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Materials

 

New "Oxygen" rubber sole

About

The new Tikki soles are created with the idea of ​​maximum freedom in mind: light, flexible, ground feel - everything to the max. We were inspired by nature itself, focusing on a very vital element: oxygen, something extremely light but so vital for life.

The tiny bubbles on the sole are arranged in the shape of 5 fingers and intertwined so as to reconstruct the Tikki® logo. These bubbles not only have an aesthetic role, but also a functional one because they offer an additional grip.

To achieve this effect, we used a light rubber, with good abrasion resistance, but which comes with certain limitations to it. In some ways, the true barefoot soles come with a few trade-offs, and they can never be compared to the classic, rigid soles of other conventional shoes.

These soles cannot be used for intense sports activities such as soccer, basketball, running, or other similar ones... The truth is, they won’t last very long. Being so thin, the sole will easily rub off, at least 1-2 mm at the surface. Therefore, for this type of activity, we recommend you use other, sport-specific footwear.

Another thing to consider is that our soles cannot be used on bicycles without pedals - the rubber sole being so flexible, it won’t withstand intense, repetitive motions in a fixed place.

 

The new Tikki sole is ideal for the first steps, for older children and teenagers - for normal, everyday wear, in activities with a normal intensity of use.

 

2. Vegetable tanned leather

There is a great variety of tanning techniques, but the oldest method - from Neolithic - and perhaps the most complicated is tanning with vegetal tannins. As the name suggests, the vegetable tanning is an organic method based on tannins extracted from bark tree or plant fiber. Oak, chestnut or silk tannins are the most popular, but hundreds of other types of plants used in tanning natural leather are known.

Modern tanning methods are based on minerals such as chromium sulphate, a substance that was invented in the mid-nineteenth century. The principle is the same, binding skin's collagen into stable molecular structures, a process that prevents rotting and decomposition. This method of binding collagen protein using chromium salts takes a short time, the order of 1-3 days, but often the use of these heavy metal minerals is responsible for the pollution of the environment and for different skin allergies.

In contrast, the tanning process with plant tannins is a time-consuming process that involves sinking the skin into a concentrated vegetable tannin soup for a few months. This traditional tanning method requires specialized workmanship but the result excites any customer who appreciates quality products.

Among the benefits associated with natural, vegetable tanned leather:
- biodegradable material with minimal allergenic risk
- wear resistance, leather retaining its beauty over time
- the feeling of an organic product, "alive", pleasant to the touch

Disadvantages of Vegetable Tanned leather:
- tannin fixes the color worse than chromium - in wet conditions there is the possibility of transferring a slight color shade
- higher costs due to a production process that requires more careful and longer control than the one based on chromium salts, as well as a specialized manufacture.

Attention!

Do not confuse vegetable tanned leather with echological leather or vegetable leather!

While the vegetable tanned leather is an organic material from animal skin, the echological leather or vegetable leather is a synthetic material.

For those curious, the difference between the echological leather and vegetable leather is made by the substance from which it is synthesized. While the echological leather is synthesized from polymers, the vegetable leather is grown from genetically modified yeast so that the yeast protein mimics the collagen from the animals' skin.

 

3. Chrome free lining

Children love colorful shoes and the outer pieces of material have a decisive influence on the shoe attractiveness, but besides its design and appearance, the comfort and being healty matters just as much - and in this regard the materials used for lining are the ones that have the major role. When children wear shoes without socks, the skin of their feet can absorb - especially when sweating - a big part of the substances they come into contact with, so it is important that both the sole of the footwear as well as the lining are processed with healthy, non-alergenic substances. Chrome-Free lining - tanned with synthetic tannins or vegetal tannins - solves this problem by providing a special protection for the delicate skin of the children.

 

4. Ultra flexible outer sole

Made of leather, crepe or rubber, Tikki Shoes soles are ultra-flexible and anti-skid. Dedicated to early walkers making their first steps, they favor the quick learning of a correct walk since children can easily feel the surface they step on. The Tikki soles allow the unristricted movement of the feet, which results in a harmonious development of the feet muscles, a good balance and a correct posture.