Your shoes age too!

You bought a good quality pair of shoes, they are cute and comfortable so you want to keep them for as long as you possibly can, right? But in wanting to preserve them for too long, you may actually be helping along their degradation.

As soon as something exists, it’s prone to damage and degradation. Shoes don’t escape this universal law. Living organisms have a self-repair process, but even that will slow down and eventually … well you get the idea. Inanimate objects however don’t possess this ability and will decay over time.

Time ages everything

• Exposition to light with dull colors,

• Storage in closed dark environment will spring up bacteria that eat away at components,

• Exposition to dust will ruin fabric and everything mechanical,

• Air and water corrodes and erodes.

Furthermore stillness, for everything living and non-living alike, will also promote degradation. Take for example, a car; leave it stationary without starting the engine for a couple of months. What do you think will happen? Exactly! There’s a big chance that the engine will seize, corrosion will set in, rubber components will dry out, etc.

Your shoes are made out of different components that are affected differently by use or none use. So even if you store your shoes, they will age!

• Leather, plastic, rubber and the likes will dry up and crack,

• Glues and cements will lose their adhesive properties,

• Polyurethane will disintegrate, quite literally like snow under the spring sun.

• The TR (Thermo Rubber) will dry and crack at the flexion points.

Just because you barely used something, or even haven’t used it at all for years, it doesn't mean that it’s still new. It's actually *old*. Time did its thing, and now whatever the item, its damaged goods. In fact, if you intend on keeping something, you might as well use it. At least then the damage it will endure will be caused by use and it will age better, it’s a preferable option!

My recommendation is: don't keep things around just in case, use them or let them go. If it doesn't make you happy anymore, make someone else happy with it.

by Jasmine