WARNING! Wooden Shoe Trees Damaged My Pairs of Shoes

[ernestgraingergrace]

A cautionary tale and a proposal for a more specific way of using of shoe trees...

I have always loved leather shoes, from when I was a small child and my pairs would only cost 50-100USD, to now when my pairs go higher than 1000USD. When I started buying these expensive shoes, I read about shoe trees and made sure to get wooden ones for each pair of shoes I had.

The trees sure kept the shape of my shoes, six years later and the creasing on the outer leather is minimal, certainly better looking than my last pair of Clark's Bostonians. But the insides of these shoes tell a very different story, almost 50% of my pairs have holes or scratches on the lining at the contact points of the wood and the leather. I first noticed lining damage on a pair of JM Westons, I thought this was because the lining was supple (too supple, maybe) and it couldn't take the roughing up of regular wear.

I have been out of the office for almost a year now and my shoes have been stored in their trees all this time, when I did a check this week, almost half of them had holes. The wooden trees probably made the lining too dry and the act of taking out the trees to try on the shoes further scratched and damaged the lining. I took a look at my cheap pair that had no shoe trees and they were fine.

I am very sad about this, now I am thinking that shoes shouldn't be stored for an extended amount of time with shoe trees inside them. Is it better to remove the shoe trees after a day of drying and afterward simply using the crumpled tissue/paper that came with the shoe box?

I also thought cheaper cedar (relatively) shoe trees from Woodlore were to blame. But lasted shoe trees from the shoe manufacturers themselves also damaged some of my pairs. Is it possible that plastic shoe trees may turn out to be better because it doesn't absorb any/excess moisture from the leather and simply maintains the shape of the shoe while it air dries?

In the future, I don't think I will buy anymore shoe trees, it will save me money and I can simply rotate the ones I have now and use them on freshly used shoes and then remove them a day (or even less time) later. It might be a better idea to only have one pair of trees because most men only wear one pair of leather shoes a day.

In the meantime, I have to find a cobbler to repair the lining of my shoes. And does anyone else share the same problem with their pairs?

 

[Anachronist]

I‘ve seen this in a few of my shoes as well. What I‘ve done is treat my shoe linings every now and then with leather conditioner to keep the leather soft and supple, reducing the risk of abrasion. Part of the problem is the fact that the leather lining is often neglected in shoe care and through sweat and the hydroscopic effect of wooden shoe trees (which is better for the shoe than plastic shoe trees) the lining leather dries out and thereby becomes more susceptible to abrasion. Additionally, you can treat wooden shoe trees with a gentle wood oil to make them smoother... or buy varnished wooden shoe trees.

 

[dieworkwear]

I've never had this happen to any of my shoes, and all of them have shoe trees. I'm also somewhat skeptical of the claims that cedar actually draws out that much moisture.

If I had to guess, I assume the insides of your shoes are wearing out from a combination of sweat and not enough rest between wearings.

 

[Thin White Duke]

I'm also somewhat skeptical of the claims that cedar actually draws out that much moisture.

Me too.

This thing about cedar trees absorbing all the sweat from a day’s wear has been repeated so often it’s now accepted by many as irrefutable fact.

Until someone completes a double blind randomised crossover test in which a significant number of a significant amount of brands of shoes have undergone the exact same amount of wearing by subjects with the same pH in their sweat and the differences in wear, breakdown of linings, wrinkle resistance, odour, etc have been measured and proven to be significantly less for the group of shoes with shoe trees as compared to the control group without, I will remain skeptical!

But the shoes do look nice lined up in the cupboard with their trees in, eh?

 

[ernestgraingergrace]

I have been moisturizing the inside of the shoes and I also have shoe trees from some of the manufacturers (lasted and smooth as opposed to plain cedar trees) and the shoes still have worn linings.

Since dieworkwear mentioned it, it just might be my "corrosive" sweat because the inside of my watch straps are also worn more than the average guy's, even the handles of my ST Dupont briefcase are damaged. On the subject of not enough rest, it actually affected those pairs that I don't wear often (rested for months).

 

[ernestgraingergrace]

Interesting. I have never seen damage to the linings on my shoes from using shoe trees. I tend to leave my trees in the shoes whenever the shoes are not on my feet.

Are your trees particularly close fitting? Are you having to force the trees in?

Me too.

This thing about cedar trees absorbing all the sweat from a day’s wear has been repeated so often it’s now accepted by many as irrefutable fact.

Until someone completes a double blind randomised crossover test in which a significant number of a significant amount of brands of shoes have undergone the exact same amount of wearing by subjects with the same pH in their sweat and the differences in wear, breakdown of linings, wrinkle resistance, odour, etc have been measured and proven to be significantly less for the group of shoes with shoe trees as compared to the control group without, I will remain skeptical!

But the shoes do look nice lined up in the cupboard with their trees in, eh?

as a man of science, I was also looking forward to a proper study on the moisture-wicking properties of cedar trees, although that subject may be moot for me because I am trying to avoid/ minimize the use of shoe trees until I find out how to stop damaging my shoes.

and yes, they do look better with trees.

