Neat Trick: Making high Heels more comfortable

Call me crazy, but there comes a time when wearing in brand new heels around the home just isn't weird anymore. With wedding season continuing well into October for me, I'm going to be donning heels more often than hot dinners, but my problem now is the pain factor. I just Iuuuurve dancing, which inevitably means the pain will kick in sooner. I've not been wearing my sky scraper heels for some time now too... I just can't manoeuvre around Athens' San Francisco style streets and dodgy pavements (cue me tripping and wiping out), so these days I wear flats.

From Left top to bottom via Net-a-Porter:
Christian Louboutin Pigalle 120 Patent Pumps (120mm)
Charlotte Olympia Dolly Canvas Pumps (155mm high!)
Alexander McQueen Lace pumps (130mm)
Brian Atwood Drama Patent pumps (140mm)

Scouring the net I've discovered some great tips on how to make wearing heels more comfortable & how to get your shoe (if it's leather or suede) to fit better.

This tip is a bit weird but definitely worth trying as it is quite effective:
Tape your 3rd and 4th little toes together to make high heels more comfortable! You can use Scotch tape - bit difficult in this heat, or try fabric medical tape - I used a Elastoplast surgical tape. Genius! Note: This does work with some peep toe styles - just don't tape to close to the ends.
The science: Apparently at the base of the 3rd & 4th toes is where the nerve splits thus causing pain more easily particularly at the balls of your feet. Also, wearing high heels or ill fitting shoes causes the bone to rub against the nerve or place excessive pressure on the ball of the foot.

This neat little shoe fitting trick is for new shoes that rub, feel too tight and give you nasty blisters. This works best on suede or leather shoes and will not stretch or ruin the entire shoe, you'll see why in a mo.

Test drive your new shoes around the home for a bit to establish which bits rub your feet. Stick or wrap moleskin tape or even fabric plasters on the painful bits. You can either soak you feet in water, then dry them off, or just wet the fabric plaster. Slip into you shoes again and walk around a bit with the damp plaster and let your shoes mould & stretch over the damp plaster area. (You can do this a few times after the plaster has dried off a bit so that the shoe stretches a bit more to accommodate your feet). When you do wear them next, they shouldn't rub! Woopee!

Just make sure you're armed with some plasters or Compeed plasters if you're going out in heels! Right now there are so many companies cashing in on our pain experience, from Dr Scholls Party Feet products range to Compeed.

Here are some of the hot products to ease and make your heel wearing experience less painful:

Compeed - aka magic plasters, feels like a mini cushion on your skin, preventing/protecting your skin from blisters. If you do have blisters, this will help speed up recovery

Dr Scholl's Party Feet Range - awesome little gel cushions and sticky strips to help ease the pain on a night out in heels

So ladies, have you any cool tips to share?

Images via Boots.com
ref: Glamour & 5 inch & Up