How to Safely Stretch Your Shoes

You know how it is when you are shopping and you see a great pair of shoes to try on, then buy them and take them home only to discover to your dismay that they are nowhere as comfortable in fit as you thought when you tried them on in the store, instead finding they are too tight. Don't worry that you must now return the shoes to the store as there are several easy ways to turn those shoes from being too tight to being wonderfully comfortable.

Investing in an inexpensive pair of wooden shoe stretchers, which you can even locate on line, is probably the most obvious solution. Remember that you will buy the stretchers in your own foot size so they can be used again and again for the rest of your life, and they only usually cost under $30.

Over just a few days, your wooden shoe stretcher will gently work to make your shoes just a bit more comfy, and all you have to do to get started is insert them into the shoes or boots.

Of course you won't want to over stretch the leather as, just like our skin, it will not shrink back to a smaller size if it is pulled too far. The difficulty you have fitting the stretcher into the shoe will be a good indication of how much stretching will be necessary to reach the proper fit for your feet.

There are also shoe stretcher sprays available to purchase which can be used along with the wooden shoe stretchers to adjust your footwear to your size, an alternate remedy to the problem. When the wooden stretchers have been placed in the shoe, this alcohol based spray is applied and makes the process easier as it loosens up the leather a bit, then dries quickly.

You will then be able to put your shoes on without waiting too long for them to dry and avoid staining the leather as you might if you used water. Since the shoe might be too tight in just one area, these sprays work well to treat particular parts of the footwear.

These sprays, which can be purchased at an inexpensive price on the internet, come in small and convenient spray bottles and can be used with the wooden shoes stretchers or on their own.