Foot Care : Beauty and Fashion Tech

Get a Great Pedicure: Daily Beauty Bytes

This reminds me of just how much I need a good pedicure!

Pros share tips on getting salon results at home

With gorgeous sandals hitting the shelves, it’s no time to be shy about baring your toes. Sure, you could splurge on a luxurious pedicure but who has the time and money to keep that up? Fortunately, celeb-trusted nail pros Roxanne Valinoti, Nicole Dihn and Jenna Hipp are sharing their top tips for pampering your feet. Read their advice to find out how to do a pedicure at home — and look like you went to a salon. …More

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Five Great Uses for Creme de la Mer (Psst.. It Can Actually Be a Good Value)

Oh the joy of Creme de la Mer. Some swear by it. Others say it is over-rated. Most agree that it is expensive, and yes, if you use it as your daily face creme it is.. But if you use it for more limited purposes, it actually can become a pretty good value. I never apply it to my full face. Instead I stretch an ounce of the lovely thick creme for over a year using it in the following ways.

* As an eye creme. La Mer makes an expensive and rather small eye balm, but the creme works just as well. In fact it is one of the best dry skin eye creams I have found. A teeny tiny bit is all that is needed for some wonderful overnight hydration.

* Condition your lashes and brows. While you are putting a bit under your eyes, rub some into your lashes and onto your brows. It will not irritate your eyes and will condition both lashes and brows.

* As a sore skin treatment. Consider that terrible feeling and look of a nose that is raw and red after a bad cold. Regular lotion stings on the dry skin. But Creme de la Mer does not. I have found nothing better to treat a raw nose. Use it at the first signs of a cold and you can prevent it altogether.

* Dry skin spot treatment: Got patchy areas of super dry skin? Use a bit of Creme de la Mer on only those areas.

* Soften calluses. To help remove calluses, rub some high strength glycolic acid such as AB Skin Care Happy Feet (read review) on them and apply a bit of Creme de la Mer to seal it in and provide moisture.

Creme de la Mer is available online and in better department stores. For use in small areas, look for the smaller and much cheaper .24 Sample Size. A small tub will last quite a while if you are only using it as an eye or lash cream. My last sample size tub lasted 3-4 months because I only used it for my eyes.

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Popularity: 24% [?]

Removing Calluses with the Ped Egg

I love my Ped Egg! I seriously think that every callused foot on the planet deserves one!

When I first read about the Ped Egg at Bionic Beauty I wanted to try it. As I mentioned recently, I’m hard on my feet and the callus battle is constant for me. I have had success with various files and tools, but nothing has worked as well for me as the Ped Egg.

The Ped Egg is a little plastic egg with a foot file inside. This is not a callus razor, but is more than a sandpaper or pumice type of file. It generally is similar to a metal foot file, with a cheese grater look to it. Designed to be gentle, you can run it over your smooth skin without a scratch, but on calluses it grates and files them away, and it does so very quickly. The dead skin shavings are collected inside the egg, so there is also less mess. Fine grain file pads are also available for creating a smooth finish.

When I used the Ped Egg, I removed most of a fairly large heel callus in a matter of minutes. I had been doing some preparation using Glycolic Acid from AB Skin Care and some foot cream (read previous article), which also had softened things up a bit. I did find that if I held the egg tilted, too much that the dead skin would fall out, so to keep the skin in the egg where it belongs don’t tilt your egg too much! I finished off my feet with the file pad, added some moisturizing cream, and my feet were ready for a new pair of summer sandals!

The Ped Egg is available at PedEgg.com and other online sources, such as at Drugstore.com.

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Kill Calluses and Soften Feet with AB Skin Care Happy Feet

I am a foot killer. I wear shoes that rub, I cram my feet into Irish dance shoes and pound them around for hours on end, and sometimes I cram them into ice skates. The result is dry heels and nasty calluses. But I have found a few fixes. One of those is AB Skin Care Happy Feet.

AB Skin Care is a line created by Dr. Craig Austin, M.D. that focuses mostly on glycolic acid products. They also have some great sunscreens (read review). Because Glycolic Acid is a great exfoliator, it works quite well at assisting in callus removal. At 20% Glycolic, AB Skin Care’s Happy Feet has a nice concentration of it. The packaging is also quite nice, with individual use wipes.

