I wear a 9.5 WIDE. If you too have wide feet, you know the struggle that is to find cute, comfy shoes. These *roomier toe box* shoes called to me. Granted they are not officially "wide" but they do have roomier toe boxes. With my regular socks they are very tight and sorta affect my foot circulation, not good. I'm currently wearing them around the house with socks on in hopes to stretch them out and break them in. Well currently i'm sitting at my computer and feeling the tingles set in on my feet. :( I need these to break in.
With out socks, or thin socks that dont cover the tops of my feet (where its most tight feeling), these shoes are really nice, comfy and so roomy on my feet. No wonder all the advertisements show pictures of people seemingly not wearing socks at all, or wearing little no show ones. I also like the feel of the lil nubs on the insole (like a massage)....but, no socks = stinky shoes and feet. What i dont get about all these people showing the shoes off with out socks is the heel issue. The heel part of the shoe doesn't go straight up or lean back away from the achilles. Its made to be snug to your foot and this causes it to rub and push against the back of my heel/or Achilles. This is painful, I went for a walk around the block with some short no show socks, and it just pulled the sock down off my heel and I already have a sore on the back of my heel. Sooo if you have a legit wide foot, just know wearing with socks is gonna be tight. It does loosen up while using on over time but then i woke up this morning and they feel like they shrunk back to original size. Like washing your jeans and making them all tight again. I'll come back and edit after i learn whether i can break them in proper or not. The sizing guide was accurate in terms of foot length which is a miracle of its own considering how many other companies cant even get that right, UIN gets kudos from me big time.
Additionally,
- I also got the ballet flats which i'll just touch on here, they are way better in the tightness department because they dont cover the top of the foot (where the full coverage style feels the most tight) .. but rarely am i ever or would ever wear socks with ballet flats so that doesnt quite matter! I'm not sure if the ballet flats are digging into my heel as well, or if i'm just affected because I already have a sore there from wearing these Hana's. I will wait for my wounded heel to heal before fully reviewing that pair. But let me just say, about the sizing guide, there was no 9.5 left for the Ballet Flats. :( , But the sizing guide said my foot should fit a size 9??? AND IT DOES. I'll probably get more of the ballet flats in the future just to avoid the tight uncomfortable feeling with fully coverage shoes.
I never did get more of these, turns out they never broke in. The flats fall off my heels and all of them have honestly not a very good heel design. I have taken to trying special sticky pads to protect my Achilles, bandaids.. anything to create some kind of padding or protection. Now i just never wear them because they hurt my heels too much. They also only feel good with super thing socks or ... no socks if you're daring.
