My quest to find a comfortable watch strap
I recently bought a simple analog watch. I really like it and wear it very often. When I bought it, I didn't understand how deep the watch collection rabbit hole is, and how much I actually liked watches. So, to nobody's surprise, I decided to buy a second daily wear watch, with the requirement of being a bit fancier, but still very simple, easy to read and cheap (enough that I wouldn't be worried to use it everyday).
To my delight, I found that there is an entire category of watches that mostly fulfils my requirements: field watches. There were many watches that met my requirements, but one more than any: the Militado ML07 (36mm, sapphire glass, high dome, seiko sweeping hand movement). I am no watch expert, but the watch seems to offer a very good quality/cost. Including shipping, I payed 56.29€.
When it arrived, I immediately wore it and loved how it looked. However, it had one major flow. It was very uncomfortable to wear. The included nato style strap looked nice on pictures, but it's very rough on my wrist, leading me to look for another strap.
After looking a bit online, I decided to order a bunch of of styles of straps and see which one I liked most. I ordered them from Aliexpress and the most expensive was 6€. Here is my totally biased and personal opinion of these straps.
| Wrist View | Lateral View | Full View | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
Comfort: 4/5 Beauty: 3/5 Silicone strap, very soft, very generic looking |
 |
 |
 |
Comfort: 3/5 Beauty: 4/5 Leather, looks very nice, stiff but gets softer with time |
 |
 |
 |
Comfort: 2/5 Beauty: 2.5/5 Looks ok, super uncomfortable for some reasons, very stiff |
 |
 |
 |
Comfort: 2/5 Beauty: 2/5 Looks very cheap (it was), rubs like sandpaper on my wrist |
 |
 |
 |
Comfort: 3/5 Beauty: 3.5/5 Original strap. Looks pretty nice, the materials are ok. Nato strap is very bulky but just too much. |
I rotated between them quite a bit. I end up choosing almost always the rubber silicone strap. It's super comfortable compared to the others, it's water proof so that it doesn't stay wet if I wash my hands and it's robust and easy to clean. In second place I would put the leather strap. It just looks nice on the wrist.
Here is a picture of the winner (for today):
Want to reach out? Feel free to send an email to minimal.bearblog at protonmail.com