FOOT CARE JOURNAL 08
The Real Source of Foot Odor
Is Hiding in Dead Skin
It is one of the questions clients ask most often, usually in a lowered voice, partway through a pedicure: does the nail technician mind the smell? The honest answer is a little unexpected.
Even on freshly washed feet, a faint, distinct smell can rise just after the skin is filed. It isn’t coming from the foot itself. It is the fine dust of dead skin being filed away.
Old, built-up skin holds traces of sweat, oils and whatever bacteria leave behind. Once it is filed loose and meets the air, all of that is released at once.
Tens of thousands a minute
The body sheds tens of thousands of skin cells every minute, and most of them simply drift away unnoticed. On the feet, wrapped in socks and shoes all day, they have far less chance to leave, so they stay and build up.
So it is quite common to notice more smell just after filing than before the feet were washed.
In a way, it is a sign the treatment is working: the old skin that had been building up is finally coming off.
Nail technicians know how this works, so it doesn’t surprise them. What matters is what comes next: careful cleanup, then moisturizing, which takes the source of the odor away from the foot itself.
A smell during filing doesn’t mean your feet are unclean. It means what they have been holding on to is finally on its way out.
Then notice how light your feet feel afterward.
At Colors Hiroo Nail Lounge, foot care is a treatment of its own, never an afterthought. Over the years, we have kept refining how we care for callused skin and heels.
It can be done in the same visit as your gel manicure or pedicure: an unhurried hour in a modern Japanese house, two minutes’ walk from Hiroo Station.
Reservations are made through Hot Pepper Beauty, an external Japanese booking site. English-language plan details are listed further down that page; please scroll down to find them.
Colors Hiroo Nail Lounge
5-3-8 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku,
Tokyo
Mon–Fri 10:00–21:00
Sat, Sun & Holidays 11:00–20:00