6 Reasons to Stop Buying Him New Socks (and What to Leave by the Shower Instead)

1. It isn't dirt. It's the 10-hour sweat trap.

A pair of feet carries around 250,000 sweat glands and makes roughly half a pint of sweat a day. His spend ten hours a day sealed inside a work shoe, and between the toes that sweat has nowhere to go. It sits there, warm and damp, from the moment he laces up to the moment he gets home.

On its own, sweat barely smells. The trouble starts with the bacteria that live on everyone's skin: they feed on it and break part of it down into isovaleric acid, the compound researchers have traced that sharp, cheesy smell back to. Think of a damp gym towel zipped in a bag all day. By the evening you know exactly what you'll find when you open it.

So the smell is made fresh every day, inside the shoe. Washing more often never quite works, because the wash keeps missing the one place the smell is actually made.

2. Shower gel misses the one place that matters.

Watch anyone shower and you'll see the same thing. The gel goes on the chest, the arms and the hair, then runs down the legs and over the top of the foot on its way to the drain. Hardly anyone bends down and works a lather between each toe.

Yet that narrow gap is exactly where the smell starts. It is the warmest, dampest part of the foot, and the part a closed shoe keeps damp the longest. Rinse the top of the foot and you've washed everything except the problem.

It isn't that he doesn't wash. It's where the wash never goes.

Why everything you've bought so far works on the shoe

Go back to the gym bag. New socks are a fresh bag around the same damp towel. Powder dusts the outside and mostly ends up on the carpet. Shoe spray makes the bag smell nice for an hour. Odour insoles line the bottom of the bag, and they genuinely help a shoe that already smells, but they sit under the foot, not between the toes.

None of them takes the damp out of the towel. That's why each one works for an afternoon and then you're back where you started, buying the next one.

And it adds up. A can of shoe spray is around £4.39 and a pair of odour insoles around £3.99. One can a month and new insoles every four months comes to £64.65 a year spent on the shoe, every year, while the foot never changes.

3. Take away what the smell is made from, and it turns around.

If the smell is made from sweat sitting in the gaps, the answer isn't more perfume on top. It's getting that sweat out of the gaps every day, so the bacteria have nothing left to turn into smell. That is the whole idea behind this orange bar, and it's why it works on the foot rather than the shoe.

It makes a thick, creamy lather meant to be worked between each toe, over the sole and round the heel. Persimmon, the ingredient deodorising soaps are built around, sits alongside green tea and zinc on a gentle coconut, olive and shea base. It is low fragrance on purpose: it washes the odour off instead of covering it up, so nothing is left on the skin masking anything.

Sixty seconds, morning and evening. Rinse, dry properly between the toes, and put on a fresh pair of socks. That's the whole routine.

It kills 99.9% of the bacteria that make the smell.

Here is the part that makes the difference. The smell is made by bacteria breaking down trapped sweat, and this antibacterial foot soap kills 99.9% of them, right in the gaps between the toes where shower gel never reaches.

It is made with Japanese persimmon, green tea and zinc, and it is dermatologically tested, so it is gentle enough for every day. Use it morning and evening and never smell again.

4. It takes 60 seconds of a shower he's already in.

The first time feels a bit odd, because hardly anyone has ever washed between their toes on purpose. The bar makes a thick, creamy lather; he works it into each gap, over the sole and round the heel, rinses, and dries the gaps with the towel. Sixty seconds, and the trap is empty before the shoes go back on.

There's no spray to carry around, no powder on the bedroom carpet and nothing to remember at work. The bar simply sits where the shower gel used to, and he doesn't have to admit to anything either. To anyone else in the house it's just a nice bar of soap by the shower, which is exactly what it is.

1. 1Night 1: the orange bar goes where the shower gel was. 60 seconds between the toes, rinse, dry the gaps.
2. 2Day 3: it's just the soap now. The bar goes back in its pouch to dry between washes.
3. 3Day 7: the first evening you notice you haven't noticed. Shoes off, and nobody reaches for a window.
4. 4Day 60: still sending the shoes out on the step? Email us and get every penny back.

5. Three bars, so it never runs out.

A habit only sticks if the bar is always there. Each bar lasts about 30 days, so the 2 + 1 gives you three months of washing for less than the price of two bars: one in the shower, one for the gym bag or the second bathroom, and one waiting in the cupboard.

The bar goes back into its drying pouch after each wash. Soap left sitting in a puddle turns soft and disappears fast; kept dry, it lasts far longer and is ready for the next morning.

And it isn't only his feet. Teenagers in trainers, kids in school shoes, you in boots all day: everyone in closed shoes sweats into the same gaps. Even feet that don't smell yet are better for being washed and dried properly between the toes.

6. If his shoes still go outside after 60 days, you pay nothing.

Every order comes with the Shoes-Off Guarantee. Use the bar every day for up to 60 days from delivery and see what happens in your hallway.

If the shoes are still going out on the step at the end of it, send us an email and we will refund every penny. You're not taking a chance on another thing that might not work. We are.

How do I give it to him without starting a row?

Don't make it about his feet. Put the bar by the shower and say nothing. It looks like a nice bar of soap, because it is one, and there's a good chance he'll simply start using it.

If he asks, it's the new soap. And if it's your own feet you're buying for, nobody else needs to know.

You can keep buying socks. Or you can fix where it starts.

Every pack you've bought so far has worked on the shoe. This is the first thing that works on the foot. Leave it by the shower tonight and give it 60 days. If the shoes are still going out on the step, you get every penny back, and all you've risked is a bar of soap.

P.S. If you've read this far, the shoes probably went out on the step again last night. Every evening you wait is another one like it. Leave the bar by the shower, and if nothing changes in 60 days, it costs you nothing.