy-duty antiperspirants. Certain Dri, SweatBlock. They did cut the sweat down, I'll give them that. But my feet still smelled. I learned that less sweat doesn't mean no smell. It just means less sweat. The smell was still there at the end of the day. And honestly, that stuff stung. Sometimes it straight up burned. I tell people to stay away from these now.
The antifungal
Somewhere in my stinky-feet years I tried the antifungal sprays too. Lotrimin, Tinactin. My mom thought I might have a fungus or athlete's foot, so I gave them a shot. Turns out those only do something if the smell is coming from a fungus. Mine wasn't. My feet looked fine. No itching, no peeling. They just plain smelled. So the antifungal did almost nothing for me.
The charcoal insoles
After trying so many things for my feet, you start to wonder if the problem is even your feet or your shoes. So I grabbed these charcoal insoles. Odor-Eaters. They actually helped for about a week. They did something for the shoes, but my feet were still smelling every day.
The shoe spray
Kiwi, Lumi, the sneaker sprays. Spray it in, let it sit. Not a bad idea on its own. But same as the insoles, I was only cleaning the shoe. The next morning my feet would load it right back up. I honestly couldn't figure out why.
When it finally clicked
During this whole journey to fix this annoying thing, I talked to my uncle Fredy. He's a dermocosmetics specialist. And it clicked. Every single thing I'd tried only handled one side, and it handled it in a mediocre way. The powders, the sprays, the antiperspirant, those were all for my feet. The insoles and the shoe spray, those were for my shoes. Nobody was doing both.
Three big things I learned from my uncle:
- Bacteria is what makes the smell.
- Having some bacteria on your feet is totally normal.
- The big one: foot odor lives in both your feet and your shoes, so you have to hit both.
The two-step product that finally fixed it
After everything I went through, I wanted to make my own thing, with my uncle's help. The goal was simple. First, it had to be easy to put on, so it could become part of your daily routine, the same way you handle the rest of your body. Armpits, teeth, face. Second, it had to hit both your feet and your shoes. And last, the ingredients had to go after the cause of the smell at the source. Bacteria.
So I made a roll-on for my feet and a shoe spray for my shoes. Takes about a minute in the morning and the same at night. Now I don't even think about my feet or my shoes anymore.
Honestly, it feels like a weight got lifted off me. For years I was quietly worried about my feet in every room I walked into. Now I just don't think about it. The relief is real, ha.
The honest comparison
✓ yes · ~ sort of · ✗ no
| What I tried | Feet | Shoes | Stop odor | Easy to use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foot powder | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Odor spray | ✓ | ~ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Antiperspirant | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Antifungal | ✓ | ✗ | ~ | ✓ |
| Charcoal insoles | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Shoe spray | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| The Foot Reset Kit | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |