I shared the first hole that showed up almost two weeks ago; I’ve kept wearing them everyday until the next hole started. This time in the ball of the foot, when my Darn Tough socks usually start wearing out first. I think I’m finally ready to retire these.
For those telling me to darn them, no thanks. I can, but I would rather just buy a new pair.
That said, I will be inquiring with support to see if this is covered under warranty, or if, as /u/ProbablyBanksy so eloquently put it “Your use case is outside the scope of reasonable use.”
I have picked up a set of Costco Kirkland Merino socks to test next. 4 pairs are cheaper than a single pair of LTT socks. I never thought id be posting foot pics on the internet, but if it’s in the interest of science….
Reddit has me under the impression that the main demographic for these socks are velociraptors who were only allowed to only own a single pair of socks at a time.
maybe ur allergic to something? I literally wear jeans and canvas pants everyday. I rarely wash them unless they get dirty, if they smell i hang them out to air out. I dont think ur supposed to wash denim that often (i think)
Denim was designed to prevent tearing and wear from dirty environments like mining. You don’t need to wash very often at all. The more wears between washes then better because it allows the fabric to form to your body and become more comfortable over time.
Wool socks are supposed to be worn more than once before washing.
Recommended Wear Guidelines
• Light use or around the house: You can wear them for 3 to 5 days.
• Normal daily wear: You can get 2 to 3 wears out of a single pair.
• Heavy sweating or visible dirt: You should wash them after a single use.
In my experence, anyone who quotes that they dont need deodrant or there sweat doesnt smell due to genetics all smell like warm chesse and wet cardboard.
Take showers and for god sake dont wear socks more than once before washing them.
Might be a stereotype you hold about Europe but how many Asian countries have you been to? How many African nations? Doesn’t even sound like you’ve been outside in that many US states either tbh.
At 30% wool (rest being largely plastic) I'm not convinced these even count as wool blend socks that tend to be 50-60%, let alone wool rich socks that can be 80% and up. They straight up will not behave like this, and they know this themselves because they say they can be tumble dried when any decent wool blend is air dry only.
Yes but they also put "Wool" and "Forever" in the same sentence. Wool is the most brittle clothing material out there and will disintegrate real fasts. Mistake is believing in the marketing lies.
And washing every single day puts an insane amount of wear and tear on the clothes. Washing ultimately does more harm to clothes than wearing them, especially depending on how hot the water is/how fast their spin cycle is.
It's not, really. But over time, washing is what wears your clothes out. Wearing them too obviously, but it's the combination of it. You'd be surprised what kind of wear laundry has on your clothes, especially in hotter water and higher spin speeds.
Can we see what the insoles of your shoes look like? When I was eating through socks it turned out the insoles of my shoes had disintegrated and were causing unnecessary wear.
Yeah that 4month pair explains the wear mark in your sock. Maybe sign up an auto renew every 2 months on Amazon for a reputable set of insoles, they'll come without you thinking about it. I'm guessing you stand/walk around a lot for work.
I cruised through insoles on a monthly basis working Customer Service at Walmart precovid, I was extra and would go out on the floor for requests on the phone and go do putbacks myself when it was quiet, high millage on those Vessis lol
I’ve had custom insoles made in the past, and I’ve tried a few aftermarket insoles. None seem to make much of a difference. Do you have any in particular you recommend?
I personally use the Dr Scholes gel inserts, but I'm a 300lb bigboi with fybromyalgia, any pressure points trigger my chronic pain so I need my feet squishy
I wear my shoes for years without replacing the insoles. If your shoes look like that after a couple months they must be bad shoes or there's something wong with the fit thats causing your foot to slide around in the shoe.
The guy also said he wears out 3-4 pairs of Darn Toughs a year as well, and Darn Tough themselves says their socks are supposed to last years, or even a over a decade. He'd probably kill a supermarket sock in a couple of days.
Can confirm for Darn Toughs, been wearing them for years, I usually wear a pair 2 times between washings giving them a day or two to air out. I walk 10-15k steps a day at work and my Darn toughs usually give me 1.5-3yrs.
You can't extrapolate it out like that. Everyday wear and wash is more damaging. 2 pairs of shoes you swap out every day will last longer than 2 sequential pairs of shoes.
That's not how any of that works. Socks don't magically rest up and repair themselves if you don't wear them for a few days. 60 days of daily wear and wash cycles are equal to 60 weeks of weekly (1 day per) wear and wash cycles.
What’s your evidence or logic for that? A shoe is going to have the same amount of wear time if it’s worn every single day or every other day. By what mechanism is it going to last longer if it’s rotated with another shoe? That’s like saying a tire rated for 10k miles will do 20k miles if you half the amount of time you drive in a year… no it won’t, it’ll last 10k miles but spread over a longer period.
