It’s a real bummer when your shoe soles break down and crash just after you have used them for a while. If you are looking for the best ways to protect and maintain the soles of your shoes, this article is for you.
Shoe soles are basically the foundation of shoes; when they break down (due to wear and tear), the whole shoe falls apart. For rubber shoe soles, you need special maintenance techniques to keep them whole and useful.
Your shoes can look as good as new – always – if you can just follow some of the simple steps that will be outlined for you shortly.
When your shoe soles are at their maximum level of functionality, your shoes will most likely look and feel good. Don’t underestimate the importance of your shoe soles.
Now, let’s learn how to take good care of rubber shoe soles…
10 ways to protect and maintain rubber shoe soles
Table of Contents
Your rubber shoe soles need all of the protection and maintenance that you can give them today – especially if you really want them to last you well for a long time.
If you don’t sufficiently protect your rubber soles from wear and tear, you are more likely to have them breaking apart, under your feet, right at the very wrong times.
The rubber soles on your shoes don’t last long? You should definitely consider giving them the extra protection that they duly need. Going the extra mile in these matters will surely result in big differences in the durability of your rubber soles.
The ten (10) best ways to protect your shoe soles are:
- Use Anti-Slip Pads
- Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors
- Use Rubberized Coating For Your Shoe Soles
- Clear Shoe Goo
- Heel Caps and/or Heel Guards
- Go To A Highl-Skilled Cobbler For Sole Repairs
- Clean Your Shoe Soles Often
- Replace/Repair Your Rubber Soles As Often As You Need To
- Maintain Your Shoes Appropriately
- Store Your Shoes In The Right Places
Use anti-slip pads
Anti-Slip shoe pads are actually one of the best ways to protect your shoe soles from the wear and tear that they experience daily.
These protective anti-slip pads are great for protecting the heel and ball of the foot (two shoe areas that are most prone to wear and tear).
Anti-slip pads are made out of adhesive rubber or silicon materials that are meant to give your shoe shoes the best kind of protection and layering.
Since these pads are self-adhesive, you can just simply place them on your shoe soles like a sticker.
All you need to do is to appropriately fit them onto the back and front of the shoe soles you want to protect and maintain.
Place the anti-slip pads on the front and back (the heel and ball) of the shoes because those are the areas of the shoes that most likely will wear and tear after some use.
Once your shoes have rubber soles, you should definitely consider protecting those soles with these special anti-slip shoe pads.
Shoes that have these anti-slip pads are actually more comfortable, functional, and shock-absorbent than shoes that don’t have them.
Apart from keeping your rubber safe from wear and tear, these pads also make sure that your shoes are not too slippery for you when you are stepping on certain surfaces.
Some of the best anti-slip shoe pads for the rubber soles of your shoes are:
Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors
The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors are clear and self-adhesive materials that are really effective for making your shoe soles more protected and maintained.
These sole protectors are very cool because they really do serve to protect the entire bottom of your shoes from wear and tear.
All the parts of the shoe soles are covered with The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors when you make use of them.
You can confidently use these materials to safeguard your shoe soles if you have new shoes you want to keep looking new.
The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors are great for shoes that you don’t really wear out often.
Once you use them, these sole protectors will keep your shoes and shoe soles in great condition at all times.
Your shoe fashion can be displayed better when you use cool materials like these for shoe protection.
When applying The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors, you need to first make sure that the shoe soles (the bottom of the shoes) are clean and tidy enough to accommodate the materials.
If the shoes aren’t clean, The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors might not stick. They work better with shoes that have shoe soles with smooth surfaces and textures.
Some shoe soles are not good with adhesive substances so you have to check first to see if you can use The Clear Vinyl Sole Sticker Protectors for your shoes.
Just use some duct tape on your shoe soles and see how easily (or not) they come off at first. If the duct tape doesn’t come off easily, your rubber shoe soles are good fits for some adhesive protectors.
Check out this great product on Amazon today:
Use rubberized coating for your shoe soles
Using rubberized coats, in form of rubberized sprays or liquids, for protecting your shoe soles is another solid way for you to keep them in good shape.
These rubberized coating materials are helpful enough to protect and seal your shoe soles, if you know how to truly apply them on the soles for proper use.
The coating might not stay on your shoe soles too well (it highly depends on the shoe soles though), but you can really use these materials to keep your rubber shoes looking good and functional.
Clean your shoe soles before applying the rubberized coating of your choice and then the shoes are ready for your extra protection and maintenance.
Thick sprays and coats will stick onto your shoe soles better, but too much can also spoil the stability of your shoes. You have to find the right balance for applying these rubberized coatings on your rubber soles.
Clean the shoes well and tape off the areas you don’t want stained with the rubberized coats. You should do well with this solution if you can get it right.
You should get these rubberized sprays and liquids for your shoe soles today:
- BARE GROUND BGSG-1 ADHESIVE COATING
- PERFORMANCE GRIP RUBBER SOLES SPRAY
- GRANDMAS’ SECRET SNEAKER CLEANER
Clear shoe goo
Clear Shoe Goo is a classic solution for the repairs and protection of rubber shoe soles.
When you apply The Clear Shoe Goo on your shoe soles, you will find that they stick to the shoes well and appropriately level down the worn-down parts.
Getting the right amount of shoe goo is the most important part of this whole exercise; if you don’t apply The Clear Shoe Goo with the right kind of thickness, you most likely won’t get the best results.
A good hack for this is to have a container where you’d squeeze the shoe goo out before you start applying. This container will give you some accurate information about how much shoe goo you really need.
