Intelex Cozy Body Boots, Cream

My teenage daughter, who is a competitive figure skater, ended up with horrible chilblains and suffers from autoimmune issues, including Raynauds. As a result, she has suffered from very painful, swollen red/purple toes and ulcers over the past couple of years. We have tried several other foot warmers and slippers along the way, but these, by far, have been the best for her needs. She has very poor circulation and her toes and fingertips are always cold. These slippers have helped keep her toes from ulcerating this past winter and keep her much more comfortable. She microwaves them, slips them on over socks (we recommend the ski warmer socks, which hold in warmth to use with these as a base layer, and she likes to have another layer of fuzzy socks on top of the ski socks in colder weather) and she's nice and toasty. As long as she doesn't take them off, the heat stays trapped in the slippers for a long time. She microwaves them between 2-3 times a day and keeps them on whenever she is at home. Over time, they take more time to heat up (they got hot at first with about 30 seconds, but now she's over a minute of microwave time), so we just increase the microwave time to compensate. She's has this pair for almost five months, wears them all day at home, and the sole of one slipper is finally ripping so I'm ordering another pair for her.As far as people getting burned, I'd highly suggest wearing a pair of socks with them and start on a shorter time in the microwave until you determine how the slippers take to your microwave - some are more powerful and heat faster than others. The rice is at the top of the slippers so you can walk in them in the house. My daughter absolutely loves these and they've helped manage her autoimmune issues. They are very soft, smell nice, and are very comfortable. Highly recommend giving them a try, especially if you suffer from Chilblains and/or Raynauds or you just have poor circulation!

So this is like the 5th pair of feet warmers that I own (different than these), because I can't sleep until my feet warm up, and it's a bummer when that's an hour. So when I first wore them to bed, I LOVED how soft they are on the inside, I greatly enjoyed slipping my toesies around just to feel the softness! So the booties seem to warm (have the warming beads) only on the top, not the bottom. So that was a bit of a problem, trying to quickly warm up my toes in bed. But then tonight while working on the computer my feet got cold, so I got ahold of these babies, warmed them up for a minute, and wore them while on the computer. Here is why I give them 5 stars and not 4: With all of my other pairs, they have heating elements on the top AND bottom. But then you can't walk around on them! If I want to get up to get popcorn or a drink, or do anything else, it is very awkward feeling with the others, (all bumpy and you walk weird as your feet are walking on bumps and dips as the 'kernels' or whatever slide all around) and no problem at all with these ones. There is a layer of padding on the inside bottoms, which makes them comfortable to walk on, as well as a plasticky-non-skid black bottom, that is soft and flexible, but not for outdoor use. In the bed, fine, tho. So while they don't heat up the soles of my feet, it does warm up the tops of my tootsies very well, and then of course the underside eventually warms up also. Super nicely made product!

I have used Warm-Me-Ups foot warmers for many years. But I had to throw one of them away because its plastic had started to crack along where the fabric is sewn to the plastic, probably from heating the gel many, many times (and perhaps heating it a bit too much a few times). Anyway, I was going to order a second pair of the Warm-Me-Ups and thought I might first just give these a try too, and possibly use them under different circumstances, even assuming I do end up deciding to get another pair of warm-me-ups for the feet. In the cream color, these are priced very attractively and I don't regret ordering them.They are nice in that they come up the ankle and stay on the foot well. Even though you can't walk in them, you can shift your feet around in them some when you're sitting because they're well designed to stay on. The Warm-Me-Ups are more like a nice pillow sitting on the floor (or wherever you put them) that you can slip your feet into - like nuzzling the foot next to a hot water bottle, but with a snuggly fabric to help hold the warmth all around the foot. If you try to move your feet around much while nestled next to this warmth, your feet will easily slip outside the warmth; not so with the Cozy Body Boots.Assuming you follow heating instructions, the Cozy Body Boots don't surprise you in how warm (or too hot) they can become within ten or twenty seconds of slipping your feet into them. I have had some trouble warming the Warm-Me-Ups to a "just right" amount, though in some cases I think I overdid it slightly because in evaluating how hot the inside felt via a hand examination I didn't feel just the right section of gel that had heated the most? I did figure out that it was a good idea to squish the gel around some inside the Warm-Me-Ups to get a more even heat distribution. I'm not sure, but that might be the only trick to remember to make the heating level turn out just right for the gel type of foot warmer.If what you're looking for is a snuggly foot warmer that will stay pleasurably warm for the longest period of time, I think the Warm-Me-Ups win in that category. The problem with using that feature to help with longer periods overnight is in keeping them on the foot as you shift your body around during the night. I can envision a manufacturer redesign to make something more like a boot to help them stay on your feet - but the gel itself makes them too heavy for that to work. I'm not crazy about the heaviness associated with the Warm-Me-Ups, but I do love their warmth when I get them microwaved just the right amount.I had and still have some concerns about the Cozy Body Boots' interior elastic band around the ankles for someone prone toward edema in the feet. My edema problems are under good control at the moment, so I can't evaluate that very well at this point. I see no marks from the elastic band when I take the Boots off - a good thing. But I do normally have very small ankles (when edema isn't a problem) so the fact that I can notice that the elastic isn't loose at all might make it more of a worry for you if your ankles are normally large or you suffer from your own ongoing edema problems. Anyway, the elastic band doesn't feel uncomfortably tight at this point on my small ankles. If it ever does get to be a problem, I think I will reach from the inside and use a tiny, tiny pair of very sharply pointed scissors to snip through the fabric in several places where the elastic is sewn; that should take care of it, and I'd doubt that the tiny holes punched in that particular kind of fabric would make for a problem, even assuming you do eventually hand-wash them.As for not being able to walk in either of these foot warmer kinds of products: My cold feet have become a severe problem for me lately. I mean severe, not your usual run-of-the mill cold feet that most, if not all, women have (just ask the husbands...). The fact that I can't warm my feet while walking around the kitchen cooking dinner, etc. doesn't bother me. But the bottoms of the feet are just as *icy* then, wearing, for example, the same slippers to walk around in the kitchen as when sitting at my desk; I've pulled off the slippers in both places to check. (Slipper: Acorn hugely padded and insulated things - fluffy sheepskin lined with suede and wool on the exterior. Some people living in Wisconsin say they can wear theirs to keep their feet warm to go out to pick up the newspaper on winter mornings.)In terms of how I feel, I just manage to get by much better when busy walking around, even though the circulation to the feet themselves isn't doing any better. But my icy cold feet really do bother me when I'm sitting still or trying to sleep - to the point of total distraction.Anyway, I wouldn't avoid buying these foot warmers because I can't walk in them. And I wouldn't avoid buying them because they don't retain good heat for a very long time or as well as the Warm-Me-Ups. During the day, it's a good idea to get up every 30 minutes or so and walk just a bit to encourage good circulation anyway. So if you're going do that, you might as well walk off to the microwave to add a few more seconds of heating to the Cozy Body Boots. I used the cardboard container that they came in as a microwave container to keep them away from any food particles that might have built up on the microwave's turntable; I don't know how long that will last as a container, but I'll switch to using a very large thick paper plate when necessary.I haven't hit on a really good solution for horribly icy feet at night, though I'll probably go back to the Warm-Me-Ups for that.So I'm probably still going to buy another pair of Warm-Me-Ups. But if I were just starting out with a not-so-bad icy foot problems, I think I'd start out with these economical Cozy Body Boots and see how they suited me as a first step.