Saturday night.
What did you do?
Whatever you did, I bet it wasn’t as down and dirty as my night, for it was…
FOOT PEEL TIME!
Just to reassure you, although this is a post about foot peels, I won’t be sharing one of those skanky-ass pics with all the skin hanging off my feet. It’s bad enough having to look at it myself, I’m not inflicting it on anybody else. There are more than enough of those on the internet already if that’s what you’re after weirdo.
What is a foot peel?
Very simply, it’s a skin treatment for removing hard skin from your feet, leaving them in baby-soft condition. Normally the treatments consist of two plastic bootees filled with a variety of gentle fruit acids, such as lactic and glycolic acid. You could try putting your foot in a banana skin but I don’t think it would be the same.
Wear the bootees on clean feet for around an hour or so, then wash off the fruit acid solution. At first nothing will happen and you will think you’ve wasted your money.
Then around a week later – BOOM – your foot explodes. From then on in, if you walk around in bare feet you’ll leave a trail of white skin flakes. At this point in the process you’ll really find out who your friends are. Housemates may tend to back away, and hand you the hoover so you can clean up your own trail of flesh breadcrumbs.
Tips for doing a foot peel
- Soak your feet beforehand
This REALLY makes a difference to the effectiveness of the peel. If you have time take a bath, or otherwise soak your feet in warm water for at least 10 minutes. - It doesn’t hurt, but it is awkward
Plan to move around as little as possible when you’re doing your foot peel. You can walk with the plastic bootees on but it’s kind of awkward and slippery. This is not the time to be chasing your toddler around the house. Put on a good movie and arrange your drinks and snacks around you before you start. - Wear socks
For the extra-delightful Saturday night look I put socks on over the bootees to make them a bit closer fitting. Possibly this explains why my feet started peeling the next day, rather than the usual week. - Take a bath. Take a lot of baths
The more you soak your feet, the more you’ll speed up the peeling process. If you don’t have access to a bath use a bowl. Maybe not the washing up bowl though. - Wear trainers
Now we’re really at the grubby end of this. Trust me, you DO NOT want your feet exposed mid-peel. So don’t do it right before a holiday or when you want to wear sandals. Wear trainers, let your feet get really sweaty and at the end of the day your socks will be full of spare skin. NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS IN THE PUB. No matter how proud you are of the sheets of meat coming off your feet, the friend who is close enough to tell about this simply doesn’t exist.
Recommended Dupes for Footner
The best known foot peel in the UK is Footner because it’s the only one sold on the high street in Boots. I’ve never used it because, frick, have you seen the price of that thing? It’s £20 when all the Korean brands are a fraction of that. That’s a lot of gin money. Hence I’m shopping overseas.
These are some more affordable foot peels I’ve used and would recommend:
- TonyMoly Changing U Magic Foot Peeling Shoes – around £4.95
This is the one I bought and used at the weekend. So far it seems pretty good. The peeling process started almost straight away, and four days in my feet are scabby as all hell. Result! - Holika Holika Baby Silky Foot One Shot Peeling – around £6.50
Have used this one a few times and it’s a pretty good foot de-scabbifier too. - Random no name Japanese foot peel – £3.95
The main appeal of these is that they come from a UK eBay seller, so if you would like your Saturday night to be as fun as mine, this is a quick way to get hold of a foot peel. The down side is that they come in plain silver packaging with no instructions, so you need to know what you’re doing. There are also instructions on the eBay page. I’ve bought and used a few of these with no problems.
And now we will never speak of this again. Though if you spot me wearing trainers in a heatwave, now you know why.