Simple and Easy Ways to Care for your Feet

Nov 26
15:38

2005

Michael Fortomas

Michael Fortomas

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A beautifully formed foot is as charming to the eye as a beautifully shaped hand. Every woman should have a knowledge of the practical facts which make for her physical beauty. It is to supply these facts that this little article has been written.

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Too many women are inclined to forget that they have feet until something happens to call their attention to them. A beautifully formed foot is as charming to the eye as a beautifully shaped hand. Every woman should have a knowledge of the practical facts which make for her physical beauty. It is to supply these facts that this little article has been written.

Shoes have much to do with preserving or distorting the natural foot outline,Simple and Easy Ways to Care for your Feet Articles and in this connection several practical facts should be remembered. First, that every woman's shoe should be broad enough to let her toes rest flatly and naturally on the sole. Second, that a low heel throws the weight of the body on the instep. If you feel that broken arches are a slight penalty to pay for tottering about with the silly helplessness of a footbound Chinese woman of the old type, by all means wear highheeled shoes.

If you will have "French" heels — and to the average man a woman looks ridiculous in them, though politeness bid him disguise his feelings — there is nothing more to be said. Do not wear old shoes about the house. They will make your feet shapeless. The dyes in cheap stockings often run. If you have a slight skin abrasion or a cut, you may get blood poisoning. Hence pay more for your stockings (silk, lisle or silk and wool) rather than risk infection.

FOOT MANICURING

Always cut your toenails straight across, using a nail clip, or nail scissors. Ingrown nails always result from cutting away the corners of the nail which support its forward part. If you smooth the nail edges with emery, a good deal of darning will be saved.

FOOT AILMENTS

Calluses.—Calluses very often develop on the sole of the foot. They also form on the toes, where they turn into hard corns, or between the toes, where they become soft ones, and are capable of causing severe pain. Like bunions, flat feet and fallen arches, calluses and corns are a logical result of the wearing of tight or ill fitting shoes.

Good corn plasters give relief. There are also good acid solutions for corns, but they must beapplied to the hard skin of the corn only. It is best, however, to have a good chiropodist removecorns, since he is able to take out their core. The "vascular" corn (made up of small blood vessels), which is less common, should always be taken out by a chiropodist.

Bunions.—Bunions are beyond proper home treatment. They are produced by pressure on the big toe, causing inflammation of the second toe joint. A preliminary callus turns into enlargement of the joint, and, in many cases, motives much suffering, and inability to wear a shoe. If the shoe pressure which causes the bunion be removed, the callus will disappear, but not necessarily the bunion. When bunions are long standing it is not always possible to cure them permanently. A bunion should at once be referred to a chiropodist.

Ingrowing Nails.—Their origin has already been mentioned. Treatment should consist in bathingin hot water, then raising the injured portion of the nail, and inserting pieces of lint or absorbent cotton as an artificial support. Then scrape the nail longitudinally. The lint or cotton support must be renewed from time to time, until the nail has reverted to normal. If a proud flesh condition has developed it will be best to go at once to the chiropodist, instead of attempting a cure yourself.

Flat and Fallen Arches.—Both these foot troubles are beyond any home treatment. Fallen arches, once they have definitely dropped, cannot be completely cured. Both diseases, in most cases,result from improper footwear, high heels, and shoes wrongly balanced, and each and every caseusually needs individual treatment.

Chilblains.—Chilblains, one of the most common of foot disorders, can usually be cured at home. It comes from cold or frost, and does not start in feet which have a good blood circulation. Soaking the feet in hot water, rubbing and massaging with warm spirits of rosemary and turpentine, and exercise are the remedies. Exercise, especially, restores the circulation, and alleviates the redness, the burning feeling and the intolerable itching which are thesigns of the ailment.

FOOT PERSPIRATION AND PERSPIRATION IN GENERAL

Foot Perspiration.—Perspiration we associate more directly and more perceptibly with the feetthan any other part of the body. There is a reason. There are more perspiration glands in the feet than anywhere else on the body, save in the palms of the hands. Daily bathing, night and morning, is the best preventive of excessive foot perspiration. It is well, when you are thus troubled, to add a little alum to the water (it should be warm), and after drying to powder the feet with boracic powder. Or, if you prefer, use a soothing lotion for "feet that are weary" and perspiring, made up of equal parts of alcohol and witch hazel. Hot water, however, is a sovereign specific for all sweaty feet.

Perspiration in General.—We are perspiring all the time. Our perspiration glands are constantlythrowing off the waste matter of the body, and bathing serves the double purpose of keeping thepores open so that this matter may be discharged, and removing it in order that no disagreeable odors result from its presence. The soles of the feet, the armpits, at times the forehead, chest, and neck are perspiration centers.

Perspiration is usually not excessive when a woman is in good general health, or when it is nota result of violent exercise or unusual temperature conditions. But when it is habitual and unchecked it robs a young woman or girl of all that charm of daintiness and appeal which is her right and privilege. There is no odor more immediately and more resentfully noticed than that of dried perspiration. It clings not only to the body, but to the clothes. Perfumes and scented powders do not hide it, and it always awakens disgust.

Frequent bathing, frequent change of undergarments and stockings, and a free use of talcum powder or "odorono" are all indicated. Never imagine that the use of talcum instead of soap andwater will do away with this unhappy scent. After washing, always and invariably after washing, is powder to be used. The poet has coined the phrase "honest sweat." But there is no such thing as "honest sweat" in feminine beauty's bright lexicon of charm. Perspiration, especially at evening affairs, dances, etc., steals away that natural freshness and fragrance of aura which should surround woman.