How to stretch your shoes

Though I've mentioned before that I am none too thrilled about pointy-toed shoes, they're not going anywhere for a while, and I would like to share a trick I've found for making them more comfortable.

Sure, they sell shoe stretchers, if you want to drop 10 to 20 dollars, but you can also do it the Unfashion way (which is not, by the way, putting a bag of water in them and then putting them in the freezer, despite what the Internet would have you believe). All you'll need is your shoes and a few pairs of socks.

I used the below process on the shoes in my Arctic Ocean post, and I found I was able to wear them all day without too much discomfort in my toe region.

1. Heat the shoes. I'm not kidding. I think warming up your shoes first softens the material and makes this process a lot easier. I've done it in the oven at the lowest temperature setting (170­°F), but I prefer to put them in the direct path of the blower when the gas heat is on. Once they are warm...
2. Put on some socks
3. Put on a thicker pair of socks over the first pair.
4. Put on the shoes.
5. Wear them for a few minutes. Walk around a bit. Put some pressure on the parts that hurt. You can do this for as long as  you want, but I recommend waiting at least until the shoes have cooled down to room temperature before taking them off.
6. Take off the socks. Now your shoes should be marginally more comfortable than before!

A few caveats as always when doing things the cheapskate way: This process works extremely well on leather (to the point that I actually made a pair of shoes too big the first time I tried it) and less well on synthetics. It will stretch your shoes uniformly, so if you only want to gain width but not length or vice versa, or stretch just one part of the shoe, this may not be the best method.