Wednesday, August 12, 2020

What is The Indestructible Shoe?

So, I've seen a lot of video ads on Facebook for something called "The Indestructible Shoe," and, as I was about to need a new pair of boots, I contacted the company via their eMail address, and asked them to send me a pair of their work-boots they call "Hype Brown." Then, they sent me a tracking-number that never updated, and I gave up on them ever arriving, because they shipped out from China. Then, around a month and a half later, approximately a month or so ago, a box turned up, purporting to be from somewhere in California, with the pair of boots I was promised in it. Since then, I've been checking then out in many ways, and they're... Not great. For one thing, on the website, they're wildly overpriced for a product that I immediately found for half the cost on AliExpress. They also wear very quickly. I was hoping to have to come back to these boots throughout the year, but I don't know if they'll last six months, at this rate.
One of the first signs was the fact that the soles are made of a VERY soft rubber. Great for gripping, but it wears down quick, and stains incredibly easily when exposed to any kind of dark dirt, or powder. The second sign was a pair of cheap foam-insoles that I tried, and then immediately discarded for the Dr. Scholl's inserts I wind up putting in every pair of boots. Third was the fact that there's no branding on these boots at all, and the only text information was incredibly faint, and looked to be wearing off, to the point where I couldn't read it, even when the boots were new. I could vaguely make out numbers that might have been American sizing for the show, but as my inserts barely even fit in the boots, I have to wonder if these are, indeed, a Size 13. Incidentally, that was why I chose the brown boots over the yellow, because I've noticed that, between my enormous feet and the bright-yellow coloring of some boots, I wind up looking like a character from Kingdom Hearts.
Just under a week after getting these boots, the included "Waterproof and oil-resistant laces" for the right boot broke, and around a week later, the ones on the left boot broke, too. Granted, they're called "indestructible shoes" not "indestructible laces," but still. This flaw appears to be facilitated by sharp edges on the bottom of the eyelets. Another thing to note, is that these shoelaces are terrible, regardless. They actually undermine the alleged "waterproof" nature of these boots, which was a primary selling-point, from my perspective. After I replaced the laces with better ones, I no longer experienced as many leaks when the water-line came roughly to the tongue of the boots, but there were still a few. Then the replacement laces in the right boot broke again. Granted, those laces were older than some, I've used them as replacement laces in my last pair of Brahmas, but they only lasted three weeks, and I'm used to getting at least six months of use out of replacement laces before they snap too short to be usable. I've replaced them with a good set of military boot-laces that should outlast these boots, and I'll be sure to report back on their condition in the next installment of what is apparently called the "Indestructible Shoe Challenge."
Speaking of the tongues, the lining on the tongues of both boots is peeling away, and it looks and feels like cheap nylon. The overall construction of the boots feels thin, and cheap, without much in the way of the rugged construction I've come to expect from proper work-boots. There's really no insulation of note, and as such, no real padding in the boots, leading to the flimsiest feel I've had from any boot, including some of the cheapest ones I've seen at Wal-Mart. The collar of the shaft is fairly tight at first, but it can get worked-out fairly easily, which is something of a plus, I suppose.

Something I noticed about the tread is that there are bits of the rubber that hand off of the edges, and my initial prediction was that they would be the first casualties of the eventual wear of the boots, and I was right. They started chipping off within three weeks. Another thing to note, is that the tread is incredibly shallow. Great for not getting big clumps of dirt caught in the tread, but not so great for long-term reliability. Shallow tread will go bald faster than deep tread will, in my experience, and, as such, reduces the useably safe lifespan of any shoe, especially something that needs to grip and support weight, like a work-boot does.
One of the many, many claims made on both the Indestructible Shoes website, and the AliExpress page where you can buy the exact same item for far cheaper, but still too much, in my opinion, is that the boot is specifically made to be resistant to punctures. The two pages have very different opinions on why, with the AliExpress page claiming that the Kevlar makes it puncture-resistant, and the Indestructible Shoes website claiming more vaguely that it's "military-grade material." Having tested it, I can confirm that it's puncture-proof as far as I've been able to tell, but that's not because of any "special materials." My nearly three-year-old Dickies boots also stood up to the tests, which were basically just me taking a board with screws and nails driven into it and stepping on it as hard as I was willing, and subsequently, whacking the sole of the boots with the same board repeatedly. No punctures noticeable on either one, and I have actually had some experience with accidentally stepping on upturned screws and nails with previous boots, both work-boots and hiking-boots, that I don't remember the brand-names of, and even the cheaper ones largely stood up, and prevented serious injury. So that's not particularly special. The waterproofing appears to be largely alright, up to a point, but I dispute the idea that this is any kind of leather. If it is, they've coated it with some sort of rubber, which may be part of the alleged "fireproofing" that I haven't been able to test, because I don't tend to run into sparks much in my daily routine, nor am I particularly eager to create some for the sake of this review, but I used to use a grinder while wearing my Dickies, and they were perfectly fine, despite not advertising that as a feature, to my knowledge. The steel-toes are good. They've taken a few good blows and various jostling without being dislodged and becoming uncomfortable, which I've had happen even with my good Dickies boots, but that may change in the future. 
Further claims are that the shoes feature some sort of high-tech insole with "3D arch support!" I can confirm that, not only do the cheap, foam inserts that come with the boots not have any arch-support, the heel-cup isn't any more padded, and the inserts are bare blue foam, not a green/yellow mixture with a black lining. The boots are, indeed, skid-proof. I've tested that, they're really good at gripping, but that's because of the really soft rubber, which causes entirely different issues. This is why Dickies used a two-part sole for their boots, at least, the ones I'm used to wearing. Harder rubber on the outside for support, softer in the middle to grip when necessary. I'm going to skip over the "wide steelhead" for now, and come back to it with the next picture. As for the "handmade craftsmanship," I'm not sure I buy that, since the stitching doesn't look like it was done by anything but a machine, but I could be wrong.

