Wifas (and other high-end figure skates) are leather. Thick leather. When you get the boots, they are rock hard. The owner has to “break” the leather in all the right places for comfort and stability when performing jumps and spins. Soaking a pair of socks in alcohol, lacing on the boots, and wearing them around the house breaks them in faster. The alcohol softens the glue and stiffeners and helps the leather conform to the shape of the foot. It also dries quickly. A lot of the skaters at our skating club on the base in Germany used duty-free vodka to do this because it was cheaper than rubbing alcohol at the time.
I have no doubt that present-day skates use more technical materials like memory foam padding but breaking in new skate boots will always be a painful process.