 

[ernestgraingergrace]

UPDATE: These are the five types of trees I have, and having looked closely at my shoes, sadly all of them have holes or scuffs on the lining, even my newest pair of boots that I bought last Christmas.

 

[norMD]

I find the supposed effect on moisture by shoe trees a bit exaggerated. I will try to explain what I think.

In the morning the shoe and shoe tree will have the same level of moisture decided by the humidity in your wardrobe. In the after noon the shoe is more moist and the shoe tree is the same as it was in the morning. Thus moisture will move from the leather to the shoe tree. After some time the leather and shoe tree will be in equillibrium moisture wise. And then the humidity in your wardrobe will decide how fast the combined mass of shoe and shoe tree dries and becomes in level with the humidity in your wardrobe. Thus i think a shoe tree slows down the drying process unless you remove the shoe tree after a couple of hours.

The comparison is if you have a really wet pair of shoes and stuff them with newspapers. If you dont remove the paper after a couple of hours both shoes and paper will be equally moist the next morning.

If cedar shoes trees are able to extract moisture from leather below a equillibrium it has contain some substance that affect osmosis, like a salt. And I dont think that is the case.

My 2 cents..

 

[dieworkwear]

I have been moisturizing the inside of the shoes and I also have shoe trees from some of the manufacturers (lasted and smooth as opposed to plain cedar trees) and the shoes still have worn linings.

Since dieworkwear mentioned it, it just might be my "corrosive" sweat because the inside of my watch straps are also worn more than the average guy's, even the handles of my ST Dupont briefcase are damaged. On the subject of not enough rest, it actually affected those pairs that I don't wear often (rested for months).

Leather basically breaks down with moisture and constant bending, kind of like wet cardboard. I've only ever had one pair of shoes break down in the way you describe, which was a pair of leather moccasins. I used to wear them around the house, even after I got out of the shower. And while I dried my feet off, I suppose the leftover moisture probably ruined the leather. If you looked inside, it would look like the lining dried out, but I've never put cedar shoe trees in them (obviously, since they're home moccasins). It's just the effect of leather wearing down and darkening around the thinned-out edges.

I don't know what to say if you've had this happen on shoes that get a lot of rest. The rule of thumb is to give shoes at least a day of rest in between each wearing, but if you're already doing that, you may just sweat a little more than most people.

That said, I have dozens and dozens of shoes, all with cedar shoes trees. They've sat like that for over a decade, some maybe fifteen years. None of them have any issues with the lining. Bespoke shoemakers also commonly store shoes with cedar shoe trees. I've gone to trunk shows where I'd guess the samples were made sometime in the 1950s or 60s. All of the shoes seem fine.

 

[Anachronist]

No, I‘m afraid he’s right. I, for example, never wear any pair of shoes more than a day at a time and they all rest with shoe trees. I have noticed the same abrasions in few (thankfully not all) of my shoes’ heel linings. I have also suspected potentially lower leather quality as a reason, but it is definitely the shoe trees causing this

 

[ernestgraingergrace]

It was a cold night last night, and since I had a large pile of wooden trees on my floor last night, it was tempting to build a campfire.

 

[dieworkwear]

No, I‘m afraid he’s right. I, for example, never wear any pair of shoes more than a day at a time and they all rest with shoe trees. I have noticed the same abrasions in few (thankfully not all) of my shoes’ heel linings. I have also suspected potentially lower leather quality as a reason, but it is definitely the shoe trees causing this

If one factor in an equation is constant throughout various samples, but the results are different, wouldn't that suggest that the causal variable is something other than the constant?

Meaning, if you have multiple samples, such that

A + B + C + D = ruined lining
A + E + F + G = non-ruined lining

Wouldn't that suggest to you that the causal variable is something other than A?

 

[Anachronist]

That would assume that all shoes’ heel caps are identical ;-)

No, maybe I was not precise enough in my description: I believe that shoe trees not designed specially for the shoes may be the reason, so the shoe trees remain the culprit. I once purchased a quantity of Bexley cedar shoe trees that I use for all my shoes apart from my treasured Edward Greens that have EG lasted shoe trees. As you would suspect, the impacted shoes are from ”bexleyed” bunch

 

[zewill]

An interesting thread like this without pictures is sad. Instead of the only pictures being of shoe trees (useless), can anyone post a pic of the damage?
Appreciated!

 

[Clifff]

Me too.

This thing about cedar trees absorbing all the sweat from a day’s wear has been repeated so often it’s now accepted by many as irrefutable fact.

Until someone completes a double blind randomised crossover test in which a significant number of a significant amount of brands of shoes have undergone the exact same amount of wearing by subjects with the same pH in their sweat and the differences in wear, breakdown of linings, wrinkle resistance, odour, etc have been measured and proven to be significantly less for the group of shoes with shoe trees as compared to the control group without, I will remain skeptical!

But the shoes do look nice lined up in the cupboard with their trees in, eh?

So you wanna a half million dollar study to prove to you that wood is hygroscopic??? ?