Sand Skins

Couldn’t agree more with the one other reviewer! If you want great sand socks to protect your feet — buy these!
Sand Skins are the BEST — hands down. I play volleyball every weekend year round in Santa Monica and the sand gets HOT. I’ve worn through plenty of socks and needed a solution. I did my research on what I should use to protect my feet. Found limited options — most promoted is Vincere. One of the guys I play with has them. while they look okay — they have a velcro strap around the ankle and it gets coated in sand. Just poor design.
Anyway, I ordered the Black Sand Skins off of the website. Great price point ($ 25) and free shipping. I was a little weirded out at the low-​res web design + paypal method of payment, and wasn’t sure what to expect. However, 3 days later — I had the sand skins at my door. I tried them on and they fit perfectly — very snug and comfortable.
I wear a women’s 8.5 in shoes and got the medium. I’ve played with them 4 times now and I’m thrilled. No signs of wear after about 24 total hours of volleyball (which has worn through 4 — 5 pairs of socks on the hot days). My feet don’t feel the heat of the sand at all when everyone else is hopping around. Also, even though the socks are black — my feet don’t overheat at all. The lycra is surprisingly breathable on the top of your foot. The bottom has a tough, think coating of rubber that has some traction on it. So I actually find that I feel like I can grip the sand better — getting a slightly higher jump /​better push off the sand when I’m running. You could certainly use these for other sand sports — and they would work well in the water too. Easily washable after the beach — I just rinse them out in the beach shower.
Couldn’t be more into these — definitely will be getting another pair if these ever wear out

Whoa, somehow I’m the first person to Unilocal these guys! The quick version: if you want volleyball sand socks, buy these, not the other brand which has much louder marketing. And trust the sizing they show on their website even though it seems weird.
OK, now the longer version: if you play volleyball (or other otherwise barefoot beach sports) when it’s really hot or cold outside, you’re going to need to wear sand socks to prevent your feet from burning or going numb. You can wear your good old athletic socks for this purpose, but they will only last about an hour before developing massive holes. Or you can try wearing your Vibram toe shoes — but this will quickly be revealed as the worst idea ever: every little corner of those things will magically fill up with sand in the first ten minutes, making it impossible to move your feet and causing painful chafing.
A better idea: buy some sand socks. I know of only two major brands of sand socks out there: Vincere and Sand Skins. (Another brand, ZEMgear supposedly exists, but I couldn’t tell from their website which product is the «right» one for beach volleyball.) Vincere has done a great job sponsoring volleyball and getting their name everywhere from nets to sidelines to T-​shirts. Unfortunately, their product currently isn’t very good:
— They aren’t very thick so you wear through them super fast.
— They have a nonsensical velcro tab at the top that supposedly makes the socks fit better. Does it? No. It often comes undone, defeating the purpose of improving the fit. Worse, it effectively creates a big hole that sand gets in, meaning you often have to stop playing to empty your sand socks of sand. Kind of dumb. :)
— They fit badly even when you order the right size.
— They are inconsistently made: I have two left «large» socks that are visibly shorter than their partnering two right «large» socks.
Forgive all my outrage there, it just irks me when a weaker product with better marketing has more market share. On to Sand Skins, which a friend introduced to me a few years ago:
— Thicker soles (last longer), better fit, no dumb velcro tab, and they come in white so your feet won’t get as hot on a hot day. They’re also a few bucks cheaper which is probably because I think they’re just selling these by mail order out of an office or apartment building in Santa Monica! I think you can only order them online, but that was pretty easy — they came in like two days and had free shipping. But remember to be careful on sizing! If you wear a men’s 11.5 athletic shoe like I do, you’ll need to order «XX-​Large» as your size, the largest they make. I know it sounds weird — I’ve never worn XX-​Large in anything. But order as they say.