Shoe Buyers Survival Training

Have you ever bought a pair of shoes that felt great in the store but at home almost wrecked your feet?

Have you ever bought shoes that you knew didn't fit quite right but you loved them so much you said to yourself, "I'll make these little beauties fit somehow?

If you answered yes to either or both of these questions, then you need......

"SHOE BUYERS SURVIVAL TRAINING".

The first thing that you as a shoe buyer needs to know is how to tell if shoes or boots fit your feet. Fitting shoes to your feet is much easier if you follow one simple rule. Make sure that the widest part of your foot is in the widest part of the shoe!

The widest part of the foot is across the metatarsals, the bones of the feet that correspond to the knuckles of the hand. Many call this wide part "the ball of the foot".

The widest part of the shoe is where the sole of the shoe starts to turn the corner toward the toe. (see diagram)

As long as you have the widest part in the widest part, your arch will fit properly. The only exceptions to this are if you have very long or very short toes. In this case, a shorter or longer shoe may be more comfortable.

(a little shoe history)
You may wonder where shoe sizes came from. Well, as I heard it, in around the 10th century, the King of England decided to standardize all shoe sizes. To do this he placed barleycorns next to this shoe end to end. That number of barleycorns became the standard for all shoes. One size longer was one barleycorn longer and shorter, the same. To this day, a shoe size is one-third of an inch and a half size is half a barleycorn. A barleycorn is one third of an inch long. Later they differentiated between men's and women's shoes. Today, men's shoe sizes are two sizes larger than women's. A men's size eight would be a women's ten.
 

What about finding the correct width?

Most shoes are made on what's called a combination last which means that the width of the shoes is determined by the combination of the width of the front (across the metatarsals)", and the width of the heel in that order. The heel is always two sizes narrower that the front. In most shoes now, they just put 8 ½ N, M, or W. In older shoes you will find the size written like this 8 ½ B/AA The B being the front and AA the heel.

O.K. You bought those great shoes but they don't fit.
Unless they are just way too small, there are things that you can do to alter the fit.

What if the shoes are too tight in the front?

First check if they are your correct size. Remember, your feet can change size several times during your adult life due to changes in the bone and cartilage structure. As you get older, your feet may get a little longer and wider as your arches and metatarsils relax and flatten. Also weight loss or gain affects your foot size.

If you determine that the shoes are the right size but just need a stretch then have them stretched or stretch them yourself. You can buy shoe stretchers easily and you wet the shoes with an alcohol and water solution then stretch them until dry. The alcohol makes the water dry fast so it doesn't stain the leather. If the items are plastic, put the stretcher in the shoes and hold a hair dryer or heat lamp toward it and it will stretch a little. Most stretchers come with attachments to accommodate bunions, corns, hammer toes, etc.

(a shoe buying tip)
Your feet swell and shrink during the course of a day. The best time to shop for shoes is in the early afternoon. They will be a little swollen by then but not as swollen as by the end of the day.
 

What if your big toe hits the top inside of the toe of your shoes?
 

If this happens, it means that the shoes are too shallow in the toe. You can make your big toe ride lower in the front of the shoe by installing a ¼ inch lift in the inside heel portion of the shoe. This tilts your foot just a hair and may give you a more comfortable fit. You should not allow your shoe to rest on your big toes as this can cause damage to the nail, the toe and can give you headaches. My ex-wife suffered from headaches so I checked her shoes. They were a half size too short and inside the toe box rested on her two big toes. When I fitted her into a longer shoe, the headaches vanished.

While we are on the subject of the necessity to wear correct fitting shoes, lets get down to the real nitty gritty. There is a duplicate nerve ending of each nerve in the human body in the bottom of your feet. Therefore, if somewhere on your feet hurts, the nerve ending at that spot corresponds to a nerve ending in some other organ and can affect it. The headache scenario demonstrated it perfectly since the nerves in the big toe correspond to the head. The study of this foot nerve application is called Reflexology. It's pretty amazing stuff.

If your shoes are too big all over or just in the front put in full length foam insoles.

If your shoes are too loose in the heels you can install heel grips found in drug stores.

If your shoes dig into your Achilles tendon, install a ¼ inch lift inside the heel portion. This raises your foot just a little and makes the edge of the heel hit on a different spot than the sore spot. It also snugs up the fit in the heel portion by making the shoe hit a wider part of your calcaneous (heel bone) at a slightly narrower portion of the heel of the shoe.

If your shoes slip up and down in the heel, another trick to improve fit is to install tongue pads under the tongue of the shoe. This forces your heel back into the heel cup of the shoes and will reduce slipping.

MANY THINGS can be done by you to improve fit in your footwear. BUT if you just get them to feel good then there a lot of things that a shoemaker can do to help. After all I can rebuild shoes to accommodate many problems.

Often times people can save a ton of money by getting shoes that almost fit and them having them altered.

O.K. I've rambled on enough for now. I just want to finish with a note about shoe trees.

Every healthy foot excretes ¼ cup of moisture per day. That moisture soaks in the shoes. When you take off your shoes at the end of a day, they are warm and moist.
If you just put them away like this two things will happen. ONE: as the shoes dry, they curl up causing deep wrinkles that soon will become cracks that can't be repaired. TWO: the soles of the shoes will curl up as the leather dries and shrinks causing the shoes to not sit flat causing strain on the feet.

That's all for now. I'll add stuff as I develop the web site. If you need me, contact me.

All the best,

Mac the Cobbler