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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

How to Put on Heel Protectors

If you’ve just bought your first pair of ballroom shoes and they came with, or you purchased, a pair of heel protectors you’re probably struggling to get them on your shoes. They’re a bitch to get on, but heel protectors work wonders when it comes to extending the life of your dance shoes, and I highly recommend you purchase them. If you don’t already know, a heel protector is a plastic cover that slides over the heel (duh!) to protect your heels from wearing unevenly, which could cause balance issues and significantly decrease the life of your dance shoe. So if you don’t already have heel protectors, go buy a pair and then come back before you rip off your heels trying to get them on.



While it may seem impossible to get the big end of the heel though the tiny heel protector opening, there’s actually a really easy, but bizarre, trick to get them on easily. Breathe on them. First, go ahead and try to stretch out the opening of the heel protector a bit. Then breathe on the opening, pull a bit more, and then slide them over the heel, rounded side first. It sounds so strange, I know, but the heat from your breath warms up the plastic to help it stretch just a little bit more, and the moisture from your breath helps the plastic slide a little easier.

16 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for this advice! Now I finally managed to put them on :D

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  2. Omg thank you for this tip... it worked it really did. .. I thought maybe I ordered the wrong ones. *****

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    1. Glad this helped! Do keep in mind that it's really easy to order the wrong size heel protector, especially considering that you may order a pair of shoes with the exact same heel (Supadance Contour, for example) and the heel tip be a slightly different size, which means you may need a different heel protector. This has been a really frustrating issue I've run into recently, and there will actually be an upcoming post about this. Someone recently told me that International brand sales a Flair heel protector that doesn't even match their Flair heel, which is totally ridiculous. So, if you try and try and it still doesn't fit, it could be that the heel protector is too small. That said, if the heel protector pops on easily, it's probably too big for the heel. I would try this trick a few times before deciding to try a different size heel protector. Also, something I forgot to add to this post is if you get it mostly on, but one of the walls of the heel protector folds inside itself, just wiggle it up and down, don't start over, because usually it will sort itself out if you just move it a bit.

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    2. Genius! Never would have figured this out without your super-helpful advice. Worked like a charm:)

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  3. It was a real struggle to get the cover on my Latin flare heel. Someone told me to put it in warm water for a second. It worked, and slipped on smoothly but now it wiggles up and down as I'm dancing! The place I bought them from said they were the right size. :(

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    1. I've never heard of putting the heel protector into warm water, but I won't say it doesn't work. That said, I would advise against it for a couple of reasons. First, the plastic on a heel protector is pretty thin, so it's possible that if you have the water too warm you could permanently stretch the heel protector, making it too large for the heel. Second, I would worry that excess water could damage the satin of your shoe. That's why breathing on it works well; it's just enough moisture to give it some slip, and the heat from your breath helps you stretch the plastic just a little further, but not too much. That said, the heel protectors may be officially the correct size according to the company, but may not fit your heels for various reasons. Sometimes the company-made protectors just don't fit, other times there is quite a lot of variance between types of heel (for example, two so-called flair heels, even from the same brand, may not always be identical). Personally, if I were you, I would take off the ones that are slipping and replace them - I'm not sure, but I just feel like the wiggling could cause balance issues. Also, like I said to the commenter above, once you get the heel protector fully over one side of the heel (usually the rounded side first, depending on the heel shape) don't worry if the other side folds in on itself; go ahead and push it all the way on, and the just wiggle it up and down until the fold comes out.

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  4. Great tip thanks, the moisture in my warm breath worked and the heel protectors went on to my 7cm plumed latin dance shoe heels - so technical! I had tried to soften them in the micro- wave but only dared to put the timer on to 20 seconds and it didn't work!

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  5. Very good points you wrote here..Great stuff...I think you've made some truly interesting points.Keep up the good work. salsa dancing

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  6. Thank you so much for this. I was really struggling to get my caps on my new shoes.

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  7. My teachers is not a fan of the heel protectors. Is there a way to get them off ? Without ruining them or the shoes? Or must they be cut off?

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  9. My boyfriend put them in hot water for a few seconds and they softened.

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