I made the mistake once of doing a foot peel in peak summer. A bad idea, since – as the name suggests – there’s a fair bit of peeling action that goes into giving you the sort of baby soft feet Gwyneth Paltrow would be proud of. It meant facing blistering temperatures with my hoofs holed up in converse, or sticking with sandals and shedding rogue bits of skin as I went (not a way to make friends).
Nope. I’d wager that the perfect time to risk peeling soles, is right now, when there’s a strong likelihood that your feet are tucked away beneath boots or trainers during the day and cosy socks come evening.
Take it from me, shedding the hard crust of skin on your feet, ready for winter, is as curiously satisfying as it is revolting. It offers you the chance to sit with your feet soaking in serum and to indulge in an evening of pampering (throw in a face mask, a candle and a jumbo bag of Maltesers and you’re golden). Afterwards? Oh mumma. Expect feet smoother than McDreamy.
So what’s involved? For starters, the process usually requires padding around in plastic-bag booties filled with serum for a good hour and a half. In order to spark a chemical peel, serums usually contain exfoliating ingredients like glycolic and salicylic acid as well as nourishing ingredients like vitamin E to stave off dryness.
Next, expect nothing. The delayed reaction that most foot peels have before making a difference may kid you into thinking they’ve not worked, but it can take between a week to 10 days for the peeling to kick in.
Then? You’ll find flakes of foot left behind in your socks, bits of skin rolling off as you sleep and calluses drifting down the drain in the shower (yum). But, if you can get past that, then you my friend are on your way to some seriously soft soles.