Parents dress their kids in boots and galoshes all the time. Whenever it is raining or snowing outside, the protective footwear goes on. But for some strange reason, we seem to abandon the practice in adulthood. How many of us are perfectly willing to go out in inclement weather without adequate foot protection?

If it’s too inconvenient to wear boots and carry your shoes, there is an alternative: waterproof shoe covers. Salt Lake City’s GC Tech offers a fantastic waterproof shoe cover for men. It is lightweight, breathable, and slips on and off easily.

Granted, shoe covers do represent an additional expense above and beyond your shoes. But they are well worth it. Here are four reasons explaining why:

1. Wet Feet Are Bad for Your Health

You may not realize it, but wet feet can be bad for your health. As such, walking around with wet shoes and socks for hours at a time can lead to requiring medical treatment. Those issues include blisters, sores, rashes, and athlete’s foot. During cold weather, you could be looking at frostbite and trench foot, too.

Shoe covers solve that problem. They are designed to keep your shoes dry. And if your shoes stay dry, so do your socks and feet. Your feet are happier and healthier as a result.

  2. Your Shoes Will Last Longer

Shoe covers are also a great tool for extending the life of your shoes. How so? Exposing shoes to the elements causes leather to crack and synthetic materials to wear out. Throw in a little road salt and you have bigger problems. But keeping your shoes covered during inclement weather makes them last longer. In that sense, a good pair of shoe covers can pay for themselves by eliminating the frequency with which you buy shoes.

3. Your Shoes Will Look Better

In addition to extending the life of your shoes, shoe covers will help them look better as well. This may not be important to people who don’t need to present a professional appearance or who normally wear sneakers and sandals. But to professionals, shoe appearance is important.

No business executive should walk into a meeting with dirty shoes. Ditto for attorneys, physicians, educators, etc. Shoes really do make a difference when it comes to personal appearance. As such, clean shoes are better shoes.

4. You’ll Be Safe or in Bad Weather

Finally, assuming you choose a pair of shoe covers with a good tread, you’ll be a lot safer walking around in inclement weather. By contrast, imagine walking down the street on a rainy day in a pair of smooth-soled dress shoes. All it would take to send you tumbling to the ground is a misplaced step into a shallow puddle.

Treaded shoe covers do the same thing for your feet that your tires do for your car. The treads channel away water so that your feet maintain contact with the pavement. That means less slipping and sliding and a lower risk of falling.

Note that a quality pair of shoe covers will not come cheaply. If you are only looking to spend a few dollars on cheap silicone, you’re going to get what you pay for. If you want a quality shoe cover that will provide adequate protection and offer years of valuable service, you’ll have to spend a little more. But it is well worth it.

Quality shoe covers will keep your feet dry, extend the life of your shoes, help you present a better appearance, and make it safer for you to walk in inclement weather. That is it in a nutshell.