Shoe Horn

Shoe Horns

Shoe horns are very useful for people with mobility issues and people with stiff or delicate shoes. They make putting on shoes easy and comfortable.

A shoe horn makes it easier to put on shoes and boots by holding the shoe open and providing a guide for the heel. Its smooth surface helps to slip the foot cleanly into the shoe. While this might seem like extra effort, using a shoe horn can greatly extend the life of your shoe and keep it looking good for longer. Forcing your foot into a shoe crunches the heel counter down and stresses the seams there, which not only damages the heel but also affects the structure of the whole shoe. Shoe horns are especially useful when the shoe is new and hasn’t yet broken in.

Shoe horns aren’t only good for protecting your shoes. They are also very useful for protecting your body. For people with mobility-limiting health conditions like arthritis, bending down to put on shoes can be seriously painful, or even totally impossible. While ordinary shoe horns might still be too short, a long-handled shoe horn can be used to put on your shoes from a more comfortable seated or standing position that requires less hip, knee and ankle mobility. These extra-long shoe horns are also very useful for putting on boots.

Shoe horns have been around since the 15th century at the latest, and they have been made from a number of different materials during that time including ivory, wood and precious metals. They could also be very ornate in their design, which is why vintage shoe accessories like shoe horns are still popular today. Modern shoe horns tend to be made from plastic which makes them light and durable and gives them a nice smooth surface to slide your heel down. Other materials like wood and stainless steel are also available

If you have mobility issues, or just don’t like bending down, there are other shoe horn aids that can help. A sock horn is a bit more complicated than a shoe horn, but makes putting on socks easier in the same way that a shoe horn makes putting on shoes easier. It holds the sock in place and open so that you can slide your foot into it without having to pull it up by hand.