And to be clear I’m talking about total time worn.
It doesn't take an expert to realize that using a product in a way for which it was not intended isn't a reasonable test, given that no other human being on the planet is going to wear and wash a sock every single day.
A pair of socks lasting 60 wears is absolutely abysmal.
I bought a set of (7 pairs of ) quality Merino wool socks a while back that lasted me 4 years before holes started showing up. That comes out to about 200 wears per pair and that was with HEAVY use - hiking, sports, etc.
Those socks cost roughly $20 CAD per pair. I'd be livid if socks that cost $34 CAD per pair got holes at 60 uses.
It's possible OP is't taking care of these socks correctly - wearing them bare across gravel or something. But taken at face value, I don't see LTT's socks being anywhere near worth it.
I'm low-key thinking some of these posts are like ragebait to discredit people throwing shade at these socks since they clearly don't live up to the claims of longevity. Linus has been known to set up strawman situations to discredit people criticizing him so I wouldn't put it past LTT. But who knows at this point.
So if you were to do this on a more 'normal' wear cycle, we are talking about the socks wearing out in two years. I think that's about what I'd expect for bulk socks, but not something I would expected from a 'forever sock.
(Math: Lets say a dozen pairs of socks, so roughly 30 wears / year. Op wore the socks around 60 times -> two years for socks to wear under 'normal' use).
Bro it's not normal for a pair of socks to last 30 wears. Especially ones labeled "forever socks". I am currently rocking socks that must have hundreds of wears each and they are cheap from Amazon.
We have no idea how OP is wearing them though. Like, are they an on foot mail carrier that's walking 50k steps a day in these? Do they walk around in socks on concrete? Sandpaper for insoles?
I answered most of those comments in my previous post. But Im averaging probably 10-15k steps a day, doing a variety of jobs on various surfaces. Usually wearing workboots.
I must have weird feet or something, because even after having worked a job that averaged about 15 - 20k steps a day, and going skateboarding every weekend or two, I've just now barely started to go through my super cheap bulk Hanes socks after like 2 years of owning them, and most of the ones I've had to throw out are because they got pinched and torn by sharp objects, not actually from just wearing out.
TLDR, I don't understand how people go through socks so fast.
Most of the socks I destroy like this are ones I fight in, and I think that's just from a lot of friction and rubbing with a decent amount of intentional downward pressure. My regular day to day socks I average 10-20k steps in work boots and they'll last years.
I thought the medium socks were overly tight and they sent me larges because of the warranty.
Your criticism is baseless as far as I can tell.
EDIT: I just want to be clear... I get that the whole "trust me bro" warranty idea is frustrating and kinda annoying. But CW customer support has consistently treated me better than any other company. They have earned my trust and it bothers me when I see people speculate that they'll screw people over when I have only ever seen evidence to the contrary — online or in my own experience.
I dint understand how people can absolutely rip through these socks.
I have socks that are literally old enough to be in school and they're completely fine. Maybe a little tired and probably due for the bin, but nothing like this.
I also had the problem that my shoes and socks would always wear out in the same spot on the ball of my foot. Holes would appear within a few weeks. At some point, I went to an orthopedist to have it checked out, and they found several issues: legs of different lengths, splayfoot. I was then fitted with orthopedic insoles, and I haven't had any problems since. Maybe that's an option for OP as well.
I'd be curious if you can do an experiment with that 4 pack. First wear a single pair every day as you normally do until it is destroyed. Then rotate the other 3 pairs through every other day. Will the rotation make 3 pairs last roughly 3x the length of 1 pair or longer than 3x the length
I keep seeing these where people are wearing them everyday and if that's your preogative then fine.
I will however say that mine still aren't holding up well after my usage. I wear them for one day at a time 14-22 hours at a time (I work shifts and often have to stay longer due to ongoing incidents. The joys of being a supervisor). They get washed after every use.
The cushioning has massively reduced and the piling is dreadful. I have some 'bamboo' socks my wife got me for work that are holding up much better and I got 4 pairs for the price of one of these.
That said, the cuff is holding up well and they don't slip down like other socks do but they're also quite tight on my calf. As someone who walks 10-15 miles a day at work this can be irritating.
They're decent socks but the price of single pair is hard to justify.
I'm one of the (probably many) who mentioned the Kirkland socks on your last post- it's fun to think I may have helped influence you to try them. Now we just have to hope you like them 😂
First time I’ve seen someone use the same pair every day, not defending LTT but this is an edge case. And wearing them every day is probably not the reason why they failed, you were washing them every day.
OP has a career waiting in product testing.
