How To Break In New Shoes During The Summer, Because No One Wants Blisters On Holiday

How To Break In New Shoes During The Summer, Because No One Wants Blisters On Holiday - Bustle

How To Break In New Shoes During The Summer, Because No One Wants Blisters On Holiday - Bustle
Rare Nike 'Moon Shoe' goes up for auction - UPI News
Bloom's Mission to Turn Toxic Algae into Shoes - Outside
One of Our Favorite Running Brands Just Made Hiking Shoes We'll Wear Every Day - Gear Patrol

How To Break In New Shoes During The Summer, Because No One Wants Blisters On Holiday - Bustle

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 10:00 PM PDT

New shoes come with both benefits and drawbacks. The plus side is obviously the new factor. The downside, however, is the potential pain that fresh footwear brings. In the summer, sweat can quickly form, resulting in blisters galore and a hobbled gait. Giving your feet time to get used to new sandals, trainers, and heels can help somewhat. But there are other tried and tested methods of breaking in new shoes during the summer.

Unfortunately, most of us are not like the Queen. According to the Evening Standard, she has someone to break in new shoes for her. "The Queen can never say 'I'm uncomfortable, I can't walk any more.' She has the right to have someone wear them in," her wardrobe designer, Stuart Parvin, told the paper.

You may not have that right, but you do have the right to keep your feet in tip-top condition. And that involves a little prior research. Before you even enter your card details at the shoe store checkout, consider what you're purchasing. Can your footwear fold in half? If so, it's probably a little too flimsy. In fact, you may as well wear no shoes at all as you aren't properly supporting the arch of your foot.

"The arch helps you absorb stress as you walk," foot and ankle surgeon Dr. Ken Jung explained to Reader's Digest. "If flip-flops or sandals are not providing adequate arch support, your foot will fatigue faster. You'll feel sore as you rely on tendons that help support the arch." It's also a good idea to look for relatively thick soles and straps that are wide, soft, and lay on non-bony parts of your foot.

Once you've found shoes that are less likely to harm your feet over time, you can start breaking them in. Here's how.

Plan ahead

Woman putting on shoes indoors, closeup. Stylish hallway interior

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If you've bought shoes for a specific occasion, try not to wear them for the first time on the day. Instead, wear them at home for an hour or so every evening or during your lunch break at work. Allowing your foot to get used to the feel and fit of a new shoe gives the skin a chance to "develop a bit of a defence," dermatologist Dr. Alicia Barba told Vogue. It will also let the shoe "mould to the foot."

Wearing new shoes little and often also has another benefit. An hour here and there will show you exactly which parts of the shoe are hurting and which parts of your foot you need to focus on.

Stretch the shoe

There are a couple of shoe-stretching techniques to consider. The main one involves heat and a pair of socks. Now, wearing shoes with socks may be difficult if you're looking to break in sandals, but try it anyway. Once the shoes are on, grab a hairdryer and gently heat the shoes all round. This will relax the material a little while the socks do some magic stretching.

Alternatively, you can try the cold method. (Bear in mind this may not work for sandals, but using your fingers to gently stretch the fabric might.) Place freezer bags full of water inside the shoes and leave in the freezer for a few hours, or until frozen. Then allow the water to defrost and a stretched shoe to appear.

Sometimes, even buffing the sole of your shoe with sandpaper can help. This is especially useful if your new shoes are slippery as it'll stop your feet having to make all the effort to remain upright.

Prepare your skin

Female with plastered heel on wooden floor, closeup view. Space for text

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Your feet may also need some preparation. Ensure you're armed with plasters, blister cushions, and surgical tape to stick on places that may prove painful. Between the first and second toes is often a good place to support. As Footwear News reports, when wearing heels, you can even tape your third and fourth toe together to avoid putting pressure on a particular nerve.

"The most common nerve that gets irritated is the one that sits between the third and fourth toes, mainly because the toes spread apart when the tissues enlarge," podiatrist Joan Oloff told the site. "Because of this, taping one's toes can remove some pressure from the nerve and inflamed tissues."

The toes aren't the only place to pay attention to. Blisters often pop up around the heel of the foot. To reduce friction between the shoe and your feet, apply Vaseline to any areas that might be affected. A spray of deodorant can also stop blisters, podiatrist Heidi Meckler told Cosmopolitan.

