By: Ashley Moor
Foot care is an essential beauty regimen often left forgotten, or only accomplished at your local nail salon. Through the summer, your feet have endured endless walking in flip flops, sandy shores and (possibly) sunburns. In the winter months, feet battle through storms and cold, tucked away in boots and wool socks.
As a redhead, your sensitive skin is in need of a little bit of extra moisture and gentle care.
To ensure your feet are ready to dazzle, follow these five foot care steps to give those faithful friends a little TLC. Even better, you can find most of these ingredients in your home already!
1. Relaxing Soak
Keeping with the spirit of the season, the first step to soft feet is to lay back and relax with a gentle soak. Fill your bathtub about halfway with warm (not hot!) water, while adding half a cup of milk and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Grab your favorite book or magazine and let your feet soak for at least ten minutes. This enriching soak softens the calluses and dead skin caused by months of neglect.
To make this step even sweeter, try Foot Soak and Fancy by Lush, packed with ingredients like Epsom and fine sea salts sure to soften hard feet. This is an essential process to prepare us for the next step: exfoliation!
2. Exfoliate, Exfoliate, Exfoliate
Many of us know the best way to achieve skin goals is to exfoliate at least once a week to remove the dead skin that only hinders our full potential. For redheads, this can often be the trickiest part of our weekly routine. We need an equally gentle and powerful exfoliant. After soaking your feet, create your own foot scrub using ¼ cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. The sugar and lemon juice in the scrub make it easy to remove dead skin, while the olive oil keeps your feet soft and moisturized. To keep your feet looking great all season, use this scrub to exfoliate them at least once a week. For an even tougher job, I suggest using a sea salt scrub like The Body Shop Peppermint Foot Scrub.
3. Lotion Up
The final step to achieving that perfect summer soft is to find the right lotion to maintain supple skin all season long. Whether your skin is oily or dry, the right lotion should inspire and accessorize your summer look. After a soak and exfoliation, apply your lotion in generous amounts to your feet, ending with wrapping your feet in a pair of socks for at least thirty minutes to let the moisture soak into your skin. For more oily skin, I suggest using the Fresh Umbrian Clay Oil-Free Lotion. If you’re a typical redhead with dry, sensitive skin, lather on the Aveeno Active Naturals Eczema Therapy Hand Cream.
4. Toenail Prep
Finally, after all of that hard work and preparation, it’s time for the fun part – applying that polish sure to look totally amazing with your new pair of sandals! Before any polish can go on your toenails, however, it’s important to give them some love as well. Petroleum Jelly can be a great way to infuse moisture into your toenails, and also serves as a great base for your nail polish. Additionally, applying a cuticle cream like Mario Badescu Cuticle Cream. It can give your toenails an added healthy shine.
5. Nail Envy
Being a redhead is an amazing adventure and the greatest asset for so many reasons. One of the many reasons being that a great nail color really has the ability to pop on our pale skin. If you’re ready to introduce those bright and bold colors into your everyday look, then seek out shades that complement your skin tone like light pinks, bright reds, and vibrant oranges. If you’re the kind of girl only shifting your shade of black to fit the season, then sticking to darker and neutral shades can still prove to be the perfect summer accessory. Rock a pink neutral like this one, or a bold darker color like this.
So there you have it – the perfect routine and polish sure to be the envy of every event, no matter the season. Rock it like a Redhead!
