jlw45: i used to date a ballerina....they used to put something on their shoes....something like shallac.....
man, was she flexible..........
The toes of toe ballet shoes have a sturdy "box" inside the toes, hence that square look. I don't know what it's made of because I never took a pair apart. Google would answer that now, I guess. However, you have to wear a piece of lambswool inside of it to cushion the tips of your toes so it doesn't hurt as much, especially for jumping and landing "en arabesque" (one foot on pointe, the other straight out behind you). My problem was that I have such sensitive skin that where the lambswool ended and the toe box still existed, at about the first knuckle of your toes from the tip, it would rub me raw, and I would bleed. I had calluses there on all of my toes for about a year after I stopped. My teacher told me I could never go professional because I was too tall and I was a bleeder.
Yes, it hurt for the years I did it...several years of constant sore toes where I was raw and bleeding so much of the time. I loved it enough not to care.
Young and dumb, I call it now.
