Review (5/5): Works Well on Dry, Cracked Heels
I have for years dealt with dry, cracked heels, and I have tried a number of things to correct the issue. While my heels haven’t hurt or anything, they have been ugly. In a search for solutions, I found this foot scrubber and decided it was likely going to work better for me than a foot rasp, and I ordered it. It’s a great tool and it works well, though I do offer some caution for those who haven’t worked with a foot scrubber or rasp in the past.
This is an odd-looking instrument, vaguely similar to a comma in shape. The scraping side somewhat resembles a mirror with a patterned rough edge. It feels a lot like an emery board though it has more of a “bite” to the surface, if that makes sense. The overall size and shape make it easy to grip and hold, even when wet.
The first time I used it, I scraped away a fairly large amount of dead skin, to the point that I had feeling in parts of my heels where I have had no feeling for quite some time. It left my heels soft, pink and looking much better. However, I did discover that one can overdo, and I had nicked myself on each heel in one or two places, just enough to require blotting but not enough to really be a concern (it was less serious than a cut while shaving).
I discovered the following day what happens when you remove too much dead skin and don’t put enough lotion on an area that deals with weight and stress – my heels split in a couple of places and I ended up having difficulty walking without pain for a couple of days. I had put high-quality lotion on my heels, but apparently not enough. That was entirely my mistake, and it was a painful one.
After that finally healed up, I tried again. I have fallen into a daily routine where I gently scrub my heels for a couple of minutes each, then apply lotion. My heels now look much better, they’re not splitting when I put weight on them, and I have avoided nicking myself. At least in my case this is not a tool that gets used intensely every couple of weeks, but rather it is a daily tool that gets used very gently.
I got curious and put this tool under a digital microscope to see what the rough surface looked like. The roughness resembles a series of crescents, not dissimilar to a rasp, but much more fine.
This thing really works and it does a good job. It’s slightly more expensive than the average foot rasp but it seems to work well. I do recommend using some caution when working with this instrument as it is possible to overdo if not careful, which is probably very true of any tool of this type.