Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Oils Part 4: Foot Soak and Body Wash

The final part of our oil series is about feet. I don't like feet. At all. Despite my aversion and belief that no one wants to look at a picture of a foot - I will be posting a picture of my feet.

I've never had much of an issue with calluses or dry feet in the past but after Hobbit Jo was born my feet were dry and hard as the ground of the Salt Flats. They were cracking and catching on things. It was terrible. I used lotion and socks, I scraped, grated, filed and pumused, I tried the "amazing" Listerine treatment. Nada. I am someone who LOVES tubs and prefers to take a bath everyday to ever showering (not to say I don't like showers or don't shower - but most days find me soaking in a bath). Because of this I am always looking for a way to make them even more relaxing and delightful. I found a tutorial about making a body wash that I decided to try instead of buying expensive shaving cream with hopes with it would be slick and moisturizing. Which it is. But the best part was that it softened my feet enough that dead skin started to just rub off.

It was a miracle and I want to share it with you!

The Body Wash

6 Cups of Water
1 bar of soap grated
1 Cup Coconut Oil

Combine water and chunked up soap (I just scraped pieces off with a knife instead of grating) in pan on low heat and stir occasionally until soap dissolves and it creates a milk water. Bring to LOW simmer until it thickens almost as much as you want your body wash to be, Add coconut oil and put back to lowest setting. Only keep it on the heat until they oil has combined with your mixture.
Pour into whatever container you've saved aside.
Will make about a quart of body wash and mine lasted a long time!
It was a great way to extend the life of my soap and was nice and soft.

*If you are using it for shaving, like me, thicken for longer and use almond or olive oil (liquid at room temperature) so that it will remain liquid to avoid clogging your razor.

Foot Soak

You can use the Body Wash but I prefer this recipe. I wanted it to be pourable, and didn't need it to be super soapy.

3 Cups Water
1/4 Bar Soap grated (just to help combine the water and oil)
3/4 Cup Almond Oil

Combine water and soap in pan over low heat, add oil until combined.

You don't need to thicken it because you're pouring it into the water anyway. You can use coconut oil instead but I preferred the almond oil so that the water didn't have to be as hot to melt the coconut oil. But I've used both and both are great.

You can also add essential oils (I recommend lavender and melaluca for their healing properties; both are great for skin and relaxation).

Soak feet in a bucket of hot water with 1/4 Cup of Soak for about 20 minutes and then grate/file/sand/pumus however you would like. I did this for about a week and my feet are in great shape. It's been about 2 months and my feet still feel great!

Enjoy!


Here are the links to the rest of the series, incase you missed them.
http://johnsonbagend.blogspot.com/2014/01/smooth-things-over-with-oils.html
http://johnsonbagend.blogspot.com/2014/01/oils-pt-2-lotion-bars-and-chapstick.html
http://johnsonbagend.blogspot.com/2014/01/oils-part-3-my-mind.html

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I may try it

Dave and Lacey said...

Same story for me! I need to try this! Hopefully I get around to doing it! Thanks for all the helpful tips. Is there anything you don't do? You are so very talented!