Cheap, not smart – on your feet, Rigour budget safety boots.
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Over time we have reviewed some expensive workwear like work gloves and safety footwear and like with all relatively expensive stuff there is a massive camp of individuals screaming that spending extra money on your gear is stupid.
Some people simply, stubbornly stick to pushing cheapest possible gear onto their body and calling everyone who opposes them fools, so this time we thought we might take one pair of the safety boots from the cheap side, make quick review on them and talk a bit about difference between cheap safety boots and expensive safety boots.
“noname – branded” Rigour safety boots from local DIY store.
Product Information:
- Full grain leather upper with mesh lining
- Dual density polyurethane outsole, steel midsole protection midsole and energy absorbing heel
- Steel toe cap
- Fuel oil resistant sole
- Safety ratings – S1P – 200 Joule toe protection
- Weight (g) 1470g
- Price range – under 50 $ / £ / €
So first lets talk about what you get.
You get basic safety boot with basic metal steel toe – no composite steel toe and no extras at all. You get equipment to pass security checkpoint and that’s it – You were told that you need to show up in safety boots and there you are.
Metal + Rubber + Leather = Security Checkpoint PASS
Are these boots waterproof?
Sort of Yes, they are made out of rough, cheap leather water will not get through that part of boot that quickly, however stitching might be weak spot – we were not willing to wear them long enough to test all aspects of waterproofness.
Are these boots suitable for wearing them all day long?
NO, unless you don’t feel your feet and it doesn’t really matter for you what happens down there.
They are not breathable, they are made out of leather and there are no anti-bacterial or anti-odour… anything in them like in Terra products. Your feet will sweat like mad and stink even worse… BUT this will apply to all other safety boots in this price range disregarding brand – it is just how it is – you get what you pay for.
Are they suitable for driving?
NO, they are not very well designed in a way of dexterity and how they are kept on your feet. Also rubber material used in sole is slipping from pedals once wet. Unless the pedal you want to push is bigger than this boot and covered with spikes it will be a fight and only a very raw driver would put up with this type of communication with vehicle.
Does the strings come loose…?
Yes, they do, as per cheapness of this very basic piece of equipment strings attached are not very well designed neither on connection end or looping around end – they simply come loose very easily or fall off the hooks.
Heel inner lining comfort and logevity?
Surprisingly this part is not too uncomfortable for this boot, there is very little lining in there at all, but there is some, and also it’s not falling apart that easily either.
In comparison to Terra Findlay safety boot which we’ll review sooner or later we have to admit that Rigour wins Terra Findlay on this part, but simply because Terra Findlay safety boot heel inner lining design, in our opinion, is one of the most unsuccesfull designs ever and shame the name of Terra brand.
Hovever Terra Dart safety boot has one of the best, if not the very best ever design in this part of safety boot in the market, but that we’ll leave for later to be discussed in another review.
Our score:
- Built & Material quality: 3/5
- Design & Engineering: 3/5
- Comfort & Feel: 2/5
- Dexterity: 3/5
Special features:
- Nonexistant, but half decent design on the inner heel area.
Overall this is very basic boot to get you into work area, but not to be recommended to be worn in that area after you’ve got in…
Cheap VS Expensive
Now lets get back into discussion about investing more into your footware to avoid your nails and feet falling off after a couple of shifts at work.
Safety boots are often to be worn all day so upon purchasing them we would recommend to take in consideration that you will have to keep your body in them all day, so this is what we will go by in this comparison.
There is no point of comparing cheap VS expensive if you’re planning to wear your boots only while passing security checkpoint and then swapping back into trainers – if you can do this at your place don’t worry about what boots you get any will do for a 5 step walk.
Another factor we would like to include in this is that if you purchase good safety boots they can be also used as winter boots or back up boots for other activities so instead of buying 2 pairs(200$/2) – 1x cheap work boots (50$) + 1x more expensive (150$) general winter outdoor activity or backup boots you can simply purchase 1 pair(200$) of very good boots you can use for both of these activities.
