How to Maintain and Repair Vibram FiveFingers

Vibrams require a bit of care com­pared to reg­u­lar shoes given their spe­cial nature.  Wear­ing shoes with­out socks can lead to very strange things such as blis­ters and really smelly shoes.  For­tu­nately, I’ve got­ten an awe­some sys­tem down to pre­vent those things so I could wear them every day with total con­fi­dence.  I’ve been wear­ing the same pair of Vibram Five Fin­ger KSO’s daily since August 2010, so it’s been about 8 months already as I’m writ­ing this.

If you are curi­ous as to what these shoes are in the first place and what they are good for, read up on my pre­vi­ous post: Why Wear Vibrams? I get asked the same ques­tions over and over when I go out and so I thought it would be infor­ma­tive if I shared my answers to the world in that article.

Ease into them for the first month.

For the first cou­ple months that you start wear­ing them, my best advice would be to take your time if you want to run or jog in them.  Your calves and arches have prob­a­bly been babied for decades!  Run for just a mile or two the first cou­ple times and grad­u­ally increase the dis­tance.  Really make a point of eas­ing into them grad­u­ally if you want to run.

Lis­ten to your feet. My calves got ridicu­lously sore the first dozen times I ran in them and the fric­tion between the shoe and my bare skin caused a blis­ter to develop around my big toe.   That felt like moons ago already because blis­ters don’t hap­pen any­more but I remem­ber that adjust­ment period.

I’ve per­son­ally never felt pain in my arches but I’ve had a cou­ple friends tell me their arches were in pain for the few first weeks when they walked a lot in them.  So any­thing is pos­si­ble dur­ing the trans­for­ma­tion process.  If you feel strange pain while run­ning, take those sig­nals seri­ously, stop what you’re doing and don’t make mat­ters worse.  Tomor­row is always another day.

Solve every­thing by using foot pow­der and wash them every 2–4 weeks.

Since we don’t wear socks with the Vibrams, mois­ture can build up eas­ily inside them mak­ing it per­fect for bac­te­ria to grow and make your shoes smell awful when you take them off.  There have been a hun­dred poten­tial solu­tions sug­gested for solv­ing this issue.  I’ll admit I have tried a few absurd things myself, but luck­ily I have dis­cov­ered that every­thing is eas­ily solved with med­icated foot powder.

About every other day or so, I put some med­icated foot pow­der inside the shoe.  It helps absorbs mois­ture so my feet stay dry, reduces fric­tion so blis­ters won’t occur and reduces odor-causing bac­te­ria.  I just put some foot pow­der in the heel, then tip it down so it goes in the toe-section as well.  No need to put it directly on my feet.

I’ve tried sev­eral dif­fer­ent brands and they all seem to achieve the same result.  My local 99¢ Only Store sells a generic brand and it seems to be iden­ti­cal to the $6 Gold Bond pow­der found in the supermarkets.

Next, I throw them in the wash­ing machine once every 2–4 weeks and put them under direct sun­light to dry.  Sun­light nat­u­rally dis­in­fects and kills bac­te­ria due to the expo­sure of UV rays.  I try to angle it in such a way that the inside of the shoe gets as much direct sun­light as pos­si­ble and it really works great!

Warn­ing: If you have the KSO Trek, Per­forma, MOC, or any other model that is made of leather, the com­pany rec­om­mends you refrain from dry­ing them under direct sun­light as the leather may shrink.

Keep your feet clean like the rest of your body.

I believe it’s very impor­tant for us prac­tice good foot hygiene.  I take good care of my feet in the shower.  I give my feet the atten­tion they need and they love me for it.  I rub between my toes, the top of my foot and around my ankles to remove any build up of dirt or dead skin.  I also love using a pumice stone in the shower against the bot­tom of my feet to clean off the dead skin.  It not only feels really good but is impor­tant to main­tain healthy feet.  Make sure you dry your feet and in between your toes after you get out of the shower as well.

In case some­thing rips, use this mag­i­cal prod­uct called Shoe-Goo.

Just in case you get a bit adven­tur­ous and tear the fab­ric or the thin rub­ber sole, there’s a fan­tas­tic prod­uct called Shoe-Goo that is per­fect for repair­ing them.  You could find them in most super­mar­kets and one bot­tle will be good enough for sev­eral pairs.  It’s a bit messy to use and a lit­tle bit goes a long way so use some­thing thin like a tooth­pick to apply it.  Then it’s impor­tant to let it cure for at least 8–12 hours.  I ripped a small part of the sole while climb­ing a chain-link fence and repaired them to be good as new! Hint: Don’t climb chain-link fences with these shoes. :p

Quick tip if it’s very cold out­side: Put them in your gas oven. (DON’T turn on your oven!)

If you have a gas oven, chances are that it’s fairly warm in there (~80°F) cause the pilot is on 24/7.   If it’s very cold out­side, I will throw my Vibrams in the oven and when I’m ready to leave, the shoes will feel nice and toasty, rather than cold and uncom­fort­able.  Note that I’m NOT turn­ing on the oven, I’m just putting it in there with the gas off oth­er­wise the rub­ber sole would start melt­ing in a minute.

Well I hope that was help­ful!  What did you think of it?  Are there some tips you would like to share as well?  Please do! And enjoy your shoes

Explor­ing nature with my Vibrams

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1. Why Wear Vibrams?
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