Blisters, begone, save your soles with tape
“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” said the son of David in Ecclesiastes. When it comes to shoes, he may have had a point. My wardrobe is stuffed with them: flat ones, pointy ones, vertiginously heeled ones. Like most women, I have put them on through all manner of torture in the name of making my feet look pretty. The result, of course, has been far from attractive: wounded ankles, aching arches and worst, blisters.
Now, it seems, these ghastly pustules are facing their nemesis. A team of scientists has come up with the ultimate blister cure: surgical tape. Apparently, when applied to the feet it stops the sores from forming. I am already stocking my handbag. Walkers must find room in their backpacks.
Can the death of the blister really be true? It seems an epoch-making announcement. How many excursions — from marathons to nights at the theatre — have been ruined by their appearance? Is anyone sympathetic? Naturally not. So we sufferers suffer in silence.
No wonder a whole industry has sprang up dedicated to treating blisters. Myriad websites ruminate on how best to prevent them; meanwhile, pharmacists are full of cures: powders, astringents, lubricants and gels. A hiking colleague tells me his blister-prone friend (who gets them so badly he actually names each giant, weeping sore) will do almost anything to toughen up his feet prior to a long hike, from soaking them in vinegar to anointing them with castor oil.
My sister is from that school of thought that contends it’s all in the socks. Her method is to wear a pair of nylons below walking socks (preferably silk-lined), to avoid sweat getting in contact with the skin and minimize rubbing. Other, possibly apocryphal stories, also abound. My grandfather, who served in Burma during the Second World War and fled from the Japanese on a 130-kilometre trek through the jungle, always attributed his escape to his habit of changing out of his boots into bedroom slippers every night, to ease his aching feet and prevent blisters forming and turning gangrenous.
Indeed, ever since we began wearing shoes — some time between 4,000 and 5,000 BC — there has been a trade-off between protection and comfort. The early Pharaohs sandals have saved their tender soles from the burning sand, but those leather thongs between their toes didn’t reduce chafe.
By contrast, the world’s oldest leather shoe, which dates to 2500 BC, was made from a piece of cowhide laced with a cord. It looks beautifully soft, but wouldn’t have shielded the tootsies from thorns.
How far we are prepared to risk the blister has shaped our footwear ever since. The practical spirit drove the development of boots for the military and pattens in the Middle Ages to raise skirt hems above muddy streets. But the passion for fashion resulted in lotus shoes for bound feet in 19th-century China and those tottering Louboutins de nos jours. Sometimes the temptation to decorate goes a little far.
It comes as something of an anticlimax, then, to discover that this dilemma of form and function that has resounded through the ages has found its resolution in a mere roll of tape. Although it does give me carte blanche to add to my collection — no matter how impractical.