Thank you to Khabooties for providing us with the pair of boots seen below, to facilitate this post.

What Are Khabooties?

I love Fair Trade.  One of the amazing things about the internet is that allows us to connect artisans in the far reaches of the world with buyers in the U.S., Canada, and other Western nations.  For many artisans, this means the ability to make a living off their trade that they otherwise would not (because there simply isn’t a large enough customer base if the locals are the only ones buying).

Khabooties is a company based on this principle.  In Mongolia, there is a tradition that a grandma will make a pair of boots for her grandbaby.  These boots are designed to take the little one through infancy and toddlerhood.  Khabooties shares this tradition with us by selling baby boots “made by ladies for beautiful babies” in the traditional manner.

Unpacking Khabooties

The packaging for these is lovely, with solid quality and attention to detail.

What’s Great About Khabooties?

There are a lot of things I love about these boots.  They’re made of soft leather and sheepskin – wonderfully natural materials that are healthy parts of baby’s environment.  Even the soles are soft leather.  This helps when the little one is learning to walk, because the feet can conform to the terrain underneath them, making it easier to maintain balance.

It also means that baby is not being unnecessarily “buffered” against the earth’s magnetic field.  If you’ve read anything about “grounding” or “earthing” or the effects of electromagnetic fields on the human body, you know that coming into contact with this field is key to vibrant health!  Most shoes nowadays have rubber soles, which interferes with the natural process of energy transference.  But the leather of these soles does not.

Finally, the sizing is awesome.  The design of the boots includes a drawstring in the ankle area.  This means that an itty-bitty baby can wear the boots.  They’re big on him, of course, but they don’t fall off.  (My own little guy is tiny-tiny!  We had no trouble keeping these on him.)  And they should fit for a year or more.  (It’s also a really great design for babies like mine, who have long feet, but are very small around.  Ordinarily I would have trouble with anything that accommodates his foot length falling off because it’s too big around.  The drawstrings in these keep them on.)

The quality is excellent.

And they’re just plain cute!

They are not inexpensive; however, they are not cheap quality and they should last a year or 18 months (plus possibly allow for handing down to another child).  So they’re a high-quality investment that replaces several pairs of shoes.

MSRP $96.99