No doubt, pedicures are relaxing and a great weekend activity. They include: cleaning, exfoliation, grooming, and massaging, but pedicures can cause more harm than good in the long term.
The scraping and tearing away at dead skin also pull away at healthy skin. Even though your feet may feel good right after, years later they might not. You can be left with deep calluses that cannot be repaired no matter how many pedicures you get. The occasional pedicure shouldn’t hurt, but skip the monthly pedicure and just keep the skin on your feet moisturized with lotion.
If you are noticing your skin on your feet needs some renewing, try a foot mask instead. The masks are worn around the feet for one to two hours. After a week, the outer skin of the feet will peel off, leaving you with healthy new skin, without the scraping at the salon. These are generally much cheaper than a pedicure too, and they have longer lasting results. They can be found at places like Walmart, Walgreens, Target, etc.
There are other home-pedicure solutions that will protect your feet as well. There are exfoliation scrubs and soaking solutions that will provide some of the same benefits without the harmful scrubbing. It might not offer the same relaxation found at the salon, but it will allow you to keep wearing sandals in the future.
The salon can still paint your nails without the whole pedicure, if you do not like painting your own nails. Before you go to get your next pedicure, try out some of these alternatives to get similar results.