By doing this you will also be more environmentally friendly by consuming less natural resources – cool, isn’t it? 🙂
And also your 1x pair of “cool boots” will probably outlast your 2x pairs of “cheap boots” anyhow.
Benefits of spending more on Safety Boots?
- Health Benefits – while buying more expensive high-end safety boots, if choosing wisely, you will get features like anti-bacterial, anti-odour or anti-fungus treated lining. In case of Terra this feature is called CLEANFEET® for other brands it will be called differently, but it doesn’t matter as long as it works. And you will ask DOES IT WORK? – YES, IT DOES, no matter what your neighbour in 30$ safety boots try to convince you into these things do work.
- Breathability – this in some way could be placed under Health Benefits as well. Long story short – if your feet have at least some chance of breathing it is much better than no option of breathing at all. This will make you feel a bit better and in combination with anti-bacterial or anti-fungus treated lining will help you avoid nail and skin problems as well as will reduce sweating and odour which is indicator of overall feet health as well.
- Usability – investing in good work footwear can extend possible use of it. With cheap, uncomfortable work boots you will jump out of them and into your trainers upon first opportunity. This means you still need to have trainers with you or to keep them in your car and you spend time on changing as well, but if you want to save time you just compromise on staying a bit longer in uncomfortable footwear. Or another very common situation – driving, you need to wear safety boots while working, but they are uncomfortable while driving – simply get decent ones that are suitable and comfortable doing both…
- Comfort – you can feel comfortable in cheap boots – we don’t deny that, but in general it doesn’t happen like that and most of the people once tried better feeling in better boots will agree that it’s worth it to feel comfortable and simply don’t notice what you’re wearing during work.
- Longevity – in general, in current modern consumer world cheap boots don’t last very long so in long run you might spend 50$ a year per cheap uncomfortable boots that start to leak after few month or simply invest in more expensive boots that are comfortable give all other benefits and will last 3 years for 200$.
- Grip in different temperatures – in many cases with cheap rubber in cheap safety boots they might slip in one temperature and grip very well in another temperature. With better quality rubber you can get equally good grip in multiple temperatures for example boots might not slip off your vehicle pedals once you get in vehicle after work in cold weather.
- Free bonus features – high-end safety boots tend to have multiple extra features like removable midsoles, electrical protection levels, extra protection in midsole and other. While you go for more expensive boots to gain comfort and health benefits you might get some extra with it without asking for it as well.
- Support bringing manufacturing back to West – cheap safety boots will always be made in Asia, but high-end safety boots in some cases… are made in “THE West”, for example Terra use to manufacture some of their high-end boots in Canada, then stopped doing that while being bought by Kodiak Group which later got incorporated into Dickies. In between these takeover games Kodiak announced keeping Terra factory in Canada open and bringing manufacturing of high-end work footwear back, but currently we don’t see any Made In Canada models in their product range – maybe it will change, maybe not, time will tell.
Which of these possible benefits we appreciate the most?
In our humble opinion Health Benefit is the greatest closely followed by Comfort, the others might be put down to questionable or marketing games by others – Yes, but you can not deny these two.
On a side note…
How to help your feet and nail health while wearing safety boots?
You might not always have the choice of getting the best boots and might need to fight through not so comfortable boots due to various reasons, but there might be something to help you even in such situation.
What we’ve learned – one of the best additional treats you can give your feet might be antimicrobial, anti-fungus tea tree sprays, for example what we found very helpful was ClearZal Foot Sanitizer.
Spray on your feet in the morning before going to work, spray in the evening after shower and within a week or two, in our experience, nail and feet health significantly improved.
We also tend to use this foot sanitizer spray on hiking and travelling, so our recommendation is not only limited to construction workers or truck drivers but outdoor gear fanatics as well…
however be very carefull while buying this product since some extremely incompetent employee in this company decided in 2017 start to sell gel instead of spray in pretty much the same packaging ClearZal Foot Sanitizer Gel is terrible and useless , but ClearZal Foot Sanitizer Spray is a great product.
And this is NOT an advertisement.
Some material source: www.terrafootwear.com
Read more about other safety footwear we have reviewed:
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