My Quick Winter Pedicure Routine

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As much as I love going to get a pedicure, it isn't often that I have an hour to spare for such a luxury! I have everything that I need at home to do my own pedicure. I have to admit that I've developed my own "lazy" system to get a pedicure done in the shower. The whole thing probably takes at most 10-15 minutes.


First, I do most of this in the shower. As I'm getting ready to get in, I remove my nail polish. I prefer to do this with an acetone polish remover wipe, non-acetone wipes always seem to leave a lot of polish on my toenails. If I'm out of wipes I'll use a bit of polish remover or acetone with a small square of felt. I've found that felt works a lot better than cotton rounds or balls, it holds together better so I can really rub at the polish to get it off quickly and completely.

My Favorite:
1. Cutex Nail Polish Remover Pads (at Walgreen's or Amazon)


Once I'm in the shower, I do my regular shower routine, but I'll add in a few steps. I use a pumice stone on my heels, I don't spend a lot of time on it because this is something I do about once or twice a week, so I usually don't have to spend much time on this. When washing my body, instead of using a netting ball with my body wash, I use exfoliating mitts. I spend a little extra time concentrating on my feet, especially around my ankles which can get a bit dry.

Eventually I use a cuticle remover on my foot. I have a big bottle of Blue Cross Cuticle Remover, which is very watery. I squirt it all over my foot, including my heel and around my toe nails. I wait about 30 seconds, and then start scrubbing my foot with the mitts again. Around my toenails I use my thumbnail to push back the cuticles and I run it over cuticle to remove excess dry skin. This whole process needs to be fast, under 2 minutes or so. The Blue Cross is pretty strong, so I don't like to leave it on my skin for too long.

After I've rinsed off the Blue Cross, I grab a scrub with an oil base and use it all over my feet and legs. While I don't really scrub at my feet (let's face it, they've been pumiced, cuticle removered and scrubbed some more already), I do put the scrub on my feet and rub it around a bit just to get the oil into the skin. The oil will help lock in some of the extra moisture from the shower, helping my feet feel incredibly soft and hydrated later on.

Once I'm out of the shower I do put some lotion on my feet, but it's just whichever lotion I'm using on my body. I typically apply it all over quickly and leave it at that.

My Favorites:
2. Blue Cross Cuticle Remover (at Amazon or Sally Beauty Supply)
3. Alessandro Pedix One Minute Pedicure (at Amazon or Beauty.com)
4. Mr. Pumice Extra-Coarse Pumi Bar (at Amazon or Sally Beauty Supply)
5. The Body Shop Exfoliating Bath Gloves (at The Body Shop) or EcoTools Shower Gloves (at ULTA)


When I'm ready to apply polish, I need to get any residual lotion and/or oil from the body scrub off of my toe nails (some always seems to stick around despite rinsing). I wipe my toe nails off with rubbing alcohol and wait until it is dry before applying anything. I do a layer of base coat, 2 layers of color and finally a top coat. I usually let each layer dry a lot before the next layer, more than I do with a manicure when I tend to just layer over wet polish and let it all dry together.

One really great thing about polish is that if you get some on your skin, you don't need to obsess over cleaning it up. During the summer I'll clean up any mistakes with an angled makeup brush and acetone, but in the winter I just let it dry on my skin. The next day in the shower, at the end of my shower I can run my thumbnails over the polish and it lifts right off of my skin.

My Favorites:
6. Orly Bonder Base Coat (at ULTA or Amazon)
7. Morgan Taylor (at Amazon)
8. OPI (at ULTA)
9. Seche Vite Top Coat (at ULTA or Amazon)


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