Pretty Bare Feet: Cleaning, Toenail Grooming and Smooth Heels

Women, Feet Size & Shape and Beauty

But once we’re grown and trying to fulfill our sexual destiny, we become aware of feet as aesthetic accessories. Turns out, they are more than just balancing tools, locomoting appendages. Feet have the surprising capacity to be extremely cute, or they can be downright hideous. Women's feet are usually nicer than men's, and the foot fetish is a common obsession among men. In fact, China once made the foot the primary object of female sexual beauty, subjecting women to footbinding because tiny feet were considered the most attractive. We still hold to the ideal of tiny feet, which explains why it's so hard to find women's shoes in wider that "B" width. It also describes pointy-toed shoes, stilettos and other fashionable footwear that makes your legs look wonderful, but can turn toes into what one author described as "scrambled monstrosities".

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Treat Yourself to a Professional Home Pedicure

Pablo Neruda wrote a poem that spoke of his love's "hard little feet": he loves her feet because they walked the world to find him. While "hard little feet" may not sound beautiful to some people, the description evokes high arches, narrowness and a sort of lithe strength not found in the average foot.

Whether you have hard little feet or larger, softer ones, your feet will appreciate a weekly soak and scrub. Especially for women like nurses or teachers, who spend hours on their feet each day, a dedicated footbath is essential to preserving not only the beauty of your feet, but their health and comfort too. Use the time to push back softened cuticles with an orange stick, to rub away calluses with a pumice stone, and finish by moisturizing and rubbing your feet. A foot rub is the perfect finish to your footbath: get help from your own sweetheart!

See a our favorite selection of soothing foot baths for the perfect home pedicure.

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Basic Foot Care Everyone Should Do

Sexy feet, repulsive feet, are not usually a matter of luck. A lot depends on the care and maintenance regime established by the foot-owner. At an absolute, bare minimum, feet should be clean. I mean, you walk on them, don’t you! What if you were stuffed into a leather show all day, strolling through parking lots, jogging in parks, shopping, doing laundry, tapping impatiently in line at the bank. Feet suffer from lack of air, from shoes that don’t breathe, from sweaty conditions on hot summer asphalt. Daily scrubbing with soap and a nail brush is a good start, but it’s only a start, if you want good-looking feet.

Pretty, Groomed Toe Nails Are Easy

When it comes to toenails, there is no in-between. Clean, healthy, well-groomed toenails are sexy. Grubby, long, unhealthy toenails are nasty, and not to be tolerated. Toenails should be well-brushed with soapy water, clipped short and neat with clippers, and treated with anti-fungal medicine if nails are discolored, thick or peeling. Even girls can get athlete’s foot (always wear flip-flops at the gym, at the pool, at the park, in any shower that is not your very own), and there topical medicines that can cure it. (If you don’t know what athlete's foot is, it’s a fungus that causes feet to burn, itch and peel).

How to Keep Feet Smooth

Assuming your feet are clean and healthy, the step to beauty is a short one. Keep your feet and heels smooth by using a pumice stone a couple of times a week, rub them with lotion like Upper Canada Peppermint Foot Cream to keep them soft, and use a clear polish if you don’t like brightly colored toes. No one talks about it (except in women's studies class), but women grow hair on their toes. If your toes are fuzzy, you can wax them to add to overall foot smoothness. Get a pedicure for that professional polish, but don’t let them cut your cuticles, whose sole purpose