Grooming Garage: Shoe Defense

In the summer, I like to go sockless. It sure looks better with shorts, and it's just nice to be able to discard a shackle of male adulthood for a few months out of the year. Of course, if you have ever looked around at the men's style portion of the interwebs, you have doubtless noticed that there are plenty of guys who will wear any sort of shoe without socks, at any time of year, in any climate.

I am not one of those people. I have specific shoes that I wear without socks, and only without socks. I do have one pair of shoes that I have been wearing this summer that I also wore during the rest of the year, with socks: my L.L. Bean blucher mocs. For only $69, I could theoretically have two pairs of these, one to wear sockless in summer and one to wear the rest of the time.

Maybe that will happen at some point, but for now I have just the one pair, and I'm trying to take care of them. Of course, since it's summer my feet sweat along with the rest of me, and sweat tends to shorten the useful life of shoes, especially when you're wearing them without socks.

I'd been powdering my feet each morning with Gold Bond before putting on whatever shoes or sneakers I was wearing that day, but that's tedious and messy. A month or so ago I saw an article in the New York Times Style section about powders for men. It was mainly about keeping one's nether regions dry and comfy, which is certainly a good idea on days like today, but many of the products featured in the article work well on the feet too.

I ordered Dry Goods spray-on powder from drugstore.com and I've been using it for about two weeks now. The spray comes out of the nozzle angled a bit to the left of where I'm aiming it, but I've been able to correct for that and it's been working great. It feels cold when it goes on, which took a little getting used to. It keeps my feet from feeling clammy during the day, and is helping to protect my shoes.