Water resistant and waterproof

01What the word says

What the word says

Six listings use a water word. Two say waterproof, four say water resistant, and none of the six explains the difference or attaches a figure to either. In ordinary trade usage the two words are not synonyms: resistant implies that water is shed for a while under some conditions, and proof implies that it is kept out. Nothing in these listings tells you which condition, for how long, or under what pressure.

Methods exist. Textile bodies publish spray tests, hydrostatic head tests and penetration tests, and a laboratory can run any of them and produce a number. That number is what would separate the two words. In this catalog the number is absent in all six cases, so the difference between waterproof and water resistant here is a difference in copywriting rather than in construction.

One thing is worth crediting. The two listings that use waterproof are molded closed-cell foam products with no lining and no seam, and on that construction the strong word is at least plausible: there is nowhere for water to be held and nothing for it to soak through. On a lined textile upper the same word would need a great deal more evidence, and none of the four listings that use the weaker word is a textile upper anyway.

02What nobody promises

What nobody promises

• No listing here states a hydrostatic rating, a spray-test grade or an immersion depth.
• No listing cites a test method, a laboratory or a standard for either water word.
• No listing says how long any water resistance lasts or whether it survives cleaning.
• Seams, linings and closures are not addressed by any of the six listings.
• Nothing here says a shoe will keep your feet dry, and this site makes no such statement.

03What to look at instead

What to look at instead

1. Whether the shoe has seams at all: a molded single piece and a stitched upper are different propositions and the photographs show which is which.
2. Whether a lining is named, since an unlined shoe has nothing to hold water once it gets in.
3. Which of the two words the seller chose, since choosing the weaker one on a wet-use product is informative in itself.
4. Whether the same listing states machine washable, which tells you the seller expects the product to get thoroughly wet.
5. Drainage: perforations and channels are visible in the product images and appear in no listing text here.