How To Get Rid of Hard Skin on Your Feet
Do the bottoms of your feet feel hard and rough to the touch? When you examine them closely, you may discover the skin is cracked or even peeling off.
Hard skin on the feet isn’t normally painful, but it can be uncomfortable. It also tends to get worse the longer you leave it alone.
Luckily, it’s something almost everyone experiences at one point or another, and it’s an incredibly easy fix. Here’s how to get rid of hard skin on your feet.
What Causes Hard Skin?
That hard patch of skin on your feet is, in all likelihood, an accumulation of dead skin cells. The skin on our feet, like all our skin, occasionally sheds. We usually remove the dead skin on other parts of our body during showers or baths when we scrub our skin with soap-covered cloths, loofahs, and sponges.
But since many people don’t pay as much attention to their feet when in the shower or bath, dead skin on the feet is much more prone to accumulating. It can also accumulate when you don’t hydrate your feet enough or when you constantly wear shoes and socks. Additionally, it can happen when friction created during exercise causes the skin to shed more than usual.
How Can I Remove It?
Wondering how to get rid of hard skin on your feet? Fortunately, removing dead skin is an easy task. You can soak a pumice stone in warm water and then rub it over the patch of hard skin, remove the dead skin with paraffin wax, make your own at-home foot scrub, or soak your feet in a mixture of water and Epsom salt or vinegar.
Some people try to remove dead skin on their feet with razors or scrapers, but this is extremely dangerous. You could cut yourself. If traditional at-home removal methods aren’t working for you, see a medical professional instead of attempting something risky.
How To Prevent Hard Skin
You can’t stop the skin on your feet from shedding—it’s a natural process that happens to everyone—but you can keep the dead skin that sheds from accumulating on the bottom of your feet and forming a hard crust.
The best way to prevent hard skin is to regularly moisture your feet with oils, ointments, and creams. Stick to moisturizers with natural ingredients and avoid ones with alcohol, which can dry out your feet rather than moisturize them.