A professional-style foot bath is a great treat for your tired, worn out feet after a hard day at work. Irritation, aches and pains, dried out skin, callouses, and foot fungus are all common afflictions that feet often suffer from. There are easy, simple remedies that can alleviate these problems. Some of these foot-pampering techniques are outlined for you below.
An Herbal Foot Bath
The soothing power of an herbal foot bath can bring refreshment to a hurting foot. A good base for your foot bath is created by adding two tablespoons of Epsom or sea salt and a full cup of baking soda to a small bucket of hot water. To this solution, you can add any number of foot-soothing herbs. There are, in fact, a multitude of helpful herbal foot baths that can soothe dry, cracked feet, remove toxins from your feet, combat foot itchiness, and quench foot odor.
One possibility, recommended by Spa Index, is to add a half cup of sage and a half cup of lavender flower to the base solution. The ingredients should be fresh, if possible, and should be chopped up very fine. This method is quite good for tired feet.
A second herbal combination is suggested by Brigitte Mars. The recipe consists of catnip, chamomile, and peppermint. You can put in a half cup of the first two ingredients, but only throw in traces of the peppermint. If the herbs are dried, put them in a small cloth bag and steep them in a pot of recently boiled water for a few minutes. Once the water has cooled to a reasonable temperature, you can pour it into the foot bath base. This method is especially good for swollen, aching feet.
Aromatherapy Foot Baths
Many aromatic foot bath solutions can be made at home using simple, easy-to-acquire ingredients. These foot baths are particularly relaxing and soothing. They can be made using the same base of baking soda and salts that was mentioned above as useful for herbal foot baths.
There are a number of “essential oils” that you can add to the base to turn it into a soothing aromatherapy foot bath. Some of these are:
- Peppermint oil
- Chamomile oil
- Spearmint oil
- Sandalwood oil
- Lavender oil
- Almond oil
It only takes a few drops any one of these oils to transform your foot bath into something truly special. Feel free to mix and match the various oils to suit your personal preferences and to pamper your poor, worn out feet.
One particular essential oils recipe calls for the following:
- 12 droplets of lavender oil
- Three droplets of rose geranium oil
- One handful of rose petals, dried
This recipe is very effective at calming your nerves when you feel stressed out and fatigued.
A second recipe, which is particularly designed to counteract aching feet, calls for four droplets of wild thyme and four droplets of chamomile. There exist an endless array of possible combinations, however, and these two are only exemplary.
Anti-fungal Foot Baths
Anti-fungal foot bath solutions can help treat and prevent a variety of fungal infections, including athlete’s foot. They also are effective at combating pervasive foot odor. While you can purchase many anti-fungal foot bath solutions at your local drug store, you can also opt to make them yourself at home from natural ingredients. A good base for anti-fungal solutions is white vinegar or apple cider, which is then combined with epsom salt and baking soda.
A recent study by European Food Research and Technology shows that thyme and oregano are particularly potent at fighting a variety of molds and fungi. Another study, which appeared in PubMed, indicates that essential oils possess important anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. The most powerful of these fungus-fighting essential oils were the following:
- Oil of clove
- Oil of cinnamon
- Oil of mint
- Oil of salvia
- Oil of origanum
- Oil of thyme
Adding any of these oils to your anti-fungal foot bath base will prove a helpful aid against foot-annoying fungal infections. If you would like to be treated like an absolutely queen then give us a call and schedule your next professional foot treatment and pedicure today.