A Step Ahead – a Willow Stream Home Pedicure

Pedicures give you a lot more than pretty feet. They can give you healthy feet with benefits like better circulation, reduced whole body tension, prevention of many foot problems like ingrown nails and athlete’s foot, plus your feet look and feel so great.

The US Surgeon General wants us to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. For many of us, walking is a great way to do that. 30 minutes of brisk walking is about two and a half miles, about 4,000 steps. Add all those steps to your daily walking around and you’ve got some serious wear and tear on your feet.

Many of our regular Willow Stream guests have learned that the best thing they can do about wear and tear on their feet is to visit a Willow Stream Spa for a pedicure. Next best is a do-it-yourself home pedicure, Willow Stream style. Here’s what that entails:

PREPARATION

• Sanitize your hands before and after your pedicure and, if you have broken skin, apply an antiseptic
• Remove nail polish
• Clip your toenails straight across, taking care not to cut too short. This will help prevent ingrown nails
• File your toenails with a medium-coarse file

SOAK

• Fill a bowl with hot water, adding, if desired: 1 cup of Epsom Salts for sore, tired feet or 1 tbsp of honey to rejuvenate dry skin. Willow Stream’s new Body Polish collection is perfect for an at home pedicure; this high quality spa product hydrates and soothes tired tootsies with a choice of scents.
• Soak your feet for 10 minutes
• Remove and lightly towel dry

SOFTEN

• Using a pumice stone, gently rub dead skin off with extra attention to problem areas such as heels and the balls of your feet
• Massage tired feet with an exfoliating scrub like Willow Stream Balance Aromatherapy Hydrating Body Scrub
• Rinse and pat dry
• Apply a heavy moisturizing cream (like Kerstin Florian Krauter FuB Balm) to soothe and cool
• Gently push cuticles back using an orangewood stick
• Remove moisturizer from your toenails with polish remover, if you’re going to apply polish

POLISH

• Apply a clear base coat, then 2 coats of your favorite color, then a top coat
• Remove excess polish from your cuticles. It dries the skin

TIPS

• Wrap the tips of your nails with polish. When applying polish, be sure to bring it over the front edge of the nail and slightly under the tip. This helps prevent chipping
• The secret to keeping nails from smudging: Dry time! Surfaces will feel dry to the touch after 10 minutes, but it actually takes an hour for nails to completely dry.
• To maintain a fresh look, add a fresh layer of topcoat every other day
• Wipe one side of the nailbrush on the inside of the neck of the bottle to ensure excess polish is removed. Then sweep the brush up the length of the nail in thin coats. Thick coats of polish bubble and peel.

A PEDI-PARTICULAR:

The word pedicure comes from the Latin words pes, which means foot, and cura, which means care. The history of pedicures dates back at least to ancient Egypt, so perhaps King Tut had the first pampering pedicure.