I’m not usually the sort of person to randomly offer Googled tips, but this particular tip is so useful that I feel obliged to share the whole beauty of it.

The scenario: my darling mother got me a drop-dead gorgeous pair of red suede pumps (after all, a girl could never have enough pairs of red shoes). Problem is: their leather was painfully stiff, blistering my feet as quickly as I say hello (and trust me, my tongue runs at 200kms an hour). For a minute, I thought about giving them away, but then I quickly decided I’d be an absolute idiot to give away such gorgeousness, and that a much better idea would be to equip Google Almighty to find a quick fix.

Naturally, Google gave many tips, including but not limited to:
a) tossing them in the freezer.
b) oiling/waxing them.
c) throwing them in a hot tub of water.
d) peeing in them.
e) putting wet newspapers in them and leaving them over night.
f) soaking their inside with a coat of rubbing alcohol.

I decided to try options b and f, and they seemed to be the most logical. I oiled the insides of one pair (the left pair which was already a lot more comfortable) and soaked a cotton ball with cheap Jordanian rubbing alcohol and stuffed it in the other pair.

Verdict: Forget about oiling shoes, it doesn’t do shit. It just makes them slippery, which I’m betting will make it even easier to get blisters. On the other hand, the alcohol was amazingly successful at doing the job. I let them soak for under 5 minutes, and the right pair is now a lot more comfortable than the initally-more-comfortable left pair. The alcohol both softened the edges and stretched the shoe itself.