Clove Forte 2 Review: A Two-Tester Verdict

Quick verdict

After several shifts in the Clove Forte 2 across both pairs (mine and my wife’s, a hospital-based physician whose clinical workdays are spent on her feet), the first impressions line up the same way: the shoe is genuinely comfortable, the support is dependable through long stretches of standing and walking, and the cushioning holds up across a full shift without bottoming out. Speaking for my own feet specifically, no aches, no pain, no hot spots after a full day on them, which is not something I can say about every shoe I’ve stood a shift in. The biggest single plus is the waterproof, wipeable upper. For healthcare workers dealing with spills, splashes, and routine disinfection, that one feature matters more than spec sheets capture, and Clove clearly built around it. The proof showed up on shift: my wife fielded compliments and questions about the shoes from coworkers throughout the day, and a charge nurse ordered her own pair the same day after seeing them.

One caveat worth flagging because it changes how to buy these: the waterproof material has very little stretch, so the shoe won’t break in or give the way a knit sneaker would. The fit you get on day one is the fit you keep. My wife felt she would have benefited from going up half a size, and I’d extend that recommendation to anyone whose foot sits at the upper end of a standard sneaker size. The wide toe box is genuinely wide, so width isn’t the question; it’s length and overall sizing that needs to be dialed in. When in doubt, size up.

One-month durability update (July 2026)

A month of regular wear across both pairs, and the durability question is answering itself: these have been excellent, and they still look like new. No outsole wear worth reporting, no cushioning fade, and the upper has handled a month of shifts and cleanings without complaint.

Two things have stood out that I under-weighted at first impressions. The first is the slip-on convenience. Rotating these with lace-up shoes made it obvious: on Clove mornings you step in and go, no laces to tie before a shift. It sounds minor until you compare mornings back to back. The second is how the wipe-clean upper plays out in practice: an easy wipe takes off a shift’s worth of scuffs and floor grime, and the shoe genuinely looks new again. That is a cosmetic benefit stacked on top of the clinical one, and it is a big part of why a month-old pair passes for a new pair.

What I watched before calling it

The things I tracked before stamping a final word, and how each resolved:

• Outsole and midsole durability across weeks of full-shift wear on hard hospital floors. Held up; see the one-month update above.
• Cushioning settle-in. Most max-cushion shoes either bottom out or stay supportive somewhere between 20 and 30 hours of wear. These stayed supportive.
• Upper integrity after repeated wipe-downs and disinfectant exposure. The headline feature held: it wipes clean and looks new.
• Whether the household pattern holds. It held: two wearers, two lines (men’s and women’s), same positive read a month in.

Final verdict (July 2026)

A month of shifts across two wearers, and the verdict is easy: these are amazing. No negatives I can flag beyond the sizing tip above and the predictable breathability tradeoff that comes with a waterproof, wipeable upper. Comfortable from the first shift to the latest one, supportive through full days on hard floors, wipe-clean in a way that keeps a month-old pair looking new, and quicker to put on than any lace-up in the rotation. And the shoe keeps resonating with the people it was built for; the coworker compliments and same-day orders were not a first-week fluke.

If I could ask Clove for one thing, it would be a mesh version of this same shoe as an option, even knowing mesh gives up the wipe-clean, waterproof magic that defines it. These are truly comfortable shoes, and a breathable variant would open them up to heavy sweaters and hot, dry settings as well.

Recommended.