FOOT CARE JOURNAL 05
Cracked Heels,
Even When You Moisturize
The cream sits on the nightstand. You use it faithfully, and still the cracks stay; some weeks they even seem worse. It is one of the most common frustrations in foot care, and it is rarely the moisturizer’s fault. Usually it is a question of order, and of thickness.
Thick, hardened skin is reluctant to let water, or anything else, through. Cream applied on top meets that dense layer and stops there, never reaching the dry skin underneath that actually needs it.
The thicker the layer gets, the closer you come to moisturizing without really moisturizing.
Heel skin also renews itself less evenly than skin elsewhere. Constant pressure makes it produce extra layers, and old skin that would normally flake away quietly stays put, adding one more wall between the cream and where it needs to go.
An ingredient your skin already makes
Urea, a name on many heel-cream labels, is not just a lab invention. Your skin makes it too, as part of its own natural moisturizing system. In higher concentrations, it also helps soften thick, hardened skin.
Once cracks have formed, it gets more complicated. A crack often runs past the surface into deeper layers that have lost their give, and a cream smoothed over the top won’t reach the bottom of it.
Pressing harder to work it in doesn’t help either; it can even damage the skin.
Moisturizing works only after the thickness has been dealt with. Layering cream over hardened skin is a little like pouring water onto a pot with the lid still on.
So how much of that thickness should come off, and where does it start to be too much?
If cracks are deep, painful or bleeding, or if you have diabetes or circulation concerns, please see a doctor or podiatrist before treating them yourself.
Begin with the thickness. The rest can follow.
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