Cracked heels can be the cause of social embarrassment, and in some extreme cases, even the cause of much physical pain. Most importantly, they can really wreck your self-esteem. Some of the problems that accompany cracked heels are redness in your heels, severe itching, and thickening of the skin around your heels, and even peeling of your skin.
There are some excellent home remedies for cracked heels that are advised by beauty experts, and have even been tried and tested to get excellent results. Below is a list of some of the most authentic and easiest home remedies for cracked heels that are bound to work miracles:
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1. Rosewater and glycerin
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We often use rose water in face masks for the cool and soothing effect that it has on the skin. However, the combination of rose water and glycerin can work miracles when used on cracked heels. Glycerin is known for being an extremely useful and strong moisturizer, while rose water when used with glycerin, increases the moisturizing effect that rose water has on the skin. For best results, prepare a foot soak of warm water, juice of half a lemon, a pinch of salt, one-fourth glycerin, and three-fourth of rosewater. Now keep your feet soaked in this solution for at least fifteen minutes, and then with a pumice stone, gently scrub and clean the accumulated dead skin on your heels. Once done, dry your feet and coat them with a good quality moisturizer.
2. Fruit mask
There are many kinds of enzymes and compounds in fruits that help in making the cracked regions of your heels soft and tender. So, if a fruit mask is applied regularly on your damaged heels, then it will clean away all the dead skin cells, without causing any damage to the healthy tissues on your heels. To make a handy fruit mask for your cracked heels, just mix half an avocado, a banana, and some tender coconut flesh. Take this fruit mask and apply it evenly on your feet on the affected areas. Once you have kept it for at least fifteen minutes, wash it off with some lukewarm water. Apply some moisturizer after cleaning the fruit mask off your feet.
3. A mixture of natural oils
Natural oils are rich in various natural moisturizers, that really work wonders in healing cracked, dry, painful heels. Though applying any one kind of oil is bound to be effective, mixing many types of natural oils and applying them together on your affected heels will prove to be doubly effective. Doing this will cure your heels at a much faster rate. So, to try a combination of different natural oils on your cracked heels. Just make a mixture of olive oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil, almond oil, and sesame oil. You need to massage both your feet, especially the cracked regions with this mixture. After rubbing this oil for at least ten minutes, put on a pair of socks so that the oil gets soaked in your feet and gets absorbed by your skin. For best results, you must apply this oil before going to bed.
4. Jojoba oil combined with oatmeal
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Both jojoba oil and oatmeal are great for moisturizing dry skin and curing cracked and any other kind of affected skin areas. To use this natural home remedy for cracked heels you have to make a fine paste of jojoba oil and oatmeal. All that you have to do is take a tablespoon or more of oatmeal and mix it with an appropriate amount of jojoba oil and you get a thick mixture of the two. The consistency should be thick enough to stay all over your heels. Now apply this paste all over your feet and keep it like that for at least half an hour. Once the paste has dried, wash it off with warm water, followed by applying a good quality moisturizer all over your feet.
5. Honey and milk
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If you are looking for one of the best home remedies for cracked heels, then a combination of honey and milk will be your favorite solution. This is already a popular combination for face scrubs and/or facials, and is also great for cracked heels. All you have to do is take a cup of honey and add some milk to it. Pour this mixture into a bowl, in which you can soak your feet for a while. The only thing you have to make sure is that the honey you are using is organic and pure, and that you are making a very good mixture of these two natural ingredients. As milk is a great moisturizer for dry skin and honey has antibacterial properties, the combination of these two will give you smooth and clean heels after regular use for a few weeks.
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6. Vinegar
The acetic acid present in vinegar works great in exfoliating the cracked and dry skin on your heels, and thus white vinegar is considered by beauty experts to be one of the most reliable natural remedies for cracked heels. However, you have to keep in mind the fact that acetic acid that is present in vinegar has a drying effect on the skin, hence it is better that you do not use white vinegar directly on your cracked heels. Instead, it is advisable that you first prepare a soak of warm water and one cup of vinegar. Next, add a good quality natural oil to this soak, like olive oil or even coconut oil. You need to keep your feet soaked in this solution for about ten minutes before scrubbing off the dead skin cells on your heels with a pumice stone. End this procedure with moisturizer applied all over your heels.
7. Soak made with rice flour
If you want to clean the dead skin cells from your cracked heels, then you can use rice flour as a home remedy. Rice flour is known to be one of the best exfoliators, and thus you can make a scrub using rice flour to heal your cracked heels. To make this scrub, you need to mix honey, five drops of olive oil, some rice flour, and apple cider vinegar together. To this, you need to add some warm water until the consistency is thin enough to soak your feet in. You will see great results if you soak your feet in this mixture for ten minutes every day for a few weeks.
8. Lemon juice
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Exfoliators work best on dry skin, and in the case of cracked heels, no exfoliator can work better than lemon juice. The reason for this is that it contains citric acid, a component that is particularly useful in clearing the dead skin from cracked, dry heels.
Lemon juice can be used in many ways to exfoliate the dead, dry skin off your heels. First off, you can make a mixture of papaya and the juice of one lemon, and apply this paste on your heels. If you apply this mix on your cracked heels for at least twenty minutes every day, you will get smooth feet in no time. Alternatively, you can also make a soak of lemon juice and warm water, and soak your feet in the mix for half an hour or so.
9. Homemade ointment
This home remedy for cracked heels gives great results when applied on cracked heels. To make this mixture, you have to make a combination of various natural ingredients and apply it evenly all over your feet. The ingredients necessary to make this ointment are shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, magnesium flakes, and some warm water. If you apply the ointment regularly on your cracked heels, you will get positive results in no time.
10. Combo of neem and tulsi leaves
This is an age old, traditional ayurvedic home remedy for cracked heels that is guaranteed to work very effectively on your cracked heels. Neem leaves, also known as margosa, have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, that can give you soft heels devoid of cracks. Tulsi is also known for being extremely skin-friendly, and hence can work wonders when used with neem leaves.
If your heels are in a typically bad state and are even bleeding, then this combination is particularly said to cure all such problems. To make this ayurvedic paste, just make a paste of the neem leaves using a little water and add to it the paste of tulsi leaves. Apply this mixture all over your cracked heels and wash the paste off after half an hour or so later. For best results, especially if the state of your heels is very bad, apply this paste twice every day.
11. Mustard oil and wax
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This combination is the ultimate one if you want to treat cracked heels that have wide fissures in them and also bleed quite frequently, making it painful for you to even walk. You have to make a mixture of mustard oil and wax, and apply this ointment on your heels to cure all cracks on your feet. Although it is advisable that you use paraffin wax for this ointment, you can even use wax from any candle if beeswax is not available. However, be sure to use wax from white candles and not from colored candles.
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12. Powder of coriander and cumin seeds
It is a traditional belief that if these two kinds of powder is consumed with candy sugar on a regular basis, then your cracked heels will be cured in no time.
So these are our natural remedies for dry, painful cracked heels. Try them out and see how soon all the cracks in your heels vanish! Let us know which of these remedies worked best for you. We love to hear from you!
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