Another slip-on review? Lame.

Slip-ons are real nice to skate in. It’s almost like skating with seal flippers for feet. Sleek, hyper-articulate appendages that can wrangle the ol’ 7-ply like it’s saltwater. Unfortunately, flippers are delicate and prone to injury, and skating in slip-ons is like doing it wild with one of Henry Miller’s throwaways through a sheepskin. Both are dangerous activities that can lead to open sores.
But how folks can skate in those puffy lunar skate shoes is beyond me; I mean, that‘s like gouging in latex. I guess what’s further beyond that is how Geoff Rowley can glide down deathly steep, ten meter rails in those Kleenex Vans originals, but that‘s a whole other article.

For a boarder of the Shoewhorse’s caliber, slip-ons are the porridge that goldilocks ate. Perfect for slappies, powerslides and flunkie no-complies. Plus, no shoelaces to break.

Slip-ons are super hot right now–turning sand into glass on the streets–and just about every skate shoe company now makes some kind of slip-on. About 88.6% of them are designed exactly the same as the original (Vans). This is wise as the design doesn’t leave much to be desired: comfy, handsome and more than a little sassy.

The only problem with skating in slip-ons, outside of open sores and tender heels, is that they are usually made of canvas and tend to burst holes after about four ollies.
Recently, I acquired two pairs of a more resistant strain of slip-on. A set of suede vans and some leather and suede slip-ons by a New York designer thingy called Alife. These fancier NY slip-ons are pretty much Vans with a different sole. The iron grip waffle has been traded in for a smooth, flat sole with little wavy razor cuts in them; much like my exhaling Sperry’s. These soles, as you can see, are turquoise. Turquoise! (That sure is fun to say). So yes, the soles are tur____, and the upper parts are red and pink. Whereas Vans slip-ons retail for about $50, these were on the auction block for $120, which is strange considering they don’t have a shortwave radio sewn into them (they are imported from China, so maybe that‘s the deal). My bride found them on clearance for only $25.

I am very happy about this because they are really comfortable. The soles are just as thin as the Vans’, but the insoles are magical. They feel like those stress balls that executive types squeeze when the going gets rough, but even better. My guess is that Alife keeps a unicorn that they coax into ejaculating on some strips of Nerf.
For the toe to toe challenge, I employed the uniquely ridiculous testing method of skating wearing one of each shoe on each foot, switching halfway through so that each pair got equal ollie time–no switch stance here, folks.

The Alife’s outer shell felt a tad thinner than the Vans. This made it a little hard to get super raw on parking blocks, but the cool thing is that as the ollies tore at the leather it turned white. Now the shoes look kind of like raw steak. This little dash of gnarliness trumped the effete color way and pushed the Alife’s overall performance ahead a few steps, or whatever. The Vans fought back by being the color of ash.
It was brutal, and I know a certain low, waxed curb that is still trembling in the wake of their mortal combat.

One thing I learned is that the reason you don’t find a lot of leather slip-ons for sale is that they turn into little crock pots after ten minutes of skating. The sweat builds up and cannot evaporate. Hooves marinate to the point that when finally freed they weep like Lars Ulrich. It’s fucking gross.

Even grosser, I thought that battling it out would make these slip-ons bloodless enemies, but look at the picture. They’re all hot for each other now. I can’t even keep them both under the bed. All you hear is a bunch of sucking sounds all night.
Wow, now that is gross.