OrthoLite: the part of the shoe you can take out
An open-cell foam insole made by one company and sold in to dozens of others. It breathes, it keeps its thickness, and it tells you less about the shoe than the box implies.
The one layer that is not bonded down
The insole is the part of a running shoe you can take out with two fingers, and in a great many shoes it is also the part the brand on the box did not make. OrthoLite is an American company that makes open-cell foam insoles and sells them in to other footwear brands – which is why the same name turns up in a road shoe, a trail shoe and a work boot that have nothing else in common.
What the material is, and what the specks are
The insoles are open-cell polyurethane foam. Open-cell means the bubbles connect to one another, so air and moisture can travel through the sheet instead of being held under the foot. That is the difference you can feel against the plain closed-cell EVA insole that comes in a cheaper shoe, which is lighter to make and seals moisture in.
The black flecks running through the foam are not a print. The company says every one of its open-cell formulations carries five per cent recycled rubber, taken from outsole production waste, and that the specks are what that rubber looks like once it is in the sheet. It is a useful tell: lift the insole out of a shoe and if it is speckled, you are almost certainly looking at one of theirs, whatever the shoe cost.
What the maker claims, and how to read it
These two figures come from OrthoLite’s own technical sheets. They are worth quoting exactly, because they are the kind of claim that gets rounded up by the time it reaches a product page:
- the foam compresses less than five per cent over the lifetime of the product
- the PU foam is 95 to 100 per cent breathable
The first is the one that earns its place in a running shoe. A standard EVA insole flattens – not dramatically, but enough that after a few hundred miles the shoe sits lower and feels thinner than the one you bought. A foam that holds its thickness keeps the fit it was sold with, and fit is most of what makes a shoe comfortable.
The second is a property of the material, not a promise about your feet. Breathable foam underneath a waterproof membrane will not move moisture anywhere, because the layer above it is doing the opposite job. The insole is one layer in a stack, and the stack decides.
Why the same name is in everything
OrthoLite is an ingredient brand. Like GORE-TEX in the upper or Continental’s rubber in the outsole, it is a component made by one company, sold in to another, and named on the box because the buyer pays for the right to name it.
That is worth knowing because it changes what the line on the box tells you. It says the insole is a decent one, which is a genuine, if small, point in the shoe’s favour. It says nothing at all about the midsole, the outsole, the upper or the geometry – and those are where the running happens. A mediocre shoe with an OrthoLite insole is a mediocre shoe.
When it matters, and when it does not
It matters if you keep shoes a long time, because holding its thickness is the thing this foam is genuinely best at, and it is the slow kind of improvement nobody notices on the first run. It matters if your feet run hot or wet.
It matters not at all if you run in your own orthotics or custom insoles. In that case the OrthoLite is the first thing to come out of the shoe and the last thing you think about again – a feature you paid for and will not use. If that is you, buy on the midsole and the fit, and treat the name on the box as noise.
Where you’ll find it
Shoes on this site that carry one. The insole is a comfort layer, so treat this as context rather than a reason to choose.
Similar and competing technologies
Everything that sits between the foot and the midsole is doing one of four jobs, and only one of them is cushioning.
| Layer | How it works | What it trades |
|---|---|---|
| Open-cell PU · OrthoLite and similar | Connected cells let air and moisture move; the foam holds its thickness. | Costs more than a stock insole and does nothing for speed. |
| Closed-cell EVA · the standard insole | A simple sheet of the same family of foam as most midsoles. | Cheap and light; flattens sooner and holds moisture against the foot. |
| Moulded sockliner · the brand’s own | Shaped to the last of that particular shoe rather than cut from a sheet. | Better shaped when it is done well; quality varies with the price of the shoe. |
| Custom orthotic · prescribed or fitted | Made for your foot, and it replaces whatever came in the box. | Changes the volume inside the shoe, so the size that fitted may not any more. |
The insole sits above the insole layer of the shoe and below nothing at all – which is exactly why it is the easiest part to change your mind about.