How to do a home pedicure: recreate the salon experience in your living room

Everything you need to get your toes in tip-top shape

Recreate a spa experience at home with a fragrant foot bath. Unsplash

Salons are reopening around the UAE, however not everyone is choosing to visit their favourite parlours just yet, which means you may be well overdue a home pedicure.

Now, we're not talking about a quick polish-off, polish-on – no, no, no. To fully recreate the salon experience, you want to soak, scrub and treat your feet, before even considering which colour you're going for on your nails.

Bonus points if you light a few candles, play some relaxing music in the background and pour yourself a refreshing green tea, to truly recreate that salon experience.

1. Start by soaking your feet 

To begin, give your foot a good soak in warm water. Ideally, you also want to add some fragrant bath salts. If you have foot spa, great! If not, a basin or wide clean bucket also works, as do baths and the bases of your shower.

After soaking for around a minute, you want to attack the dead skin on your feet, which will have been softened by soaking. Reach for a pumice stone or foot file and gently smooth the skin on your heels. Try and keep your second foot soaking if the set-up allows. After filing, rinse your feet.

For extra soft feet, use the pumice or foot file between pedicures.

2. Get shaping 

While your feet and nails are still soft from soaking, reach for the clippers, nail file and buffer. You want standard nail clippers to cut your nails down to the desired length, a file to shape them and then a buffer to get them nice and smooth.

TBH7BX Young woman polishing her nails at home. Alamy

3. Massage your feet 

Treat yourself to a bit of a massage. We appreciate that this is easier for the more flexible among us, so you can always enlist a willing family member – remind them that you have just buffed, cleaned and scrubbed your feet within an inch of their lives. Use a body lotion, aromatherapy cream or foot cream (any moisturiser you have in the beauty cupboard will work, really) and massage from your toes to your calves, paying special attention to the arch of your foot.

4. Check your cuticles 

It is not recommended that you cut your cuticles at home, leaving that to a professional is best. However, using a cuticle oil you can soften them and then push them back towards your nail bed. Wooden cuticle sticks work best.

5. Pick your polish

Use a stool to lean on when you paint your nails at home. Alamy

If you have toe separators, great, if not, a rolled up piece of kitchen towel weaved between your toes works just as well. Apply a base coat, followed by a few layers of your chosen colour and a top coat. Try not to rush this and give the paint a few minutes between each coat to dry, so that it doesn't go clumpy.

You can lean your feet on a stool (cover it with a towel if you want to avoid unwanted drips) to make reaching your nails to paint them a little easier.

6. Sit tight

Avoid rushing out anywhere too soon after applying the polish. You don't want to smudge all your hard work. But if you do have to go anywhere, reach for the flip flops and steer well clear of socks for a few hours. It's the perfect time to catch up on a couple of episodes of Normal People or Brooklyn Nine-Nine with another cup of tea.