While kitten heels don’t match your favorite pair of sneakers for comfort, they do typically qualify as the most comfortable of heels, tied with chunky, block heels. Originally designed for pre-teens and teens to transition into wearing high heels, the late movie star Audrey Hepburn popularized the look.
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What Makes Kitten Heels Comfortable?
Kitten heels feature a low heel of one to two inches. Although it still features a small tipped heel similar to that of a stiletto, it avoids the height of that style.
The lower heel height makes balancing in kitten heels easier. Since they throw off the balance of an individual’s gait less, they prove easier to wear.
If you have wide feet, these heels will provide you with comfortable office-appropriate shoes. Women with wide feet should avoid pointed toes in any shoes, but kitten heels with round-toe, sling-back, ankle-straps, or sandal styling compare to flat-soled shoes and work well for wide feet.
What Could Make Kitten Heels Uncomfortable?
As with all shoes, you need to break in the shoes before you wear them out and about. That means wearing them around the house for 30 to 60 minutes each day for about a week. This stretches the shoe materials slightly and adjusts the heel area to your feet a little bit at a time. Using the daily stretching process lets you avoid rubbing blisters on your feet.
Kitten heels come in a variety of styles and some of these styles use less material than others. Styles with cutouts or peek holes can cut into your feet, as can those that scallop the leather or other shoe material in the center of the shoe’s side.
When styled as sandals or slip-on shoes, even these low heels can cause blisters, but not at the heel. They cause them in the much more uncomfortable area of the top of your foot just beneath your toes.
Caveats to Wearing Kitten Heels
A kitten heel style still uses a spiky heel. Although they are lower and do not angle your foot as much, they still do use a spiked heel. This becomes uncomfortable after you wear them for hours on end.
In some ways, it’s the spike and not the heel height that causes the problem. Your feet aren’t meant to elevate on a tiny spike, and it throws your body alignment off-kilter.
They can look cute with some outfits, but if you’re shorter, kitten heels prove a disastrous mistake. These low heels do nothing to elongate the legs. The kitten heels have the opposing effect and make your legs look shorter. Only high heels of three inches or taller make short legs look longer.
My Personal Fashionista Opinion
Kitten heels provide a cute and sexy alternative to stilettos. You can wear them for hours without wanting to scream in pain as long as you buy a well-fitting shoe. Here’s where the method of shopping matters.
In the 21st century, we’ve gotten into the habit of buying everything online. When you need to find the ideal shoe though, it helps to shop in person.
Go to a women’s shoe store. Avoid the mall and department stores. You need a shoe store that wants to measure your feet properly and make sure that the shoe fits perfectly.
You will need to have your feet measured for width and length. Many mall stores only use the length method, which tells you which numeric size you wear, but you also need to know the width you wear.
Carefully choose your kitten heels because some shoe fabrics can’t ever be comfortable. Leather works for most designs, but many woven patterns and mesh hurt after you wear them for a little while.
Cheaper shoes use plastic or faux leather that approaches vinyl, not pleather. These shoes hold shape poorly and can easily fall apart. Avoid shoes made with these synthetics.
Satin kitten heels work well for formal occasions. They may stretch over time, but that usually takes years.
Kitten heel boots can provide an unusual look in winter but realize that they’ll be just as tough to walk in as other heels when it ices over. Also, the spiky end of the kitten heel will stick in spaced flooring and sidewalk gaps just as stilettos would.
Kitten heels will provide a much more comfortable dressy shoe than any other you could choose. You can wear them to the office and at formal events. As long as you are of average height, they should look good, since you won’t need leg-lengthening heels.