Like your brain, your feet too deserve rest. They are workhorses of your body, but sadly very little care is taken towards them. Can you expect to look gorgeous with dry and cracked feet? Fortunately, with home available remedies like vinegar foot soak you can provide relief for your feet.
It’s embarrassing and painful to wear flip-flops or sandals with dry cracked foot. Due to continuous friction and pressure, skin under the foot becomes thick and hard. Though it’s not necessary to remove the hard skin, yet people remove it out of cosmetic concern.
Note: If you’ve diabetes or any other ailments related to feet, don’t try this foot soak. I highly recommend reaching doctor before proceeding with the recipe.
We take suffering of our feet for granted; they accept all the challenges from adjusting in tight shoes to lifting to unnatural heights. Seeing the hard skin under feet, you can imagine the impact of force or pressure on them.
They don’t need expensive cosmetic creams, like your face, hair and nails. Few minutes of foot soak and choosing the right shoes will make them happy.
Commercial foot baths available in the market are expensive and include chemical ingredients, which may irritate your sensitive skin. Making your own foot soak at home will assure you to procure bunch of benefits and helps to avoid allergic ingredients.
Vinegar Foot Soak
It’s prominently used for culinary, medical and cosmetic purposes. This inexpensive liquid can help to get rid of dry, itchy and flaky skin by maintaining natural acidity. Anti-fungal property in vinegar helps to thwart skin ailments and other foot related issues like foot odor, athlete’s foot, and toenail fungus.
Assorted properties residing in this home remedy softens the skin and removes hard cracked skin on heels. Repeatedly soaking in vinegar solution will not just hydrate your skin, but reduce inflammation.
Experts recommend diluting vinegar solution before soaking your feet. Depending on your issue, you can blend other innate ingredients to this liquid. Below given are different recipes, select the most suitable one.
#1. For Dry Feet
As dry skin is the most common skin disorder, let me start with it. If you decide to add this recipe to your regimen, I can assure you that your feet will be happy for the rest of life. As mentioned, nutrients in vinegar make the skin soft and restrain infectious bacteria.
Take 2 gallons of warm water, 1 cup of white vinegar and optionally blend few drops of essential oil. Mix thoroughly and soak your feet for about 35-45 minutes. After removing, gently rub the foot with pumice stone to remove dry skin.
Try this homemade vinegar foot soak twice in a week. Prolonged soaking in water may result in wrinkles. Before going to bed, rub your feet and hands with olive oil to moisturize them.
#2. For Foot Odor
Most people mistaken sweat for the unpleasant smell from foot or shoes. Fact is that your sweat is free from smell, but the bacteria housing in shoes and socks habitat on proteins in sweat to release waste. This waste produced by bacteria cause foot odor.
No need to worry, anti-fungal activity of vinegar will restrain infectious fungi. You can add aromatic essential oil in foot soak solution for the pleasant smell. Blend 2 parts of water with 1 part of apple cider vinegar or white vinegar. Add few drops of thyme oil to relieve from odor. Soak your clean feet for about 45 minutes and then pat dry with cotton ball or cloth.
If you don’t have open sores or injuries, add half cup of baking soda to the foot soak solution. While drying your feet, make sure you remove the moisture between toes.
#3. Vinegar Foot Soak for Toenail Fungus/ Athlete’s Foot
Often feet are packed in dark and moist environment, which make easy for fungi to invade and trigger infection. Athlete’s foot results in red peeling skin with itching. In case of toenail fungus, your nail turns to yellow color accompanied by pain.
Blend two parts of water with one part of white vinegar and soak your feet for about 15-20 minutes daily. Its recommend to blend listerine to vinegar foot soak.
Use same foot soak for athlete’s foot. Make sure you pat dry using cotton ball.
Also Read: Best homemade foot soak for dead skin
Other ailments like warts and calluses can be restrained by regular use of this foot soak. Acetic acid in vinegar helps to exfoliate and reduce the appearance of warts. Apart from soaking your feet in vinegar solution, take cotton ball and dip in apple cider vinegar. Apply it over affected parts as spot treatment, but make sure you wash or cleanse your feet before using the remedy.
- Strong properties in vinegar may irritate cuts or injuries over your feet. It’s recommended to dilute vinegar with two parts of water.
- As mentioned above, if you’ve diabetes please consult doctor before using this foot soak.
- If you experience redness, itching and rashes due to excess soaking, reduce the time or try once in week. In case of severe itching and rashes consult doctor.
Which vinegar foot soak recipe you’d like to try at home?
