Your Ultimate Guide to Footcare Products: What, When, How and Why?

You’re always seeing the skincare routines, body routines and helpful tips and tricks to improve your skin overall but what is often forgotten about is your feet. Despite being the most hard working part of your skin – think about how often you’re on your feet, the awful shoes your wear, the blisters, calluses and dryness of your feet. So to make things right – I’m going to go over what you need to be doing at least once a week (although more often is also better!). In an Ultimate Guide to Footcare!

First up is to understand why you get dry and cracked feet. Your feet are often closed within socks and shoes all day every day and there’s a lot of friction of movement, and the pressure place directly on the foot as we walk, jog and run. All of this means that the skin on your feet has much harsher conditions than other parts of your body.

Dead skin often builds up because of friction but instead of falling away is held to your feet by pressure. This repeated pressure and friction can cause hard, dry patches as well as corns and calluses. The areas most affected are the heels, sides and balls of your feet and the affected areas can sometimes get irritated, itchy and even painful. 

Soak Your Feet

The first step in any footcare guide should be to make sure you’re soaking your feet first to soften the harder parts of your skin and ensure your skin is clean. Keeping your skin clean means that as you’re less likely to irritate your skin, especially if you’re exfoliating.

Soaking your feet can also help to improve blood circulation in your feed, and it’s a chance to have an additional moisturising agent by adding oils, salt or honey. This time can help improve overall health and help set your skin up ready to regenerate as it’s best self. 

Exfoliate

In order to get rid of the layers of dead skin as well and find a layer that’s softer and more moisturised, you need to exfoliate. Similar to the skin on your face – exfoliating helps to alleviate dryer patches and to improve general cleanliness too. If you’re not regularly caring for and exfoliating your feet, dry skin can become much harder to get rid of in the long term.

There’s many different ways to exfoliate, the same as when you’re caring for your facial skin. The main ones for feet are physical exfoliators like foot scrubs, body brushes and electronic callus removers and files. There are also chemical exfoliators and foot peels, however these can irritate sensitive skin. 

Whilst you may have seen cheese-grater style foot files – don’t use them! This method of getting rid of dry skin is okay for a short term solution, however the skin will re-grow back harder and dryer as it thinks it’s been damaged.

So now it’s time to get to exfoliating. Whichever tool you are using, you should initially have a light touch to see whether it will cause any discomfort and whether it works. If you’re not seeing many results, try a bit more pressure, but don’t exfoliate until your feet look red or raw. Exfoliating in circular motions will help to pick up as much dead skin as possible. If your skin is particularly bad – you may not see full results until after a few days of doing this.

After exfoliating, make sure you take the time to rinse your feet of the dead skin to keep them clean and pat dry with a towel. You should immediately follow up exfoliation with moisturising to re-hydrate dry skin cells. 

Moisturise

After you’ve exfoliated, it’s important to ensure the new layer of skin has a good amount of moisture otherwise it will dry out and harden. This helps further reduce your current dry skin but also to prevent new dry skin from accumulating on problem areas. For your feet, it’s best to use a thick moisturiser which helps lock in moisture and protect your skin.

You should avoid lotions, creams and moisturisers that contain alcohol, strong fragrances and artificial colours as these can aggravate and worsen dry skin. Look for products that include emollients, humectants or occlusives such as coconut oil, aloe, and plant-based butters. 

For an additional moisture boost – use a thick moisturiser and don’t rub in too much so there’s still visible product. Then pop on a pair of old socks and keep them on overnight. You should wake up with super soft feet as the moisturiser has worked it’s wonders overnight.

Soothe

An additional way to soothe dry skin is to use a feet mist. Finding a mist with oils is essential to get that hydrating feeling which nourishes and restores the skin. You can use a feet mist throughout the day – such as if you’ve just got home after a long walk to replenish the skin.

If you’re worried about smelly feet, you can pick up some which has deodorant properties or a scent too. There’s also ones which have antimicrobial and antibacterial properties which helps keep your feet healthy as well as moisturised.

Nail Treatments

Don’t forget the top of your feet! Your nails are often constrained by socks and shoes and need a little help too. Just like your fingernails! Give them some cuticle or nail treatment care, especially if you’re an avid nail painter or you have problems with your toenails.

Finding a treatment which helps soften the nail can help reduce friction and ingrown toenails. It also helps when it comes to cutting and shaping the nail – making sure you’re not struggling and hurting your feet in any way.