VBL socks – The best way to keep your feet warm and inner shoes dry in winter
What are VBL socks
Those are basically waterproof socks or a simple plastic bag which works in the same way. The main point is to trap the sweat coming from your feet and warm air inside of the liner. This keeps your feet warm and your inner shoes dry since your sweat won’t get to the inner shoes.
How you wear them
In winter trips for example during hiking, skiing or ice climbing etc. you wear two pairs of socks which are one pair of thin wool socks and one pair of thicker wool socks. If you wear VBL socks, you wear the waterproof socks between these two wool sock layers. This is called VBL socks which stands for Vapor Barrier Liner.
What VBL Socks do
VBL socks have 2 main jobs. Firstly those keep your feet warm by creating a small sauna inside your boot around your feet. It traps the air and all the sweat from your feet and simply keeps it there. This air gets warmed up by the heat generated from you feet. This is a huge help in keeping your feet warm in extreme cold conditions.
Secondly, VBL socks keeps your boots and second layer of wool socks dry. This happens, because VBL traps the sweat from your feet. So only your first layer of socks and your feet will be soaked in warm sweat.
Where to buy VBL socks
Honestly, the cheapest and simplest is just a plastic bag! In the market there are many VBL liners which Peyman has tried, but none of them works properly. So the best one is basically a plastic bag. Simply wearing a plastic bag and doing the exact the same job. Please take a few extra plastic bags so when one gets holes you can switch it.
Cons of this method
Your feet and thin socks will be soaked with sweat. So try to clean your feet with sanitiser, tissue paper, warm water or whatever every evening to keep the feet hygienic. Some people use newspaper inside of the liner as well in order to absorb the extra sweat but then you need to dry the paper as well and we haven’t tested this method in the long expeditions. VBL works well when you keep moving, but when you stop for a long time, your feet can get cold.