Do Shoes Have Animal Based Glues in Them? No. Thankfully.
Hey guys,
I received a nice comment today wondering about how to tell whether the glues used in shoes are animal based.
I am sure we have all heard how in the old days old horses used to be sent to the glue factory. Horrors.
I had a hunch that most glues used in shoes were synthetic from inquiring at a few vegan companies and even factories, but I decided to do some further googling.
After reading up on animal glue on wikipedia, which supplied more evidence that animal glues are not all that common these days except in woodworking it seems, I came across this very helpful blog post written by someone who inquired at the vegan store Pangea.
They said:
We have actually done quite a bit of our own independent research into adhesives, and have found that, while animal-based glues were indeed the standard in past decades, these days, the shoe industry as a whole uses synthetic adhesives almost exclusively. This is not due to ethical concerns, of course, but is the case simply because modern synthetic adhesives have become much more technically advanced than animal-based glues. In particular, animal glues are less stable than synthetics, and don’t stand up well to all weather conditions and lots of stretching, so they don’t work well for footwear. (We’ve been happy to learn that, these days, animal glues have actually been phased out of many industries, and are only commonly used for wood products and sometimes bookbinding). Hope this helps, and please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.
So this is quite good news.
The blog where I found this is called Vegan Volleyballer, about Vegan athletic wear and equipment. Maybe some one out there will find it helpful. Looks good!
Wow, had no idea. Great news! x
yay. glad it was informative. thanks for the comment marta!
Howdy— this new format is much easier to navigate than the old one. Nice!
Hey Rebekah. Thanks. That’s good to know. I liked the look of the old one, but it was impossible to find anything. BTW I love your blog!
[…] So you can find cheap non-leather shoes in almost any store that sells inexpensive clothes and shoes. (for example, H&M, Forever 21, American Eagle, Modcloth.com). I call these shoes “unintentionally vegan” though because they are made without leather because its cheap, not for any animal rights reasons. Online many places state the materials used in shoes, and though it’s always good to double check, it’s a very good bet that almost any shoe under 50$ (that isn’t on sale) will say “all man made materials” or “Synthetic upper and Rubber sole”, which means vegan. As for the glue, all shoe glue nowadays seems to be synthetic (wrote about it on my blog.) […]
Really it was very interesting to read this post that does a shoe have animal based glues in them.
thanks!!
This should not be considered a universal answer. If you speak to individual companies they will give you the answer that applies to their company. The first thing that comes up when you google this issue is that Doc Martens does use animal based glue on some of their vegan leather shoes. Please don’t just assume – you could be hurting animals! Shop with vegan sites and know that the people who are selling your shoes also care. This is the only article I have found claiming that shoe glue is largely animal free and I have to say I’m getting a ‘planted’ vibe…
um, it’s not planted. but thanks for your comment and view point.
[…] site My Non Leather Life queried the origin of mainstream shoe glue last year. It discovered a statement from vegan shoe […]