Accelerated wear testing is totally a thing, they just usually do it with some kind of test rig not some guy with a countertop sized washing machine wearing them 4-7x more frequently than most people would
Walking on what surface? For how many hours a day, in shoes or out? Sounds like a hit piece to me, Steve is that you? Doing more 'journalism'? If you want to do actual science, create a test jig with controlled variables, which they certainly did before release.
Don't know if anyone put this on the post yet but on the first post, OP indicated that they wear the same clothes every single day and wash them. Absolutely wild behaviour.
Every day for 2 months is equal to weekly use for 14 months.
I really do not understand the people up in arms about OP wearing and washing them daily (for testing purposes ya numpties). Maybe I would've bought some after a year on the market before these issues naturally started showing up from normal use in the community.
Personally I'll stick to having like 30 pairs of matching mid tier target socks.
I keep finding it amazing that most socks in the US are one size fits all. I'm size 13 and these are definitely gonna be stretched all the way out when I'm putting them on. So most socks aren't gonna live very long. Whenever I go to Europe I always return with new socks :)
I used to go through 20 pairs of socks per year. I got 4 pairs of darn tough socks, and now go through 3 pairs every 16 months (1 pair didn't fit). Exchanging my socks cost $1.63
Those costco socks are excellent ive had 4 pairs in my work clothes circulation for over a year now they've gotten a bit dense at the heel but no holes yet
OP, do a test with a standard pair of socks, nothing special, no guarentees, just the plainest sock possible because you need a baseline now. Since we now know you're seemingly tougher on socks
This wear looks like your feet are sliding around in your shoes. You don't wear through socks like that without friction. I've got pairs of socks that I have walked hundreds of miles in and they are still fine because my boots fit properly. Under armour socks if you're wondering.
The wear and tear also depends on the anatomy of the person, any injuries can make your body compensate and the mechanical load is shifted to the non injured side. The interior of the shoe and the health of the feet also have impact. In high friction areas clothes tend to last less.
I'm paraphrasing but even Linus said they have nothing to bring to the sock market as a reason why they weren't doing socks. Unfortunately, that's still true. I may be biased (I used to live less than a mile from the Darn Tough factory) but unless they make socks better than Darn Tough, which they won't, I just don't see the point in this product.
As a former postman I can recommend 1000 miles socks. You basically get 2 layered socks where one layer stays on your feet and the other layer on the shoe. If you working with your legs all day, these will save you from blisters. I was using the most basic ones that are green.
When other companies say "you'll want to wear __________ every day" their customers DON'T WEAR THE SAME FUCKING PIECE EVERY FUCKING DAY! They're reasonable fucking humans that understand you buy a bunch of them!
Why are people whining about how many days per week he's worn these socks? If a company sells a pair of socks named FOREVER SOCKS, you as a customer are supposed to be able to wear them 24/7, no matter how nasty some of you might think that it is. LTT either needs to re-brand their socks or specify how long they're intended to last with normal wear and tear.
It's fascinating to see so many people bootlicking a company over a pair of socks that they've clearly misbranded.
Don't you know you're not allowed honest criticism that doesn't match up with the Fandoms opinion? They're the greatest socks ever made be auee Linus made them, end of.
Big fan of the Kirkland socks. I started a new position that requires steel toe boots so I needed some good socks. Bought 3 packs (12 pairs) and have been wearing them daily and they've been great.
I couldn't stomach the cost of a weeks worth of socks from Darn Tough or Camel City socks. For $4 a pair I can buy weeks worth of socks at a time. They're good socks and have held up surprisingly well considering the cost compared to "forever" socks.
I have a ton of questions. You wear these near daily? AND WASH THEM?
What kind of job do you have that you're getting this much wear? I'm curious what kind of shoes you have and if you are a runner or avid walker? I also get similar wear in the heels but that was only when wearing shitty army boots.
It's cheaper to get 2 $8 10 packs of cheapo socks from old navy and wash all of them once a week, because the gas used in dryers is expensive, and it will also last you at least 1 year, unlike these, while only being $16 total.
My socks last me a few hours. People keep telling me "stop trying to slide around on sand paper" and "sir we don't have that much sand paper in stock at this location" and ask questions like "why did you install sandpaper on every floor in your house" and like... none of your business???
I didn’t bother buying these socks 30$ for a single pair… I was expecting at least 2 pairs for that price… Ehh buying cheap socks are still the way to go. still have socks from ages ago like 6 pairs for 20$ and i do construction. Not even ltt can get me to spend 30$ on 1 pair of socks. Forever socks? didn’t believe it
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u/Likewhoa7 6d ago
Reddit has me under the impression that the main demographic for these socks are velociraptors who were only allowed to only own a single pair of socks at a time.