Show off your pretty, freshly pedicured feet! With this easy, step-by-step guide you can maintain a perfect pedicure right at home. You don’t have to spend a fortune on salon fees, or let your toes grow wild because you don’t have time for an appointment. Plus, many women find doing a pedicure quite relaxing.
Here, professionals share the secret to a perfect pedicure. With just a little bit of practice you’ll be an expert yourself—and have really amazing feet, too!
Tools for a perfect pedicure
First, you need items for a foot soak. All of these cost far less than one trip to a salon! You just need bath salts or Epsom salt, footscrub, a pumice footstone, a basin, and a small brush.
Then you need a nail polish kit. Stock it with nail polish remover (and cotton balls, of course!), base coat and top coat (these will help the polish go on smoother, and will help prevent chipping), and your favorite nail polish colors. You can also get foam nail separators.
Your ‘nail’ tools are clippers, file, a cuticle stick (sometimes called an orange stick).
For your post-pedicure pampering, stock up on scented foot lotion. Peppermint’s very refreshing!
Prepare the foot soak
Remove nailpolish from your toes. Then, pour warm water into a basin. Then, sprinkle in foot soak or bath salts and swirl with your hand to dissolve. Now sit and let the soak do its magic! One way to make this extra special: position the basin near a comfortable chair, and then either watch TV or grab the time to pamper your skin too. Apply a facial mask, or press cucumbers against your eyes. Soak your feet for at least 10 minutes.
Remove the rough spots
When the 10 minutes are up, take your brush and then scrub your feet to remove old skin cells. This keeps your feet looking and feeling soft and prevents the build up of dry, rough skin.
After brushing your feet, move on to more heavy-duty exfoliation. Massage a foot scrub in circular motions, focusing on particularly rough areas like the heels.
Wait, you’re not yet done! A pumice stone further removes the roughest, toughest spots. But use this only on callouses and heels; the stone will tear or irritate softer skin.
Ah, now you’ve revealed your feet’s new, smooth skin cells. Dry off with a towel and then soothe, strengthen and moisturiztrye this new skin layer with your favorite foot lotion. (If you have really dry skin, try this moisturizing bath.)
Nail it!
All that soaking has softened up your cuticles. Cut or shape nails. Now take your orange stick and push back the cuticles. Then, insert the nail separator. Apply a clear or opaque base coat, which will help create a smooth and even surface for the polish. Some formulas will also strengthen or heal the nails, and prevent yellowing (a common problem if you use nail polish regularly).
Now for the colored nail polish. Apply one coat then allow to dry before applying a second. You can remove any smearing or excess color with a Q-tip dipped into nail polish remover. Then, add a topcoat for extra gloss and to prevent chipping.
Photo from allwomenstalk.com