25 Days of Beauty: DIY Pedicure

So, to complete the DIY for 25 Days of Beauty we have a pedicure complete with a DIY foot soak and scrub.  I know it's winter and we're not wearing open toe shoes at all, but I think it makes your feet more torn up. 

Besides, around Christmas time, people get more stressed than any other time, and nothing relaxes you as much as a pedicure. 

So, before you begin, you'll want to make your scrub and soak. 

DIY FOOT SOAK

You'll need three ingredients. This is another 1 to 1 ratio too so measurements don't matter as much. 

Use Baking Soda

Epsom Salt

Sea Salt

Then a scoop of some sort and a bowl. 

And as a side note, don't buy your Epsom salt at Ulta or places like that. Walmart is way cheaper. 

I used a forth of a cup for each, and it made way more than I needed. 

Isn't my owl measuring cup adorable? 

I love him. 

Mix it all together. 

Set that aside and go ahead and make your scrub. 

DIY FOOT SCRUB

Again,

Three ingredients

Sea Salt

Oil

Lemon

And a bowl or container 

Technically you don't need the lemon, but I put it in there because it's good for your skin. Basically for any scrub you need something rough and an oil. You can add a flavor, but it's not necessary. 

Mix it all together. 

This made me a fair amount of stuff. Enough for more than one use. 

Ok so then once those are made, you can begin the pedicure. 

So it's a lot of stuff, but some of that is for the soak and the scrub. 

You'll need a basin of some kind, but since I don't have one, I used my sink. You can also use your tub. 

Here's the list of stuff you'll need.

Soap

Nail Polish Remover

Milk (not pictured, I added it as an after thought.)

Oil

Foot Soak

Pumice Stone/Foot File

Foot Scrub

Towel

Emory/Buffing Board

Nail Polish 

Toe dividers (optional)

Moisturizer

Socks

Yay for a lot of stuff. 

So step one

So, this is kind of a dumb step, but my feet are always insanely dirty, because I live in the desert. I wore a long dress the day I did this too, so they were even worse than normal. 

I don't know about anyone else, but the thought of putting dirty feet into a foot soak just doesn't appeal to me. 

If you want to order the soap, my friend, Silhouette Soap, makes them. You can see a listing of her natural soaps here. 

This is self explanatory.

Once you've got the nail polish off, you'll want to prepare your water. I don't recommend doing it before because you want warm soothing water, not cold water. 

Fill your basin with warm water. (Here's a plus about the sink or the tub. If the water runs cold before you want to get out, run more warm water.)

You'll want to add oil and milk to your water at this point. The lactic acid in the milk will help peel the feet, and the oil will soften the feet and cuticles. 

Now add your Foot Soak Mix. I used a forth of a cup for a full sink. 

Soak your feet for a while. You can massage them while they're in the water. Also, once your cuticles feel soft enough, go ahead and push them back, either with your finger or with a cuticle pusher. For an added spa experience, you can buy the little decorative glass rocks from dollar tree and put those in your water. As you run the bottom of your feet over the rocks, it will massage them.  Keep your feet in the water till the skin is soft.

Once your skin is off scrub your feet. These next three steps aren't in any specific order. 

First use the pumice stone on all the callouses on your feet. I have them on my heels the balls of my feet and under the big toe. 

Then go over it with a heel shaver. 

Lastly, I used my foot scrub and just went all over to get the skin off. Then you rinse your feet and dry them off. 

So, ignore the green on my toe. I'm right handed so I needed to hold the Emory board with my right hand, but it was too awkward to take a picture of my right foot. 

I dropped a table on my tow at work and that's why it's green. There's nothing really wrong with it. 

So take a regular Emory board and file down the tips of the nails. This way you can get a nice square shape to them. 

Once you're done there, you'll want to use a buffing board to do the nail beds.

You'll remember this guy from manicure tutorial.

It's the multi step buffer. 

I think these two steps can be interchanged. 

I was doing this before bed and kind of wanted to lock in the moisture. So I painted my nails, and waited for them to dry. Then put on the moisturizer so I could put a sock on them. 

 Obviously, if you're doing this before going out, skip the sock moisturize and then paint. 

And you're done.
As always,