…with these vibrating slippers from HoMedics (I love that name..lol). These faux suede, fleece lined, battery operated wonder-slippers are available only at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $19.95.
Not only are they “Breast Cancer Pink” (is that a tacky color name?? even if its my favorite color??), but $1 from each sale will go straight to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. How nice is that? I love a great excuse to go buy something new - it really helps my brain rationalize things - no beers necessary. 
pedicures
DuWop Toe Polish is the most unique concept I have seen since Pawlish (but thats another article) - it is designed for toes, and has special features like a quick drying formula, and benefits like extreme shine, and anti fungal ingredients.
My opinion? It is GREAT on toes. I have the color Flip Flops (the current - and first, I might add- collection are all named after shoes), and it dries amazingly fast - which is great for polishing toes before bed - which I always do. The color also stays nice and shiny for a long time. The down side is that it really needs to stay on the toes. Although you may think your feet take a lot of abuse, your toenails stay much more protected than your fingernails do, and therefore do not need “tough” nail polish so much. This will chip on your fingernails quicker than you would like - but, thats why they call it Toe Polish, right?
DuWop’s Toe Polish is $12 a bottle, and can be purchased from various stores, and from QVC.
Look here for lessons on how to do your own pedicures at home, and how to apply Polish That Lasts!
Nail Polish Colors,
Natural Nails,
pedicures
I just love Glam - raaaaally I do - and have since the minute I discovered it, and am so glad to be a part of it now!!!
I am glad you have found your way here to one of my humble little online abodes and hope also that you will take a little time to look around while you are here. NailTechSecrets is my attempt to teach you all of the things I have learned from 20 or so years as a Nail Tech. Explore the categories to the right and learn all you care to know about manicures and pedicures and all the tricks I know about how to polish your nails so you get great long lasting color! There is tons more information here and tons more to come. If you have come searching for info about artificial nails, that is on the plan for the near future - I am gearing up and getting things organized for that now and I hope you will stay tuned, subscribe to the feed and keep posted on all the latest info on nail care and secrets from a career Nail Tech!
Please do come visit me at my other related blog, eBeautyDaily, which along with being a b5media blog, is also a Glam blog!
artificial nails,
career,
Glam.com,
Manicures,
manicures and pedicures,
nail care,
nail tech,
pedicures,
Polish that Lasts!,
Welcome!
T for Toes Dusting Powder by Lush Cosmetics is a powder that is great for refreshing tired feet, general maintenance of healthy feet or just any ol time you need to feel pampered and perked up. T for Toes contains Tea Tree Oil (a.k.a. Melaleuka Oil), which along with a great many other wonderful properties is antibacterial. This is NOT just for the ladies, your men will enjoy this just as well, and might derive even more benefit from it than you do. Available at Amazon.com for $8.75 for 3.5 ounces. Perfect size for the gym bag!
amazon,
antibacterial,
feet,
lush,
melaleuka,
pedicures,
tea tree oil,
toes
Julie, at Almost Girl, struggled a bit with freshening up her toenails over the weekend. She just is not as tuned in as I am to the notion that these details are really important! However, she said this in her post from over the holiday weekend, leading me to believe that her struggle with the details of beauty as a whole is very voluntary (*wink*):
[…]you can carefully discern a person’s class from that state of their cuticles, thus even the scruffiest Misshapes hipster girl will reveal her trust fund status with her freshly manicured fingers.
Now this quote - I can bet dollars to doughnuts that I have heard it verbatim from my best girlfriend. Well, she probably didn’t say “Misshapes hipster girl,” but she certainly said dreadlock-wearing, noodle-dancing, neo-hippie chick. Whatever the decade or the type of gal, it all means the same. If you want to look like a person with a bit of sense about them, much less a dollar or two in your pocket - pay attention to the details. And for petes sake, paint your toenails!
fashion,
Friends of Nail Tech Secrets,
girlfriend,
health,
hipster,
neo hippie,
pedicures,
toenails
There is a video online this morning, from the show, and this accompanying article, focusing on the death of Kimberly Jackson, from an MRSA infected pedicure bath. I think the article is the transcript from the video, in case you can’t see the video - if not, it is very similar.
ABC News: Drug-Resistant Staph Tops Group’s ‘Hit List’
Once again, PLEASE make sure that if you are getting salon pedicures, to make sure your nail tech is not using a tub with plumbing, and make sure that whatever they are using is properly santitized. To learn more about MRSA and antibiotic resistant infections, see my other web sites at MRSA Resources, MRSA Forum, MRSA Blog, and you can read our personal story at MRSA Story.
