Correct Toes REVIEW **Plus a less expensive alternative + coupon!**
Most of us have lived the majority of our lives cramming our feet into conventional shoes that weren’t designed with the shape of a healthy human foot in mind. Instead, traditional shoes have been made with a taper at the toe, cushioned arch support, and an elevated heel. All these characteristics, over time, create feet that are weak, misshapen, and can’t function optimally. Some of us may even have developed persistent injuries due to our use of these types of shoes.
If you’re at a point in your life where you’re ready to change this, you probably have a fair bit of work to do! The results of spending all those years spent in unideal shoes (bunions, hammertoes, plantar fasciitis, ETC) aren’t going to reverse themselves overnight.
It can be overwhelming to know where to start, but one really easy and wildly effective way to expedite your foot healing and strengthening process is using toe spacers!
Personally, I was struggling to overcome post tib tendonitis (pain around the heel bone of my inner ankle), and decided to see if toe spacers would help. I hadn’t been able to run without pain in months and felt quite discouraged. I had seen Correct Toes mentioned as the gold standard in several online barefoot groups, so I decided to invest in a pair.
When I received them in the mail and put them on, I felt instant relief. I immediately felt like I had more stability and that the tendon that was overworking could chill out. What was happening was that the weakness in my foot was causing me to compensate in other areas - specifically my posterior tibial ligament. And by putting toe spacers on, my foot muscles activated in the proper way, allowing my ligament to relax. Pretty cool!
I admit that I was initially put off by the price of Correct Toes - $65 per pair! - especially with so many other much cheaper options out there. But after doing my due diligence in researching other brands, I landed on Correct Toes as the best option. (But keep reading to learn about an equally amazing alternative I've recently discovered at a fraction of the price!)
Here’s a brief summary of my findings:
Correct Toes were designed by Dr. Ray McClanahan, a foot doctor with a deep understanding of foot anatomy and human physiology. I take my foot health very seriously (obvs), so it meant a lot to me that these were designed by a barefoot expert.
While your generic $6 Amazon spacer will do the job of spreading your toes apart, Correct Toes were designed with your foot’s anatomy in mind. While wearing them, they’ll place your toes in the anatomically correct position, rather than randomly spacing them apart. And because Correct Toes come in four different sizes, you can choose the appropriate size for your feet, to get the perfect degree of splay. (Rather than the cheapos which are one-size-fits-all.)
Correct Toes were designed to be worn inside your barefoot shoes, so you can wear them while you’re being active. In fact, you’ll reap the greatest benefits from toe spacers if you wear them while your feet are bearing your body’s weight. Even just standing with them on, you’ll feel your arch activate, and you’ll feel all your feet’s muscles in use while walking or running. It’s a pretty wild sensation!
Correct Toes are made with medical grade silicone, which is both durable and comfortable, and safe for your body and the environment. The cheaper alternatives may indeed be made from silicone, but they’re super floppy, break down quickly, and can cause chafing and discomfort.
The Correct Toes website says that you can expect to replace yours after one to five years of use. Unfortunately for me (and my wallet), with daily wear, mine only held up for a year before they started developing cracks that made them unwearable. I will admit that I didn’t get the memo about taking them on and off gently each time. And while I’m not generally a destructive person, I wasn’t especially tender with them when pulling them off, which probably contributed to their accelerated decline.
STILL. I was pretty upset when I realized that my $65 investment only lasted a year. You can get a reasonably priced pair of barefoot shoes for that amount! And I spent it on two pieces of silicone that surely cost much less to produce than a pair of shoes.
(Top: My old Correct Toes. Middle: My new Correct Toes. Bottom: My new Spacers.)
But the benefits of wearing Correct Toes are so great, that eventually I broke down (no pun intended) and purchased another pair. BUT a few weeks later I discovered this awesome alternative! I was pretty sure that they would be just as good, but I decided to order them to compare - and at only $25, it wasn’t a hard decision.
Gait Happens is an amazing group of foot doctors who were able to help me when none of my local practitioners could. (Read my story here!) And since these new toe spacers I discovered are sold on their website, I was pretty certain they’d be legit.
Like Correct Toes, Gait Happens spacers come in different sizes. This way, you can order the size appropriate for your foot, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach with the cheapos.
I’m a Women’s size 8 (EU 39), and ordered the small in both brands according to their size charts.
Upon receiving the Gait Happens spacers, the first thing I noticed is that the size and shape is identical to Correct Toes! Not only that, but they are literally indistinguishable in every other way.
Side-by-side comparison
Like Correct Toes, Gait Happens spacers are made with medical grade silicone, and you can tell. They feel exactly the same - not too stiff and not too squishy. They each have the same amount of flex and bend. The only way I can tell the difference between the two is that Correct Toes has a little “CorrectToes.com” subtly imprinted across them. Other than that, they seem like the exact same product.
Which pair is Correct Toes and which is Gait Happens?? Your guess is as good as mine.
So, my barefooted friends, I couldn’t be happier to have found a reasonably priced, identical alternative to Correct Toes and to share my discovery with you. AND, you can use my coupon code “BarefootGuide10” for 10% off, bringing your total down to $22.50.
Wearing toe spacers is an incredibly easy and effective first step in your journey toward foot health:
They can help realign your toes that have become squished together after years in conventional shoes.
Walking in them will immediately activate your arch and all the other muscles in your feet that have become atrophied over the years - accelerating your journey toward strong, functional feet.
They will provide stability and help improve your balance.
They can help relieve foot pain and correct things like hammer toes and bunions.
They can help with improving circulation in your feet.
They can (and should!) be worn inside barefoot-friendly footwear while you go about your daily life!
I’m incredibly grateful for my good (albeit costly) experience with toe spacers. They’ve truly helped me to overcome the many dysfunctions in my feet, and I believe that they can be a powerful tool for you as well.
And while any product made from silicone that you use in daily life is bound to break down eventually, it's not quite so painful to replace a pair of toe spacers that costs about as much as a few pairs of socks than it does to replace spacers with money I could’ve used for a new pair of shoes.
Thank you, Gait Happens, for offering us a reasonably priced and identical alternative to the mainstream brand!
Your Barefoot Guide,
Kim
PS. You can find the Gait Happens toe spacers here! Don’t forget to use the coupon code “BarefootGuide10” for 10% off.
