The grey patch on the heel of my bed sock

The Solen Base Journal

I found it loading the washing machine on a Saturday morning. It took me an embarrassingly long time to work out what it was.

By Haider Jafri, founder · 5 minute read

A dramatised story. The routine, the objects and the quotes come from real posts and reviews we read while making Solen Base, and the people quoted were writing about other products, not ours. The narrator is a composite, not a customer.

It was a Saturday, which is when I do the bedding.

Duvet cover, pillowcases, the week's socks. I was feeding them into the drum and turned one of my bed socks the right way out, and there it was. A dull grey patch right across the heel. Slightly stiff when I pressed it. Shiny at the edge.

I actually thought it was dirt at first. Then I checked the next one. Same patch. Same place. And the next. Every bed sock in the basket had it, right where my heel goes.

It was my foot cream.

I did everything right

I want to be clear about this, because I think a lot of us secretly assume we're doing it wrong.

I didn't dab it on. I did it properly. A thick layer, straight out of the shower, rubbed in on the side of the bath. Then a cotton sock, because everyone says to put a sock on so it doesn't get on the sheets. Every magazine, every review, every friend who's ever given me advice about my heels said the same thing. Cream, then socks.

And by the time I was sitting at my desk the next day, my heels felt dry again. I used to think that meant the cream wasn't strong enough. So I'd buy a stronger one.

"When I was young, I used to use the old vaseline and cotton socks treatment, which is almost useless because the cotton soaks up the vaseline and leaves the feet dry."

From a review of another brand's heel sock.

Standing in the utility room with a stiff sock in my hand, I thought about all the stronger ones. The urea one. The one with the doctor on the box. The one I bought in the airport because it was in a nice tube.

So I started checking

I'm not going to pretend I did a proper experiment. I'm not that person. But for the next week, every morning, I turned my bed sock inside out before it went in the basket, and looked.

It was there every time. Always the heel, which is where the cream goes. Heavier on the nights I'd put more on.

I started calling it the Sock Test, mostly in my head, and then out loud to my sister, who went upstairs and checked hers and came back and said "oh".

Here's what it told me, and here's what it didn't.

It didn't tell me how much of the cream went into the sock and how much went into me. I don't know. I don't think anyone can tell you that from a sock.

What it did tell me is that the sock wasn't doing nothing. I'd always thought of it as a lid. Something that just sat there keeping the cream in. It was never a lid. It was cotton. And cotton is a fabric we make towels out of.

Once you see that, you can't stop seeing it. People have been saying it for years:

"Ordinary foot cream often seems to disappear into my socks rather than staying where it is needed."

"I feel like all the lotion I put on just soaks into my socks and wastes it."

If your bed sock is in the wash basket right now, go and turn it inside out. That's the whole test. It takes ten seconds and costs nothing.

The problem was never the sock itself

This is the part that took me longest.

The advice isn't wrong. Something over the cream does make sense. It keeps it on my foot and off everything else. The problem was what the sock was made of on the inside. I'd been putting the cream I paid for against plain cotton, every single night.

And the second problem was when I was doing it. At night, in a sock I hate sleeping in and usually pull off by two in the morning. So even the nights I did it, I only half did it.

What I actually wanted was a sock that wasn't cotton on the inside, worn at a time of day when I'm wearing socks anyway.

What I found

That's when I came across Solen Base. It's a sock made to go over cream. They call it the Day Sock.

Cotton on the outside, so it looks like any grey sock, and closed toe, so it's invisible under shoes. On the inside, where the cream is, it's lined with gel. So the side touching the cream isn't cotton at all.

You use your own cream. Nothing is soaked into the sock and there's no fragrance. So the tube I already own finally gets a turn.

It's for the morning. Cream on, Day Sock on, shoes on, out the door. Each pair lasts 3 to 6 months, and you give your feet a rest between wears.

What made me take it seriously is that the same test works on theirs. Wear it, turn it inside out, look, and decide for yourself. Nobody has to tell you what you'll see. You just check, the same way I checked mine.

There are three Day Socks in the kit, and a Night Sleeve too, open at the toes, for evenings. Everything goes in the wash at 40 degrees in a mesh bag.

What I'm hoping for

Honestly, something small. That on Saturday, when I do the bedding, I stop finding my foot cream in the drum.

That the good tube I paid for goes on my heels and stays with my heels, instead of going round at 40 degrees with the pillowcases.

If you do the Sock Test tonight and see what I saw, have a look at how the Day Sock works. There's a fourteen night guarantee, and you don't need to buy a new cream to try it.