I combined Happy Feet with a bit of Lac-Hydrin Cream (read review), which also contains the exfoliator lactic acid. I rubbed an AB skin care wipe on my calluses and let it dry, then rubbed in the Lac-Hydrin. Another option, albeit more expensive, is to seal in the glycolic with a touch of Creme de la Mer. For a cheaper option, Profoot cream (read review) also works well.

This combo did a good job of softening my calluses. When I combined it with use of a Ped Egg, my calluses basically disappeared. What is a Ped Egg? Well, it is a wonderful little tool for callus removal. Watch for my review of it here tomorrow!

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Update: Read the Ped Egg review.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Earth Therapeutics Clean and Cool Foot Wipes

Earth Therapeutics makes some great bath and body products, especially items for the feet. I have a fun foot care set from them that I picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond. Now they have come out with what I think is a must have product for summer: Clean and Cool Foot Wipes.

These wipes have cooling alcohol and tea tree oil, along with a wonderful mint scent. Keep them in your purse or beach bag for quickly refreshing your feet after being outside barefoot, wearing sandals, or simply seeking to freshen up. They feel good and smell great, so no more stinky summer feet!Shop for Earth Therapeutics Bath and Body Products

Popularity: 5% [?]

Avoid High Heel Blisters! Profoot Slik Stik, Anti-Blister Stik

Profoot Care Slik Stik, Anti-Blister Stick is a fairly new product marketed as a “miracle” anti-blister stick. It generally lives up to its name!

The stick looks and feels quite a bit like a deodorant stick. Rub it on your feet where your shoes rub, and the product leaves a moisturizing barrier that helps prevent excessive rubbing and chaffing. The product goes on clear and has no scent that I could notice.

The anti-blister stick also works pretty well. I tried some on a pair of heels that I have been unable to wear for any length of time because the strap was rubbing too much. With use of the Profoot Slik Stik, I was able to actually wear the shoes. I still would not take a lengthy walk in them, but the stick allowed me to wear them to work for a day with no real problems. So it saved a pair of cute shoes that were otherwise destined for Goodwill.

Another similar product is Band-Aid Active Flex Blister Block Stick. I haven’t tried the Band-aid product, but it appears to be essentially the same thing.

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Getting Feet Ready for Summer. A Look at Profoot, Lac-hydrin Five, Skin Actives Scientific, and Dr. Scholl’s

My feet are in pretty bad shape. Skating has been hard on them and I always had issues with calluses anyway. This year I have a bunch of cute new sandals and I am determined to get my feet looking good for summer. I started about two weeks ago with a combination of products and have had great success.I have been using a combination of moisturizers: One is Profoot Care Heel Rescue Superior Moisturizing Foot Cream. I initially got a sample of this cream in the Beauty Buyble Book and Samples and really like it. It does a good job of penetrating the very dry skin and smoothing things out. It also is quite affordable. A related product that I haven’t tried, but am interested in is the Profoot Care Heel Rescue, Intensive Overnight Foot Repair.

Right now, I generally use the Profoot in the morning. At night, I use a lactic acid product to both moisturize and help remove the calluses. My long time favorite for this is Lac-hydrin Five Moisturizing Lotion. Lac-hydrin does an excellent job when it comes to moisturizing. With a good amount of lactic acid, it also helps exfoliate very dry skin pretty well.

After I rub a good amount of Lac-hydrin into my calluses, I have been following it up with a coating of Skin Actives Scientific foot mask. Skin Actives is a great site/company for purchasing individual active ingredients and they have an active forum where information and recipes can be found. I will write more about their products in the future. I have been enjoying the foot mask and find that it adds quite a bit to my callus killing routine. It is a rather thick, and slightly oily moisturizing concoction that I find bumps up the level of softening of my dry skin. Unfortunately, Skin Actives appears to have stopped actively selling their foot mask, although anyone interested can likely find a recipe for it in their forums. A recent email newsletter from them also mentioned that it would remain available as a forum special there.

Once I have my feet pretty well gooped up, I slip on a pair of socks and leave them on until everything absorbs into my skin. Something I would love to get are the Bliss Softening Socks, but I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to splurge on them. So for now plain old socks have to do.

After all that moisture, it becomes time to exfoliate. So, during my morning shower, I have been working on the calluses with a Dr. Scholl’s Callus Reducer. It is quite comfortable to use and works very well. I was actually surprised at how little effort it takes and how quickly it gets rid of the built up dry skin.

After only two weeks I have managed to get rid of almost all of my calluses. The few tough remnants are coming along as well. My feet should be good in another week or so. I figure if this process is working for my horrible feet, it will work for anyone!

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