Single & Ready to Mingle: What to Do with Single Socks

Laundry day. We’ve all been there. Folding clothes, hanging shirts, and matching socks. Everything is going great until you reach the end of the pile and see one lone sock sitting there. You run through the typical search patterns: patting down other clothes, looking in the dryer, retracing your steps. But no dice.

So you set it on your dresser in hopes the other will magically reappear one day. Weeks go by, then months. Finally, you have to make the call to suspend the search and move on with your life. But that begs the question—what to do with the lone survivor, what do you do with single socks?

Living Single

Once you’ve decided to move on, you can begin your rebound by thinking of all the other things you could do with your newly single sock. Since we’ve never heard of a singles cruise for socks, you could start with some of these fun, practical ideas.

Crafters

• Make a sock puppet and put on an improvised Shakespeare performance for the neighborhood, or live stream it. That’s a thing, right?
• Add some stuffing and make a sock that’s finally alright for your dog to chew on.
• Fill it with some bird seed and make a cool little bird feeder you can hang from a branch.

Foodies

• Hot pans getting you down? Turn that sock into a handy potholder. (Handle at your own risk. Full cushion socks encouraged. )
• Follow me here: Turn your sock inside out, give it a half fold down and now you’ve got a perfect koozie for cold ones on cold days in the parking lot.
• Cheetos have been scientifically designed to be one of the most addicting foods ever.  But they’re messy. Turn your sock into a fingerless glove/rag so you can wipe all that weird orange powder off while you’re chowing down.

Sports Stuff

• Keep your prized putter protected by turning your sock into a golf club cover. Plus, if you have more than one single sock you can just keep covering different clubs until your whole bag has been socked.
• Tennis ball storage. Why do tennis balls need to stay in those Pringles cans? Pop a few in your single sock and now you have a handy way to transport your balls to and from the court.
• Who doesn’t love some good backyard games? It’s easy enough to make your own cornhole boards, now all you have to do is add some beans to some single socks and you’ve got your own bean bags. Game on!

Around the Home

• Do you use a dry-erase board at home for grocery lists, chore charts or spontaneous motivational quotes? That single sock makes a great eraser.
• Merino wool helps keep odors at bay, so there is a fitting irony of using a sock as a DIY potpourri holder to fight odors in your bathroom.
• While great for icing sore muscles, those ice packs are cold! Stretch a sock over it to help ease the freeze while you recover.
• Whether you need a sweet 80s costume or just some extra warmth on your arms and legs, cut off the foot of your sock and boom: you’ve got a leg warmer. Try pairing them with sandals for a fashion-forward look.
• Prevent your laundry from clumping by making some DIY dryer balls. First add 10–20 drops of your favorite essential oil to the sock, then roll it up from the toe up to the cuff. Then roll the cuff onto itself to form a tight ball. Then take another sock, add more oil, and roll it up with the first sock to make your dryer ball.

The list is as long as your imagination. Of course, you could always make a mismatched pair out of two single socks and keep wearing them.

Paired but Unhappy

Maybe your socks are still paired together, but they’ve had a long, rough relationship, only to be left tattered, holey, and falling to pieces. It happens.

If they’re Darn Tough socks, the first step would be to see if they qualify for our lifetime warranty (spoiler alert: they probably do). All our socks are Unconditionally Guaranteed for Life, meaning we’ll replace them if they’re worn through, find them not holding up their end of the bargain, or just aren’t comfortable anymore.

Head to our warranty page to get started — full pairs only, sorry.

Life's Journey

We all have a favorite pair of socks, and it can be hard to move on, but that’s life. Highs and lows, crews or no-shows, flying solo or matched to make the perfect pair, it’s all part of the journey.

But being able to repurpose your single socks is a great way to keep them in use and out of the landfill.