How to Make a Homemade Shoe Stretcher

Sometimes even when you buy shoes in your size, they just do not fit quite right. Maybe one is perfect but the other is a bit too tight, or they both could use just a little more wiggle room, but not enough to go up a size. There are a variety of ways to stretch your shoes, but if you do not want to deal with literally wearing them into submission, then try a homemade shoe-stretching trick and make those shoes fit perfectly.

Things You'll Need

• Watertight plastic bags
• Dollar store cologne (alcohol is the first ingredient)
• Room in your freezer for the shoes you are stretching

Instructions

1. Spray the inside and the outside of the shoe with the dollar store cologne. This will make the shoe more susceptible to reshaping.

2. Fill two plastic bags with water. Do not fill them completely full, as you need to be able to manipulate them. However, they need to be full enough that they will conform to the shape of your shoe. Once you have filled the bags and sealed them, hold them upside down to make sure that they will not leak.

3. Stuff the plastic bags full of water into the shoes. If they do not fit tightly, then fill them up a little more and try again. The bags should fill the shoes just like your foot would.

4. Freeze the shoes for several days. As the water freezes and expands, it will stretch out the shoes. Once you have thawed out your shoes, you can try them on and see if you need to repeat the process two or three more times.

Tips & Warnings

• Use leather cream on leather shoes to prevent cracking from the stretching process.