Show me your feet, show me your shoes!

That’s a line from the beginning of an old German children’s song. Every time I hear it, it reminds me that food hygiene and style is an absolute necessity, especially during the summer time.

A couple weeks ago I attended the Berlin Fashion Week and spotted quite a few lovely looking feet on the catwalk, but definitely also a pair or two that didn’t look so dashing. Sure, during the winter months when our feet have hardly seen the light of day its easy to get lazy. However, as soon as those pretty summer sandals start to show up again in the display windows, one should definitely consider using a pumice stone again. This, of course, goes for both men and women.

But no need to book an appointment for a professional pedicure: you can perform a quite simple one in the comfort of your own home and combine it with a relaxing footbath.
During winter time a hot footbath helps warm up those cold little toes again. During summer time we recommend adding a few drops of mint oil to the water for a cooling and deodorizing effect.

You need

• a bowl that fits at least one of your feet
• warm water
• two tablespoons of almond oil and a few drops of an essential oil of choice
• the usual tools for nailcare

How to

• Put one or both of your feet in the bowl with lukewarm water and relax for a couple of minutes.
• Once the skin on your heels and your nails has been soaking for a while, it should be soft enough to start removing calluses. You can easily hurt yourself by using larger rasping tools, but a pumice stone is known to be quite gentle and safe to use.
• Next up are the cuticles, which you can gently push back by using a rosewood stick. Afterwards, it’s on to the nails, which means cutting or filing them. When it comes to the shape of your nails, there is really only one general rule to follow: never round off the corners when cutting them, to prevent the nail from growing inwards, which can be a very painful condition – not to mention that it doesn’t look great either.
• Once your nail situation has been sorted out, all you need is a fresh layer of your preferred nail polish. Check out NCLA’s summer collection for instance. The colour used in the picture is NCLA Santa Monica Shore Thing with Party Favorite on top.

What are your DIY tips for gorgeous summer feet? Share your tips in the comment section below and pin this article, like it or regram it!