So there you have it: a quick and easy guide to breaking in any new pair of shoes. Not every technique will work for every shoe. But take things slow and figure out what works for you.

Rare Nike 'Moon Shoe' goes up for auction - UPI News

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 03:17 PM PDT

July 22 (UPI) -- Sotheby's sold 99 pairs of rare sneakers in a private sale before a planned auction Monday, leaving "one of the most significant" pairs of shoes as the sole item up for bid in the auction house's Stadium Goods sale.

The 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat "Moon Shoe" was open for bidding through 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The pair is one of 12 created by the sporting goods brand and the only one to be in unworn condition.

Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman designed the "Moon Shoe" with its waffle-patterned sole after testing the unique pattern by melting rubber on his wife's waffle iron. Runners wore the shoes at the 1972 Olympic trials.

Sotheby's displayed the "Moon Shoe" as part of a 100-sneaker collection, which includes a variety of rare Air Jordans, an Adidas collaboration between Chanel and singer Pharrell Williams, and a pair of Nike Mags inspired by the self-lacing shoes won by Marty McFly in Back to the Future II.

Collector Miles Nadal purchased the other 99 shoes for $850,000, and offered to buy the "Moon Shoes," but the seller preferred to keep the "Moon Shoe" available for public auction. Nadal said he plans to display the collection in his private museum in Toronto.

"It's clear from Mr. Nadal's comprehensive collection of iconic cars that he is someone with a strong interest in items of the highest standard of design and quality," said Noah Wunsch, Sotheby's global head of eCommerce.

"Stadium Goods has been an exceptional partner throughout this process, and their curated selection of the finest sneakers ever produced has proven to be an irresistible offering."

Bloom's Mission to Turn Toxic Algae into Shoes - Outside

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 01:00 AM PDT

On a morning in November 2017, while the residents of Lakeland, Florida, headed off to work, a small team of engineers parked what looked like an enormous lava lamp on the banks of Lake Bonnet. The ten-by-eight-foot water tank sat on a trailer fitted with a generator-powered pump. As the trailer gurgled to life, a hose pumped a swirling stream of green, algae-choked water into the tank.

Like many Florida waters, Lake Bonnet had become overrun with plant slime. In fact, all 50 states and many countries worldwide are struggling with epidemic levels of algae that can prove toxic to people and ecosystems. "Red tides" of algae along Florida's Gulf Coast have killed tons of fish and marine mammals. Chinese lakes have turned into electric-green sludge. Beaches in Southern California are also experiencing explosions of algae and its related toxins: domoic acid and microsystin are among the algae-produced poisons that can kill off wildlife and cause illness in humans. Gulping it, swimming in it, or inhaling it (via sea mist) causes vomiting and diarrhea; extended contact can lead to cancer and liver failure. In Florida, lifeguards have reported higher incidence of respiratory illness, and many marina workers have taken to wearing air masks.

Battling the algae hasn't been easy or practical, but at Lake Bonnet, engineers from a multinational firm called Aecom tested a brand-new technology that they think just might offer a solution to the global algae crisis. The water tank filters algae from water and then turns it into plastic foam like the kind used by footwear companies to make billions of pairs of shoes each year.

That cushiony underfoot feeling you get from running shoes, sneakers, and hiking boots? It's typically provided by ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, which is made from toxic petrochemicals. But a handful of outdoor footwear companies, such as Bogs and Altra, in conjunction with Aecom, have begun making shoes with an EVA-algae-based hybrid called Bloom. As this new material gains traction, algae could help clean up an industry that's notorious for harmful environmental impacts. You might start thanking algae for that spring in your step—and you might see cleaner waterways.

"It's pretty amazing to watch," says Laurie Smith, lakes and stormwater manager for the City of Lakeland. Smith and a number of other Florida water specialists attended the Lake Bonnet test to learn about the process and evaluate its potential for their districts. She witnessed how a pump drew water via a hose into the tank, where the slimy water mixed with a coagulant that caused the algae to clump together. (The tank can run from one location on the shore, although it's set up on a portable trailer that can be easily relocated.) Then, air bubbles were pumped into the water. As they rose, they carried the algae to the tank's surface, where it floated like foamed milk on a cappuccino. Engineers skimmed off the clumped algae, and a stream of crystal-clear water poured back into the lake.

