These socks are tight, which is not a bad feature if you don't have puffy ankles and if your feet are a bit on the narrow side - compression helps circulation, after all. Rubber bands around your ankles, on the other hand, do the extreme opposite. Once on, they fit my son comfortably. I would not recommend them to my diabetic husband because of the tight ankle restriction.They're warm and thick, well padded, but not obtrusively so.They're fiddly with the laundering - hand wash and hang to dry - but so far they've held up on the delicate cycle, low dry without shrinkage. No sock in my house is getting hung to dry, not if I have any say in it.