Jack Michaud
2025
Custom molded liners are a huge comfort and performance boost, and they help keep your toes warmer. Well-fitted boots with molded liners can be worn comfortably all day without opening them up at lunch. Most boots come with moldable liners these days. You can pay to have them molded in a ski shop by a boot fitter, or you can DIY. These instructions work for Intuition, Palau, Mountain Slope, Burton, and possibly others that use similar materials:
Heat your oven to 225ºF. Let it warm up for 30 minutes so it is fully heated and stable.
If your liners did not come with a toe cap, create one by cutting the toes off of 3 old socks. Put them all on one foot, then a thin ski sock over that. The toe cap should cover all your toes, back to about the ball of your foot. This will create wiggle room and warmth in the molded liner.
Remove the footbed from inside the liner.
Turn the oven OFF and put one liner in such that it is not touching the walls or heating element of the oven. Cook for 15 minutes.
Take the liner out of the oven, put your footbed in the liner, put your foot in the liner. Make sure the liner is wrapped around your leg in the same way as it would be when riding. If your liners have tongues, the tongue should be on the inside.
Put your foot with the liner on it into the boot shell. You may need help or tape to make sure the liner behaves. Wrap-style liners don’t like to stay wrapped when they’re hot. Once it’s in the shell, pull up on the cuff to make sure there is no bunching. Buckle all buckles loosely.
Turn the oven back on to 225ºF.
Let the liner cool for 15-20 minutes. Stand up with most of your weight on that foot the whole time. If you don’t, the liner will come out too narrow. It helps to have something under the toe of the boot while cooling.
Turn the oven off when it’s up to temperature and do the other liner.
For UPZ Flo liners, UPZ specifies heating only for 2 minutes at 150ºF. However I have personally had good luck with the 225º method above. Use at your own risk.
Our friends at YYZCanuck.com have a more detailed article here.
Other methods that only heat the inside of the liner are inferior in my opinion, because the outside of the liner should also be molded to the boot shell.