The system processed 125 to 175 gallons of lake water per minute and netted more than 300 pounds of algae in just one day.

"That's an incredible amount of algae," Smith says. "With most water-quality projects, we don't see immediate impacts. But with this, we saw pollution coming out and clean water going back in, which is amazing. I'm very hopeful that as this technology gets refined, it could present a real solution [to the algae epidemic]."

Algae isn't like an oil spill, which introduces foreign chemicals to waterways. The tiny, free-floating plants naturally occur in both marine and freshwater environments, and they occasionally explode to pestilential levels. In recent years, those blooms have become bigger, more frequent, and longer lasting. Climate change may be a factor: the earth's water temperatures are creeping up. Plus, nitrogen and phosphorus—naturally present in most waterways—are now appearing at unprecedented levels in many lakes and coastlines. Rainwater flushes the nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich fertilizers from our lawns and farms into watersheds, where they stimulate algae production.

Turns out, overstimulated algae can cause big problems for communities and the waters they rely on. For four days in August 2014, some 500,000 residents of Toledo, Ohio, couldn't drink or even shower with their tap water because of an algae bloom in Lake Erie. In July 2018, Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in seven South Florida counties after Lake Okeechobee became a cesspool of photosynthesizing microorganisms. Algae covered 90 percent of the lake's 730 square miles and crippled the many businesses that rely on Okeechobee's tourism and outdoor recreation for most of midsummer. Plus, these blooms stink like rotting food. So although "attack of the green slime" may sound like a C-grade horror movie, in some areas, the crisis is real.

So far, the available remedies have proven to be inadequate, impractical, or both. Adding copper sulfate or alum to the water causes a quick die-off, but the chemicals also kill fish. And they don't remove the algae itself, so the phosphorus and nitrogen embedded in the cell walls of algae persist in the waterway and make subsequent blooms more likely, because algae feeds off phosphorus and nitrogen. Dredging removes the offending nutrients but is wildly expensive—about $6 million for an 80-acre lake, Smith says—and there's no good way to dispose of the dredged gunk. Other proposals include building stormwater reservoirs where pollutants can settle before the (slightly cleaner) water is allowed to rejoin streams and lakes. But such systems are also expensive—in Florida, just buying the required land is likely to top $1 billion—and the environmental payoff isn't proven.

Then, in 2014, a surfer and inventor named Rob Falken began investigating a novel solution to the algae problem. With a background in materials development and a passion for sustainability, Falken thought algae's high protein content could allow the plants to stand in for petroleum in the production of certain plastics, like the foam used to make yoga mats and springy soles.

He connected with Algix, a company that had developed a small-scale method for vacuuming slime out of catfish farms. Algix provided Falken with some algae, and after a month of experimentation, he developed a recipe for plant-based foam: pulverize solar-dried algae into powder, turn that into a pellet, then injection-mold those pellets into sheets of flexible bioplastic. With that formula, roughly half algae, half EVA by weight, Algix and Falken partnered to form Bloom in 2015.

Bloom's small-scale production of algae-based foam initially attracted boutique brands making niche products. Vivobarefoot used it to make an amphibious sneaker. Kelly Slater applied Bloom traction pads to his Slater Designs surfboards. The algae was collected from China's Lake Taihu, which is even larger than Lake Okechobee and provided millions of pounds of biomass.

But to supply the biggest gear brands, Bloom would need to hoover up even more green goop. So, in 2016, the company partnered with Aecom, a global engineering firm that builds and operates massive infrastructure projects like wind farms, bridges, and New York's One World Trade Center. The partnership emboldened some areas in the United States to give algae sucking a try. In the summer of 2018, Aecom executed its first official algae-removal projects in North Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Lee County, Florida.

And now one of footwear's biggest players is knocking on Bloom's door. Adidas confirmed that it's currently testing Bloom foam for potential use in future products.

Already, some 15 outdoor brands are using Bloom in items ranging from shoes to stand-up paddleboards. (Surftech uses Bloom for its deck pads.) This past spring, Bogs slid Bloom footbeds into its shoes and boots, and Altra built Bloom into its new line of casual kicks. Saola, a sustainably made sneaker company, debuted its first-ever line last fall with Bloom insoles and outsoles.

"Bloom is just a cleaner, better material," says Guillaume Linossier, founder of Saola. "And its production results in cleaner waterways. To me, it's a double benefit."

