The best way to distinguish someone who’s been spending time skating from someone who didn’t is to look at their shoes; a skater’s shoes will look messed up and even glued together. One of these shoe saving glues is Shoe Goo. However, if you try to buy it on Skatedeluxe (one of the biggest online skate shops in Germany) now, you will only find an alternative product called Ripcare. I went ahead and bought it and tried it out.

First Impressions

Ripcare is a shoe gluing product made in Germany. The package contains three wooden scrapers and a manual on how to apply the product. According to the manual, you’ll need to wait about 24 hours until the glue is dry.

What I’ve noticed right away was that Ripcare seemed to be a little bit more fluid than Shoe Goo. It’s still thick enough that it stays in one place and isn’t running down the shoe. I’ve added a protective layer on top once the first one was dry.

The Test

I have only skated one session with the product on my shoes, but I couldn’t feel a significant difference in my flick or that the shoe became less grippy. I didn’t break through the protective layer I applied, and the (test-)session was about 20 minutes long and only consisted of Kickflips and Kickflip-attempts.

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Final Thoughts

Overall, Ripcare is an excellent alternative for the European market. They make it in Germany, so for folks like me; and people living in surrounding countries, this should mean it’s environmentally friendlier to buy it to some degree. The fact that it comes with three scrapers and a slightly lower price point makes this product a very appealing choice over the more prominent Shoe Goo for me.