The un­wel­come pres­ence of corns, cal­lus­es and bunions are prob­a­bly among the top rea­sons you hate your feet. These are pri­mar­i­ly the re­sult of pres­sure to par­tic­u­lar ar­eas of the foot. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, left un­treat­ed, corns can be­come in­fect­ed and cause some sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lems, and bunions can be painful.

Corns

Corns are hard, sort of cone-shaped pro­tru­sions most­ly found on top of or on the out­side of the toes. In ad­di­tion to be­ing painful, an­noy­ing and ug­ly, it can be hard to jam a tiny toe ring over that bad boy. Left un­treat­ed, corns can be­come in­fect­ed and cause some sig­nif­i­cant health prob­lems.

Not to men­tion bouts of po­di­a­pho­bia. One of the first or­ders of busi­ness in elim­i­nat­ing the growth of corns and cal­lus­es is to elim­i­nate the pres­sure caus­ing them. If your shoes are too tight or too nar­row, choose wider shoes that leave room for your feet to shift with­in your shoes with­out rub­bing. If your corn is a hard bump and is not in­fect­ed, you can try sand­ing it gen­tly with an emery board be­fore show­er­ing. Do this grad­u­al­ly, you will find that af­ter a while it can make them be­come far less no­tice­able. Acids can be used to treat corns, dis­solv­ing the lay­ers and leav­ing new skin un­der­neath. These are not in­stant so­lu­tions-they can take a while, and in the mean­time they won't be pret­ty! If you hate corns on your feet, take some ac­tion, but trim­ming is some­thing that is best left to the pro­fes­sion­als. If you at­tempt to trim the corn you may cut too deep and hurt your­self or cause in­fec­tion.

Cal­lus­es

Cal­lus­es are tough­en­ing of the skin on the bot­tom of the feet, heels and toes, al­so as a re­sult of pres­sure to the foot from ex­er­cise or shoes that don't fit. Cal­lus­es are un­at­trac­tive, and left un­treat­ed, can crack and cause pain and dis­com­fort. With con­sis­tent foot care, you can be­gin to min­imise or even elim­i­nate foot cal­lus­es. Of all the many ways to beau­ti­fy your feet, this is prob­a­bly the eas­i­est place to start! There are many ways to deal with this con­di­tion....you may con­sid­er trim­ming, shav­ing, or sand­ing foot cal­lus­es, or the use of ex­fo­li­at­ing foot creams and pumice. The best way to avoid hav­ing them at all or keep them from re­turn­ing is to wear shoes that fit, socks that cush­ion feet and let them breathe dur­ing ath­let­ics, and to main­tain a reg­u­lar foot care reg­i­men. There are many ex­cel­lent foot creams that will help with this quick­ly. Ap­ply to your feet at night and cov­er with light cot­ton socks while you sleep. Scrub them with a stiff brush in the show­er, and you'll be amazed at how quick­ly your feet will look and feel soft­er and smoother!

Bunions

If you hate your feet be­cause of bunions, you're in good com­pa­ny. To cut, or not to cut? That is the ques­tion. Bunions are a hard, bone-like pro­tru­sion that grows ad­ja­cent to the big toe. It seems that more peo­ple are em­bar­rassed by bunions than al­most any oth­er foot con­di­tion. Bunions can be caused by ill-fit­ting shoes, but can al­so be hered­i­tary. Bunions can be painful and make it very dif­fi­cult to find shoes that fit and look good. There are pads and ap­pli­ca­tions de­signed to min­imise dis­com­fort, but do not treat or re­move them. If you are em­bar­rassed by bunions, there are sur­gi­cal op­tions avail­able, but may re­quire some re­cov­ery time and don't of­fer any guar­an­tee that they won't re­turn.

Wear­ing shoes that don't put pres­sure on them will min­imise the red­ness that an­gry bunions tend to ex­hib­it. Keep your toe­nails trimmed and man­i­cured, re­move corns and cal­lous­es and mois­turise feet dai­ly...all steps that will help to keep your feet "un­der the radar"! There are many foot prob­lems and con­di­tions that can be ad­dressed right at home with prop­er­ly fit­ting shoes, socks, and home pedi­cures to keep your feet beau­ti­ful and hap­py. Each of these has a par­tic­u­lar cause, ap­pear­ance, and lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty in treat­ing. It be­comes clear af­ter re­view­ing the choic­es that you even­tu­al­ly have to de­cide just how im­por­tant it is-or in­deed if it's even pos­si­ble-to have per­fect feet.