Plus, says Golden Harper, founder of Altra, Bloom is crazy comfortable. "That slip-on feel is so key, because how [a shoe] feels when you try it on makes a big impact on how it will sell," Harper says. "It doesn't do you any good to build something that's sustainable but isn't comfortable, because people won't buy it."

But just how well Bloom sells remains to be seen.

You'd think EVA foam would be an easy target for a takedown. Made from nonrenewable petrochemicals, it's technically recyclable, though in practice, that's rarely done. Instead, it's trashed—and as EVA decomposes, it releases volatile organic compounds that pollute air and water.

So, although EVA may be a devil, it's the devil footwear companies already know. And that makes it a tough incumbent to unseat, despite the algae foam's environmental advantages, which are compelling.

Bloom hired a third-party consulting firm called Earth Shift to assess its foam's environmental impact from creation to afterlife. The analysis found that Bloom, with its algae-EVA blend, was 20 to 41 percent less environmentally harmful than pure EVA. That's despite the fact that Bloom isn't currently recyclable. (Bloom isn't recyclable for the same reason standard EVA foam isn't recyclable: it can't be melted and reprocessed into new material.)

But Bloom probably costs more than straight EVA, and just how much more is still being determined. "It's a little too early to know," Linossier admits. "We think it will be a little more expensive, but not a lot, because the raw material doesn't cost anything," he explains.

But even a few pennies' difference could deter mass-market brands from switching, says Andy Polk, senior vice president of Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. "Americans buy a lot of basic $20 to $40 footwear," he says. "And can Bloom compete with EVA foam costs in lower price-point shoes?" he asks. If it can't, Bloom is likely to remain in the realm of $80 to $100 shoes made by companies that want to impress customers with their innovation and sustainability. "Bloom may not work for every product," Polk admits, "but I think it can find a good niche in the footwear marketplace as long as the material stands up to what the shoe is designed to do: deliver breathability, flexibility, comfort, stability, et cetera."

Even if Bloom doesn't win over the mainstream Famous Footwear labels, it still stands to make a measurable impact on the overall shoe industry. Cleaning up even a fraction of the 23 billion pairs worldwide that the industry produces every year could make this category less oil dependent.

And Bloom's influence seems likely to spread beyond shoes to yoga mats and other products that currently rely on EVA. (Tentree floated a backpack that uses Bloom on Kickstarter.) "I do think [Bloom] will become fairly omnipresent," says Altra's Harper. "A lot of companies want to be sustainable, and this is comparable [to EVA] in cost and comfort, so it's not giving brands a lot of excuses not to use it."

Plus, says Smith, turning a pestilential natural substance into a high-demand commercial material is "truly in the spirit of recycling."

If Aecom's algae filtration proves to be less expensive than dredging, Smith could clean her area's waterways and save taxpayers' money. "We want good water quality, but we live and die by cost benefit, so I can't tell you how impressed I was by the pilot project I saw," she says. Panaceas are rare in water restoration work, but even if this is just one tool in the shed, says Smith, "I'm hoping it could be a super-duper tool."

Lead Photo: Maggie Chiang

One of Our Favorite Running Brands Just Made Hiking Shoes We'll Wear Every Day - Gear Patrol

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 10:48 AM PDT

Altra running shoes don't usually win points for style. Their unique shape and construction makes them chunky, and they typically come with all sorts of clashing hits of color. They win other things though, like awards from publications such as Runner's World and Competitor Magazine, not to mention long-distance endurance races around the world. When it comes to looks, the company's new hiking shoes are a different story, though.

Released earlier this month, the Grafton and the Wahweap represent Altra's first take on multi-purpose, low-cut hiking shoes. Approach shoes — lightweight yet rugged footwear typically used by rock climbers during long treks to a wall — directly inspired the creation of both new styles. The Grafton is the more rugged of the two, with the Wahweap angling slightly more for versatility and everyday use around town. Altra built the former with a suede leather upper and a sticky Vibram rubber outsole, and the latter with a hemp canvas upper and outsole that's not too technical for surfaces that aren't craggy rock.

Both of the new shoes are understated in appearance, with retro callouts to early outdoor footwear that aren't so overt as to draw all attention downwards (think zig-zag stitching, not nineties pink and turquoise). That's a good thing; if you're going to wear hiking shoes every day, they had better look good anywhere.