Got Feet as Tough as Shoe Leather? Tell ‘Em to Buzz Off.

In my post last week, I advised y’all on busting the winter crust by exfoliating regularly with a Buf Puf ® and some good ol’ St. Ives ® Apricot Scrub.  And those two handy-dandy and inexpensive products’ll get you soft from head to, well, ankle.  I’m afraid if you’re anything like me, what falls below the ankle’s going to take a bit more elbow grease, because y’all?  In the last decade of my life, these tootsies of mine have gone from cute little pink piggies to snarling leathery ‘gators. 

And I won’t bore you with my tired old "once I was a single gal with my own income and a memorial massage table at the spa" story.  I’ll just say that the weekly pedicures I once enjoyed have long since gone by the wayside, unless you count Al singing "Popsicle Toes" to me as we climb into bed as a beauty treatment.  Well, he does have a lovely and peaceful singing voice.

So anyway, winter, (which have I mentioned is long and harsh and apparently never going to end up here where we live?) is, of course, by far the hardest time on these dogs of mine.  Why just last week, as my daughter Bean and I were gettin’ ready to go out on a little adventure and I was scurrying around the kitchen getting our breakfast ready, she noted, "Mama, you have on your clacky-heeled lady shoes today!"  And I hadn’t even PUT ON any shoes yet! 

Okay, I’m kidding.  But I do have some rough, dry, callousy feet, and while I try to stay on top of them with my pummice stone, this eternal winter weather and my un-feet-friendly Mama lifestyle seem to be winning the battle of girl against ‘gator.  But lo, just as I was about to wave the proverbial white flag and let the beast have its way, we had a 60-degree day last weekend.  And I realized with a faint glimmer of hope that someday soon, we’ll have another.  And then, in the blink of an eye, cute flip flop season will have come and gone and I’ll have spent it in a pair of these:

Which I’m guessing aren’t gonna be particularly flattering with my lovely linen maternity capris.

So as I was pondering the vast and ever-expanding array of natural products offered up at the local Walgreen’s Saturday, I focused my attention on the foot fixers, cremes, and emollients, and found a little tube of Burt’s Bees Thoroughly Therapeutic Honey and Bilberry (what the HECK is a bilberry, anyway?) Foot Creme, which promises to "exfoliate and deeply moisturize for soft, smooth, healthy feet."

I liked the price, liked that the product is all-natural, paraben and phthalate free, and OH MY HEAVENS, it passed the smell test on the first sniff — it’s actually one of the yummiest-smelling beauty products I’ve ever laid my nose upon.  Smells like fresh, raw honey with a little dab of rose petals mixed in.  Super, Double Yum.  Heck, the temptation to slather it on a piece of toast with some sweet cream butter and devour it in two bites nearly overpowered me when I gave it a second snort as I unloaded it from the bag on my kitchen counter later that day.  The heavenly scent alone would make me buy it again. 

But how did it work on my feet?  Well, lemme see.  I started using it Saturday night.  I did as the package directions instructed and just massaged it into my feet.  It went on smoothly and was non-sticky, light but emollient.  Sunday morning after my shower, I did the same.  And I’ve done so each morning and each night this week except yesterday I skipped BOTH applications.  After I put it on, I slap on some cotton socks to protect my floors from gettin’ all gooey and hopefully assist in the absorption of the creme.  I’ve also NOT let up on my daily date with the pummice stone, because it would take a whole lot more than the juice of a bilberry (unless "bilberry" is code for "battery acid") to eat through the gouda-rinds on the bottoms of these feet.  So my feet are gettin’ pummiced daily and THEN lotioned and THEN swaddled and molly-coddled in socks all day.   

The feet are all MAN, what’d we do to deserve all THIS?

And here it is Thursday evening, and they ARE softer and smoother.  They’re more like sweet lil newborn baby lizards (glah!) now instead of full-grown angry ‘gators.   

Would my feet be improving at this rate if I’d done the whole pummice-lotion-sock treatment using my standard Eucerin ® instead of the Burt’s Bees ®?  Maybe.  But then you’d just be reading yet another post singing the praises of Eucerin ® and my whole bedroom wouldn’t smell like glorious flowery nectar (aka bee spit).   

And therefore, the world may never know.  But I’d say Burt’s Bees ® made a nice product and I will buy it again. 

Now hmmm… where did I put those English muffins?