Hand and Feet Tips

Try these easy ways to keep your nails, hands and feet healthy and looking their best.

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Protect Your Nails
Here’s how to protect your nails from peeling and cracking...

• Wear cotton-lined rubber gloves if you have to use soap and water for long period of time. Especially wear them when using cement or harsh chemicals. If the chemicals will dissolve rubber, use nitrile gloves.
• Trim your nails and clean under them routinely. Use sharp manicure scissors or clippers. Then smooth the edges with an emory board. Only filing will weaken nails. You can use a fine-textured file to smooth snags. Cut straight across, and then file the corners slightly round for strength. Don’t pick at hangnails!
• Always apply a moisturizer after washing hands.

MORE: Non-Toxic Nail Polish Guide

Stop Chewing
To kick your nail-biting habit, squeeze a squishy ball or snap a rubber band when you want to pick. You can paint on gross nail polish to keep you from biting.

Squash the Smell
The root of any spoiled egg salad stench from your toenails is likely a bacterium or fungus. To get rid of it, have someone spray your foot with rubbing alcohol three times a day. Let it dry instead of wiping it off. Then, put on a moisturizing cream (try one with lanolin) before bed. After ten days, the smell should disappear. Step up to Betadine if this doesn’t work. Coat your skin and let it dry. Wash it off after a half hour. Betadine can dry your skin, so do this carefully.

Wrap It Up
A good remedy for calluses is a light mixture of salicylic acid and petroleum jelly. Grind up two aspirin in two tablespoons of petroleum jelly. Then rub it into your heels and wrap them up with plastic wrap to seal the moisture in. After, you can use a pumice stone to rub away the dead skin.

Dry Up
About one percent of Americans suffer from excessive sweating or hyperhidrosis. This affects the hands, armpits and feet. The nerves to those areas relax the arteries, turning on extra sweat glands beneath the skin. This allows excess moisture to seep out. It’s both an appearance and function issue. Excessive sweat makes it harder to work, drive and simply grab something off a top shelf, not to mention the anxiety that can come from interviews and meeting new people.

If you really suffer from the embarrassment of this condition, you can try a tannic acid or boric acid. If that doesn’t work, try 20 percent aluminum chloride. Put it on before bed and wash it off in the morning. If this still doesn’t work, you can discuss Botox injections with your doc. You can get these treatments every six to 12 months. Taking shots in the armpits sounds like the pits, but it could be better than surgery.There is a procedure that cuts the nerves that cause sweaty hands. But, you need to sweat an awful lot to justify this major procedure.