Now, as for the "Wide steelhead," I have to call bullshit on that, as I got an ingrown toenail on my right foot from these boots. Apologies for the image (And the carpet), but it was necessary to show exactly what the boots had done. Granted, I do think that the "steelhead" is a bit wider than on some boots, but, due to the fact that these boots are a bit shorter than standard American Size 13s, that kind of becomes moot. Proper medical attention, and further breaking-in of the boot has ensured that this issue has been resolved, but it doesn't change the fact that these so-called "Size 13" boots are around half a size too small, and Size 13 is the largest they come in, even on AliExpress, so if you're a tall guy, with big feet, you're out of luck, not that I'd recommend buying these boots, when you could literally go to anywhere that sells shoes and spend the same amount they're asking for on the Indestructible Shoes website, roughly $79.99 at time of writing, and buy a much better pair of Dickies, Nike, or other work or combat boots, or even the lesser AliExpress price of roughly $40. I will admit that the nail was a bit short on my big toe, but it was perfectly fine until the tightness of the boots started to irritate it.

There's also the matter of the blister I got on my left foot. Nothing too serious, but, since it happened while I was evaluating the boots, I figured I should mention it. It's mostly just a fairly thick patch of dead skin on my left big-toe, but it's not nothing, either. I've never had any pair of shoes give me as many injuries as these, no matter how minor, and my last pair of Brahma boots had actual metal wearing through the sole of the shoe, right next to my toes! Can you see why I'm not really that enthusiastic about recommending these?
Anyways, here's a size-comparison between my last pair of Dickies, and these "Indestructible Shoes." I butted up the heels together to match, and sure enough, the "Indestructible Shoes" are around 1/2 an inch shorter in length than the Dickies are. The mouth is also wider on the Dickies, but, bear in mind, those are around three years old, and are likely more stretched-out than they were when they were new, so that's not really a point of comparison. What IS a point of comparison is that the loops on the back are in entirely different places. The Dickies is lower, allowing you to loop overlong laces through them, as not to trip on the trailing ends. The "Indestructible Shoes" have them above the collar, making it very uncomfortable to loop overlong laces through them in such a way that keeps the laces comfortably tight.

Another issue is how quick these boots wear. This picture to the left was taken several weeks ago, and the noticeable wear has only gotten worse, since. I don't recall my Dickies, or Brahmas looking this bad by the first month or so of service, this was at least six months of wear to a typical pair of boots I'd buy. Granted, I hadn't yet tried to polish off some of the dust they'd accumulated from pressure-washing the sidewalk, so they look even worse than they should, but that doesn't take away from the fact that these once fairly impressive boots have lost their sheen in their first month of use. It usually takes eight, nine months for a pair of glossy-boots to need a polish, and for a matte pair to need... Whatever matte-boots need to make them look good. Is it brushing? Frankly, I don't care how they look as long as they still work, so I've never really looked into that. Regardless, there's no polishing out those scuffs on the toes, to my knowledge. 
Now, I've tried to keep the sole of the boot as level as possible in the next picture, because I need to show how much wear these have accumulated in their first month of use. You can tell from the unevenness of the rubber that it's worn more on one side than the other, which is a consequence of my natural gait. I've tried to fix it, and my feet don't turn out nearly as much as they used to, but if I turn my feet in perfectly straight, my knees get all kinked-up, and frankly, I've heard from a number of places, right or wrong, that trying to make your street perfectly-straight is terrible for balance and bad on your knees, but I digress. The point is, that this gives us a fairly decent method of comparison between the sole as it was when it was new-ish, and how much wear it has suffered. By my reckoning, there's maybe a quarter-inch difference in the height of the tread, from one side to the other, which is usually something seen around the six-month mark for boots with tougher soles. As this is a soft rubber, it was bound to wear faster, but I wasn't exactly expecting it to wear this quickly, and the rubber has worn worse since this picture was taken.