Tape off the rest of your shoes when you use shoe goo, so that you don’t get stains that you don’t like.
When The Clear Shoe Goo gets hardened (after application), it actually becomes a good fit for your rubber soles because they tend to feel very rubber-like and lightweight.
Clear Shoe Goo actually holds your shoe soles well enough.
Check out these excellent shoe goo products on Amazon today:
Heel caps and/or heel guards
Heel caps are actually very good for keeping the lower parts of your shoe soles very protected as you wear your shoes around. Use heel caps to protect the rubber soles of high-heeled shoes.
You can repair the shoe soles of your heels, as well as prevent any further damages, by making use of these heel caps as soon as you buy your high heels.
Since the heels of shoes are one of the two most important parts of shoes, they are more prone to excessive wear and tear that you can prevent by doing things like including heel caps in your shoes.
Just slip these heel caps on your shoe heels and experience the protective functioning of these great products. Many women love to buy these heel caps because they look good and make their shoe heels look even better.
Your shoe heels can look as good as new when you use these heel caps.
And the best part? You get to protect one of the most important parts of your shoe soles while you make use of these comfortable heel caps. They are not just fashionable, they are also very functional and safe.
You can buy these comfortable and safe heel caps and heel guards right now:
Go to a highly skilled cobbler for sole repairs
For the best solutions concerning a particular problem or issue, you need to go to someone who is a professional in the concerned field.
For this reason, we encourage you to go to a shoe cobbler if you want to rightly protect and maintain your rubber shoe soles.
Cobblers have enough experience with shoes and shoe maintenance to know exactly what you need to do to make your shoes better and more effective.
Not only can these cobblers protect your rubber shoe soles professionally, they can also give you some useful tips for maintaining the entirety of your shoes as well.
This method works well for all shoes, but most especially, expensive shoes need to be taken to cobblers quickly (even as soon as they are bought) for their expertise and services.
You don’t want shoes that you have bought for hundreds and thousands of dollars to just break apart and go down the drain, do you? Surely, you don’t.
Getting professional help for the maintenance of your shoe soles is definitely an investment that you won’t regret at all. Don’t wait till your shoes show signs of wear and tear before you take them to a cobbler.
Regularly visit the cobbler’s every month for proper professional maintenance of your shoes and your rubber shoe soles. Doing this will keep your rubber soles in a good state.
Clean your shoe soles often
Cleaning your shoes regularly is another effective way to prevent your shoe soles from getting worn out and damaged before you have used your shoes properly.
Something as simple as wiping your shoes with baby wipes or wet wipes, after you have worn them, can go a long way to keeping your rubber shoe soles in the right condition.
(Use baby wipes because the sneaker wipes sold these days are actually just overpriced wipes that work just the same as the other wipes that you can get.)
Most likely, your shoe soles will run the risk of getting damaging when there is a lot of accumulated dirt and debris on them. These dirt particles can sink into your shoe soles over time and make them less stable.
Cleaning your shoes regularly will prevent dirt from actually destroying your shoes.
Dust your shoes, brush them with a toothbrush, wipe them with wet wipes, and wash them when you really need to.
Different shoes require different cleaning methods for their maintenance so you have to figure out what works best for your rubber soles.
Wash your shoe soles with soap and water once you have stepped in corrosive substances or oily surfaces.
The grease is really dangerous for your shoes so you need to scrub it out of your rubber soles as soon as you can.
The good thing about this is that most of the products you use for cleaning your shoes are simple, easily-available items that you most likely already have in your home right now.
Replace/Repair your rubber soles as often as you need to
Sometimes, the best way to protect your rubber soles is to have constant replacements for them as you wear them.
Constant use of your shoes is bound to have your rubber soles looking worn after a while, especially if you haven’t given them some extra protection.
These replacement rubber soles can be applied directly on the old shoe soles as extra-protective layers for maximum safeguarding and maintenance.
Once you buy these rubber sole replacements, you will find out that they have a firm grip on the ground as you move along, and they are actually made of real rubber too.
This is one of the best fits for fixing up, protecting, and maintaining your rubber shoe soles.
The replacement/repair rubber soles actually require a bit of accurate measuring, cutting, gluing, etc. before they can fit well on the bottoms of your shoes.
You might need to employ the services of a professional cobbler for the best results that you need from this method.
The best kinds of materials for this job are the following:
- KANEIJI REPLACEMENT RUBBER
- FULL RUBBER SOLES REPLACEMENT AND REPAIR
- VIBRAM RUBBER HALF-SOLES REPLACEMENT
- THICK RUBBER REPAIRING MATERIAL
Maintain your shoes appropriately
You should endeavor to take your shoes through the appropriate maintenance techniques as often as possible. Proper maintenance will have all parts of your shoes looking good as new.
Maintenance is not just cleaning the shoes, it also involves conditioning the shoes frequently, polishing the shoes where appropriate, and taking your shoes to the cobbler at least once a month.
This is a continuous and very sustainable way to keep the rubber soles of your shoes in the right condition. Basically, conditioning your shoes to keep them in the right condition.
Some of the best conditioners and shoe maintenance products for your shoe are:
Store your shoes in the right places
This is a very way important way to keep the rubber soles of your shoes intact and fresh. The place you store your shoe matters a lot in their breakdown and use.
If you store your shoes in a place that’s damp and very humid, you will find out that the entire shoes (not only the soles) will start to break down quickly over time.
Your rubber soles will be stronger and more functional for you if you keep your shoes in the right location after you make use of them. Don’t just throw them in the closet!
