Scrub Those Tootsies Good

Does everyone neglect their feet during winter? I know I do. All that time in tights and boots and never seeing the light of day means spending time on a pedicure doesn't happen. I do paint my tootsies, but scrubs and soaks? Not a chance.

With this in mind, I picked up Lush's Volcano Foot Mask ($19.55 / 11oz) and Pied de Pepper Foot Cream ($14.45 / 3.5oz) in order to start getting my toes in order for spring. Okay, I'm way ahead of the game here. I've just checked the weather forecast and snow is forecast for all of next week. But you know, when flip flop season starts, I'll be prepared!

Volcano foot mask is a rather unappetizing shade of gray, with visible pieces of grit. It had a strong clove and cinnamon scent, although the feature ingredients are tomatoes, papaya and pumice, all designed to smooth off any dry or dead skin. The instructions are to cover your feet in the mask, put them in plastic bags for 10 minutes, and then scrub off. As you can imagine, this is not the tidiest process, and has a high propensity towards, quite simply, making a mess. The mask stays wet on your feet during this period, although anywhere that the mask was exposed to air led to it drying. While my feet were wrapped in plastic (doggie poop bags in my case – sexy times it was not), I did experience a strange peppermint-esque minty heat-cooling sensation, which, if nothing else, made me feel that the mask was definitely doing something. After 10 minutes, I then sat down in the bath and massaged the scrub into my skin, which is to aid the exfoliation process. After that, I rinsed off. Because of the sticky nature of the mask, rinsing off was very difficult, and the mask had a tendency to cling to my feet. I rinsed them under my bath taps. Maybe if I used a basin of water this would be more effective. Because the mask soaks the feet first, making them softer and more receptive to being scrubbed, this mask did do a good job of improving my feet and making them more flip flop friendly. I did notice a visible improvement on my heels where I have a tendency for rougher, old skin to form, and my feet were noticeably smoother. In this respect, the mask definitely worked. Bad points were definitely the high mess factor (although I actually didn’t make a mess of the bathroom, I did feel like I was always “just about to”), the difficulty of actually scrubbing the mask off, and I also think that the cost point is pretty high for what it is. I think that a tub is going to last about 2mths based on weekly scrubs, and that doesn’t seem to be very long for a $20 payout.

I followed up the scrub with the Pied de Pepper foot lotion. This lotion promises to soften feet and control perspiration, and it is recommended for daily use. It has ginger, cinammon, cocoa butter and olive oil as its active ingredients. Maybe I’m super lazy, but I am lucky if I remember to rub lotion on my feet once a week, so expecting me to do this once a day was a bit of a stretch! It did smell nice and peppery, and was easy to rub in. Although the tub is much smaller, I do think it will last a good amount of time (though not if you stick to the rules and use it daily!). I don’t know about controlling perspiration, but I did like that it made my feet feel soft and smooth, and didn’t take a really long time to sink in. If a foot cream takes too long to sink in, then I feel like I’m leaving greasy footprints all over the house as I forget I’m not supposed to be walking around and end up doing some random task.

Both products did do their job pretty effectively, and I’ll continue to use them to start prettying up my feet for the summer.



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