Beauty lies in the feet

Did you know that your over-all personality depends on your feet? Well, yes it does. The healthier our feet are, the better we walk and flaunt our confidence.

With such busy schedules and rigorous travelling, how much time do we girls get anyway? A Sunday? Yeah right. Who is going to cook and clean if we set up a session at the beauty parlour on Sundays? Nevertheless, no matter what excuses we have, we all know that a “beautiful me” is all we need to gear up our confidence and rejuvenate our spirits.

Feet are our most essential and sadly the most neglected possessions. In a fast running life, an average person loses almost a cup of liquid just through feet alone and that too in a single day.

We hardly care for our feet and leave them at their mercy alone. Well, that’s not a good sign for sure. A woman of average height normally wears at least two to three inches of heels for a minimum of eight hours a day. She cleans and conditions her hair and skin with conditioners and moisturisers but forgets to nourish her feet. She comes back home, kicks off the heels and relaxes her aching heels on the cool floor and then washes her face, and then happily retires to the kitchen. At the end of the day, she combs her hair and washes her face to go back to a peaceful sleep for maintaining her beautiful eyes and a glowing skin to wake up next day and run through another busy day on the same feet but yet again neglecting them as usual.

There are three parts of the foot, which one can focus on and take care of on a regular basis…here we go with our thesis.

The forefoot is the frontal part of the foot, bears almost half of the body’s weight, and balances pressure on the ball of the foot. The midfoot is connected to the forefoot and the hindfoot, essentially providing support and weight balancing. The hindfoot links the midfoot to the ankle and contains the heel bone, which is cushioned by a layer of fat at the bottom.

Aching and tired heels are a result of incorrect angling, irregular blood circulation and uncomfortable footwear. Women often feel a piercing pain in the ball of their toes when wearing stilettos. “Pencil heels” do provide us some inches of additional height but eventually harm the spinal cord due to wrong posture.

Unavailability of enough space for the heel to rest on, leads the body exert most of its weight on the toes, and more specifically on the balls of the toe, creating irregular blood circulation and posture problems.

Although wearing heels occasionally does not cause serious harm to the body, doctors do not prescribe wearing more than 1 to 1.5 inches of heels everyday.

A good replacement of the “pencil heel” is a “platform heel” or a “block heel”. These heels provide enough space for the heel to rest on to avoid blood circulation problems.

But yes, healthy feet do not only mean inner health. Healthy feet in fact need a right blend of inner and outer maintenance. The skin on the feet also needs to be healthy enough to make feet healthy.

A common tip for beautiful feet is to treat yourself with a pedicure at least once in 15 days. Such extensive care is seen as quite impossible a task for each week. However, it is advisable to take out time and pamper yourself with a pedicure at least once a month.

Now to be able to keep a pedicure for a whole month, there are some maintenance tips you can follow:

For soft and dead skin-less heels, keep a pumice stone handy to work on those heels when you step out of the shower.
When moisturising your body with a body lotion/moisturiser, do not forget to moisturise your feet as well.
Take out 10-15 minutes on each weekend for a relaxing footbath and pour in some drops of essential oil in the water for extra softness.
If your ankles are swollen, it could be sign of you holding fluids. You must avoid sitting for longer durations and try to reduce your salt intake if you take on too much of it on a daily basis.
Adding milk to a footbath can somehow just magically soften your feet.
If you have extremely dry feet then lather a layer of cocoa butter to each foot, slip your feet into plastic bags and pull on a pair of oversize socks. Leave on overnight while sleeping to find soft and silky feet the next morning.
Go for a foot massage. It’s pretty relaxing. For the ones who can, ask your partner to give you one and trade off. This should be good to rejuvenate your other senses too.
Being careless to the extent of getting cracking heels is the ultimate sin. So if you too are a sinner, get an over-the-counter ointment for your feet. Remember that cracking heels is just the beginning of any serious feet problems, so you must consult a doctor if the condition worsens.
Another important “thing” is a pair of socks. Delhi winters can be really painful for the feet, so keep them covered. DON’T walk bare-foot in winters as this is where all hard work done goes in vain.

Try this and feel the change in yourself. Not only do healthy feet make you beautiful, they let your spirits high and keep you confident and going for tougher times. But remember that beauty is not just skin deep, it travels further more. And feet not just keep you standing, they help you stand-up, for beauty lies in the feet. Doesn’t it?