A cheap and easy way to treat the soles and heels of your shoes or boots to keep from falling on ice.
Sorry for the mustard-yellow color of the sand, but it was the only dry sand I had available at the time I made this video.
The arts & crafts sands are used for sand painting and are available in many colors including black if you're fussy about the colors.
Update: this evening the temperatures dropped below freezing again and the roads and sidewalks here were covered with a very slippery film of glare ice. The shoes work great! Glued sand stayed on the soles of these shoes very well. I'm not going on any 5-mile hikes to test further, but for normal wear and tear getting in and out of the car and doing errands around town, walking across slippery parking lots, etc. this really does the job!
