Sandal ready feet

I dance and that’s a very fun thing to do. The only thing not so fun? A thing I call “dancer’s feet”: callouses, dry patches and overall ugly looking feet if not taken care of properly. And with summer, like any other person, I want to wear sandals and shows off those feet. And even when you don’t dance, your feet may not look the best after having them tucked away in boots and socks for about 3/4 of the year. Over the years, I’ve taught myself a 5 step process to make sure my feet are soft and ready to be shown to the world, before I finish off with a layer of a fun color on my toe nails.

Step 1: Soak

The first thing I do is soak my feet in some lukewarm water. I always mix in some washing soda. You don’t need anything fancy to soak your feet in, even though there are tons of things on the market of course. Plain old soda will do. It softens your skin and acts as an disinfectant so if you have any small cuts on your feet they are also taken care of. I soak my feet for 10 – 15 minutes.

Step 2: Scrub

The next step is to scrub my feet with a foot scrub. You don’t need a special foot scrub per se, but I like this Peppermint foot scrub by The Body Shop as it’s a bit more hardcore than your average body scrub. We’re getting rid of callouses, so they need a more thorough scrub than your average layer of skin. I simply dump my feet back into the soda/ water mixture and dry my feet with a towel.

Step 3: File

After scrubbing my feet are still covered in bumps of hard skin around my toes, balls of my feet and my heels. So I take my two foot files and file off as much as I can without damaging the skin. I use both on both sides. The brown one is a bit more coarse than the black one so I start with that one.

Step 4: Clip

Then it’s time to clip your nails. After soaking your feet your nails will also have become softer than usual and thus they are easier to clip. Since my toe nails are a bit strange, I get ingrown toe nails quite easily, so this requires some extra attention. Rule number one: never ever, cut your toe nails (too) short.

Step 5: Clean

The final step is to clean behind the nails. Lots of dead skin can pile up underneath your toe nails so it’s important to clean that as well. Just wipe on a tissue and you’re all set for the next two steps: polish your toe nails, let it dry and rub some nice foot cream or a rich body butter onto your feet to moisturize them.

How do you make your feet sandal ready?

P.S. I know feet can be a bit of a weird topic to talk about, but we all have them, so I figured why not?!