Are you currently shopping for vegan-friendly shoes? What is vegan shoes, anyway? For everyone unaware, vegan shoes are footwear that is made without any animal ingredients or byproducts. They’re eco-friendly and is billed as ‘cruelty-free.’ They look pretty much the same as ordinary shoes – and that’s where the challenge comes from. Shopping for vegan shoes can be challenging, especially when you’re trying to figure out whether the shoes are made from real leather, or synthetic, human-made materials. However, we’ve researched for you, and we found a quick and easy guide to follow when trying to find animal-friendly shoes.
Getting to Know the Shoes You Buy
Shoe retailers and manufacturers are required to label the composition of their entire footwear, specifically identifying if the materials used for the Lining and sock, upper, and outer sole. By doing some research on the prospective shoe you’re going to buy, you might find out if the shoes were made from animal skin. When you’re shopping at the department store and don’t have time to browse quickly for the materials used for the shoe you’re about to buy, you can check their tag for some essential information. If you’re genuinely going for vegan shoes, you should avoid shoes made from animal skin. Stay away from materials that are labelled as leather, coated leather, fur, or suede.
Familiarise Shoe Symbols
Another way of determining if a shoe is vegan is the stickers on the bottom of the shoe. You might think that they are useless, but they’re there for a reason. They inform buyers what is vegan shoes and what is not. It’s a helpful pictogram that tells you what materials the shoes were made from. The shoe composition will be made from one or a mixture of the following materials:
- Leather
- Coated leather
- Textile
- Other materials
Click here to access images of these symbols. To avoid shoes that are made from animal skin, you’ll want to avoid both the ‘leather’ and ‘coated leather’ symbols. Instead, opt for shoes labelled with either ‘textile’ or ‘other materials.
By looking at these symbols, you will know if the shoe you’re going to buy is vegan or not. So, make sure you familiarise yourself with them. This article is a quick guide. But we hope you’ll find it extremely helpful in determining what is vegan shoes and what is not. For more shoe-buying guides, visit our blog page now.