If you’ve ever ventured into work after slipping on a pair of freshly bought and highly-fashionably new shoes, then the experience will most likely have gone a little like this: you dig them out in the morning beaming with happiness at the elegance and beauty of your new purchase, you squeeze your feet in (a little uncomfortable, but after all, they’re new), and you trot out the door full of pride.
That pride probably lasts until about midday. After you have impressed your coworkers and walked around a bit, suddenly your feet are in extreme pain (even though you were sure to have the shoes fitted properly) and you end up changing into something more comfortable – or simply suffering until you make it home!
What have you missed here? Well, let us turn to shoe care experts at ShoeFresh.com, who advise that one weapon every shoe lover should have in their arsenal is a shoe stretcher. Companies producing such products also say that it is lunchtime when their ads are usually the most successful. Why? Because this is halfway through the working day, precisely when the overwhelming need for a shoe stretcher becomes painfully clear.
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What is a Shoe Stretcher?
Well, obviously a shoe stretcher is a device designed to stretch out your shoes and make them fit a bit better. However, you can toss away any ideas of ruining a fancy pair of shoes by forcibly widening them. A shoe stretcher is more a device for setting your shoes into the right shape for your feet. Your feet are not inanimate objects, they are a living part of you and changes in things like bodily water content and physical stress can cause them to change shape throughout the day.
And as it happens, it isn’t that stretching a pair of shoes will damage them, and certainly not an expensive pair of shoes. Far from being more vulnerable to deformation, high quality footwear is designed to be able to mold over time to the shape of your feet. If they cannot do this, then you probably have a pair of low-quality shoes on your hands (or feet). So, don’t worry about wasting good shoes with a shoe stretcher – it is what they are designed for!
Reasons to Get a Stretcher
If you are still not convinced that a shoe stretcher is essential kit for any shoe lover, here are some further reasons why you should invest in a shoe stretcher today:
Your Feet Are an Odd Shape
And by this, we mean that they will be different from any other pair, and it’s impossible to predict the exact shape of any given pair of feet. Feet are not just different sizes, they are different shapes too – there are twenty-six bones, thirty joints, and more than a hundred muscles involved. Your feet are unique!
You Can Break in New Shoes Quicker
Regardless of what kit you have or what shoes you purchase, there will always be a breaking-in period. This period is normally painful. A shoe stretcher cannot eliminate the necessity for this, but it can significantly reduce the time before you feel comfortable in your shoes.
You Have Foot Injuries
Another thing that makes feet so diverse is the that they can have certain injuries that cause an odd shape. And even if the shoes still fit, things like blisters, callouses, bunions, and sore toenails can make even a perfectly fitting pair of shoes uncomfortable. To that end, you are going to want the ability to adjust the shape of your shoes as much as possible.
There is no denying it, a shoe stretcher isn’t a luxury – it’s a pain-avoiding necessity.