Speaking of wear, (and I apologize for the blurry picture, but I've tried retaking it, and this was the best I could get, which probably says more about the cameras I have access to, than anything else.) the tread has started to do this wrinkling thing that softer rubbers sometimes do when they're wearing severely. My Dickies still haven't done that, despite their age, and the Brahmas took a good year before they started showing this kind of wear. Long story short, I'm not holding out hope for these boots to last longer than maybe six months, which is a fairly short life-span for a roughly $80 pair of boots, I must say. 
All in all, I can't recommend these, and, as such, I will not be providing the affiliate link the seller of these gave me. They're just not worth your money, no matter how little you pay for them. I feel like I got ripped-off, and they sent me these for free.

Now, something you may have noticed in those promotional images is red or black tag featuring a pseudo-Supreme logo with the moniker "Fashion" on it. In the pictures to the left, you can see that the tag isn't on either side of the boot. Both boots lack this tag, and, as such, don't have any branding on them, whatsoever. Not on the soles, tongues, insoles, or anywhere. These boots have no branding on them at all. The closest thing I could find to any information about them were incredibly faint, illegible print on the tongue that was mostly worn-off before I even wore these boots. That print may have been size information, as I could vaguely make out what might have been a 13/48, but I'm not sure.
This also corresponds to the maximum size on the AliExpress page, giving even further proof that these are the boots from the AliExpress page.






The only place you can find any branding is on the box the shoes came in, which says "INDESTRUCTIBLE: CRAFTED FOR THE BATTLEFIELD," which I find myself disbelieving. I've got a friend who buys Nike combat boots for work-wear and paintball, and they've never, to my knowledge, worn out this fast in this short a period of time. One would hope that even the Chinese army would know better than to buy these for use on the battlefield. Also, if you zoom in on the box, this guy's wearing sneakers, not boots. Most proper shoeboxes from proper shoe companies have the contents printed on the outside, as well as the size.
Speaking of which, there's no color, size, or art number, whatever that is, filled into the boxes on either side of the shoebox. Everything you would expect from legitimate shoe companies is lacking on both the shoe, and the box. I'm not really sure that my boots were even the right size, and there's no way to really know based on the information on the boot, or the box. Even with the printing on the tongue, there's no way to be sure. At least if it was molded into the sole, like some shoe companies do, you could be pretty sure that your feet don't match with their sizing system, whatever their system may be. 

Now, let's take a look at the AliExpress page for these boots, and laugh at some bad English, shall we? You'll notice that in the screenshots I took from the Indestructible Shoes website, that their pictures are just cropped versions of the really weird ones from AliExpress, without even the decency to use source-images without the shadows at the top. This is true for all of them, by the way, even though some of the pictures have clean versions of the images lower down on the AliExpress page, although the uncropped version also has a pair of badly-photoshopped boots behind the legs, meaning that whoever put this together, and proofread the images before sending them to the site either didn't know what they were doing, or didn't care. Additionally, these boots are tied too loosely for the waterproofing to make any difference if it goes above the top of the toe.

Looking at these photos, I wonder why there's a black gradient at the top of the frame. Maybe it's to hide something? Why are there a pair of boots hovering behind this guy's thighs? Was this modeled  by a person, or a pair of sticks with jeans on them? The legs look too skinny to be human, or else they got someone who was positively tiny and under-nourished to model these. My calves fill up most of the mouth of the boot, so I know they didn't model these with someone who would probably be wearing these boots.
I also wonder why they posed a pair of empty boots on these railroad tracks? Though, given the fact that the boots are photoshopped behind the legs, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who made these pictures used a set of pictures of railroad tracks, and photoshopped the shoes in front of them. I can 100% say that the sparks in the claim about it being "Fire Resistant" are photoshopped. They have absolutely no reflection in the shiny, polished rail, which has a reflection of the boots in it, and they just flat-out don't look right. Maybe that's the reason for the gradient.
I'd like to know where these pictures were taken, just out of curiosity, because I'd like to know if they shot it on an in-service railroad or not. I'd think they wouldn't, but who knows? These shots are weird in places, like the shadows in the pictures to the left, and the texture in the second one. I don't know. I can say that, when these boots were new, they looked about as good as they did in the photos. Really, when they're new, they look pretty damn good, but they lose their luster quick.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend buying these shoes. There are better alternatives that are the same price or less and are way better. I don't mean to sound like a shill for Dickies, but I've been wearing them for ten years, and only go through maybe one pair every three-ish years. Brahmas aren't as good, but they'll last for a year and a half, two years, even cheap ones. I can't speak for Brahma, but Dickies has boots on their website that are just as good as the ones you can get in most stores where they're sold, and they cost only slightly more than the ones on AliExpress do. If you're shopping for shoes, don't buy them from Facebook. Almost everything advertised on that website is either a scam of some sort, or a massive ripoff. I'll report back in a bit with more pictures and information. I plan to do at least one, maybe two more updates. I'll definitely try to check in when these boots finally buy the farm, and show exactly what went wrong that caused me to stop wearing them.

Photo credit(s) and sources: AliExpress.com, https://archive.vn/ZBEq9 (AliExpress archive page), http://archive.fo/9wbn3 (Indestructible Shoes website archive page for the Hype Brown model), and myself.

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