Also, antibiotic resistant bacteria can be picked up easily from athletic facilities and simply from contact with other people. To protect yourself, follow basic hygiene rules: Wash your hands frequently, do not share personal items, and cover your wounds and avoid contact with other peoples wounds. Also, eat right and get plenty of rest so your immune system stays in tip top shape and visit your doctor regularly for checkups and routine bloodwork that can give you a heads up if you have any immunosuppressant illnesses that will give this bacteria an opportunity to thrive in your body.
Just like on your hands, you must make sure that all of the lotion is off of your toenails before you even begin to think about polishing them. Use a towel to get most of it off, pushing down your toenail towards your cuticle just like you did with your nails. Get into those grooves! When you have rubbed off all of the lotion you can get with your towel, take your cuticle nippers and only cut off what is sticking up and BEGGING to be cut off. Remember scar tissue, and only cut off what is necessary. Just like your fingernails, you cuticle will quickly become trained to stay back, and any thick parts will respond well to your treatments and slough off fairly quickly.
Take some acetone on a gauze pad and wipe off your toenails, again, being careful of your painted fingernails. Now, here is a trick that I love. You are going to use a paper towel to separate your toes for polishing. Take one full sized paper towel and roll it up tightly into a long cord. Weave this cord in between your toes, beginning underneath the big toe and bringing it up through the space between that toe and the one next to it. Weave it all the way through your toes (on one foot only, please), ending under the pinky toe. Both ends of the cord should be under your foot, so they wont accidentally get into your polish. This works a lot better than the manufactured “toe separators,” which have a tendency to move around and eventually get in the way of polishing, or even worse, mar a finished polish job.
You are now ready to move on to the Polish That Lasts section, but remember, unless you go barefooted A LOT, do not use topcoat. And, let those toes dry for a LONG TIME before you put shoes on them!
Put each foot back in the bath for a moment, and wash off the leftover salts. Dry your feet off, then get out your favorite good smelling lotion or cream. Give yourself a great foot massage. You think someone else can give a good foot massage, well, you are the best. You know where it feels good, so do it! Gently pull on your toes, and massage your muscles in your toes. Dig your thumbs in to the arches of your feet, and push up towards your toes and see how good that feels. When you are finished, with the first foot, make sure there is still some cream on it, and wrap it in plastic wrap and stick it in between your heating pad for about 15 minutes while you massage your other foot.
Now you will move on to taking care of the bottoms of your feet. Remove that first foot from the bath again, dry it off, and grab your foot file. If you have chosen my favorite foot file, you grab the end of the file without the sandpaper on it, find the courser side, and start filing. Pay attention to the area around your heel, and the ball of your foot, giving extra attention to the more calloused areas. After all of this soaking, you will most likely sling all kinds of skin bits around, so be sure and have a towel under your foot. You may have seen the razor type of implement that is supposed to be used to cut off very hard calluses, but I do NOT recommend the use of these, for exactly the same reason as I don’t recommend cutting your cuticles — it will cause scar tissue, which is tougher, and harder to remove than even the hardest callous you can imagine. If you cannot get off all of the callous that you want to this time, you can soak your foot a few more minutes and try again, OR, my recommendation is to do another pedicure in a couple weeks, and do another thorough foot filing. A little bit of filing at a time over a longer time period is
less likely to cause scar tissue than aggressively removing it all at once.
When that foot is as soft as a baby’s bottom (or as close as you are going to get to that this time, get out your salt and oil scrub, and massage it into that foot, this time paying close attention to your ankles, the tops of your feet and toes, and in between your toes. Give yourself a good massage, and let it sit on your feet while you remove the next foot and repeat this step on it.
pedicures,
Step by Step
Next, you want to file your toenails. If they are very long, you can clip them down first, with toenail clippers, but generally, the file does a great job. Like on your fingernails, file in one direction only to discourage the layers of your nail from separating. With your clippers, clip off just the very teeniest bit of each corner of your nail, which should be easy to get to after you have done the procedure described above. This will also discourage ingrown toenails. If you find you have any soreness in the sides of your toenails already, please do yourself a favor and go to the podiatrist right away to get it taken care of before it becomes a problem requiring ingrown toenail surgery, it is painful and takes a long time to recover from. You might be interested to know that a great deal of people have pinky toenails that are not quite right. Most everyone I have seen says something about their pinky toenails being ugly, or malformed, and they are always surprised when I tell them that just about every ones are. I am sure it is due to walking around for years and years and years in shoes, not to mention the kinds of shoes that women wear. Do yourself another favor and make sure the shoes that you wear fit your feet, and have enough room in the toe box to wiggle your toes a little. This will keep your feet looking much better and more importantly, FEELING much better in years to come!
Ok, put that foot BACK in the bath, and repeat the above steps on the other foot. And smile—you are on the road to gorgeous, pampered looking and FEELING feet!
