Feet are a too often neglected part of the body – God knows I tend to ignore mine! You usually don’t consider what they have to put up with until good weather comes around and you want to wear those sandals. Or, of course, when they start giving you grief!
Our feet and ankles support the entire weight of our body when standing or walking around. They also tend to spend most of their time enclosed in often not breathable, a lot of times even restrictive, material. When you add all of that up you might get anything from inflammation, to corns and calluses, nasty smells, to foot and nail infections – all good stuff!
Foot soaks are a great but simple way to treat your feet and toenails, while also keeping them healthy and fresh. They’re also VERY pleasant after a long day!
Below you have 4 different recipes for a DIY foot soak according to what your major foot concern might be. Antifungal, relaxing, deodorizing, or skin-softening.
For each DIY foot soak recipe I’ll give you the breakdown of the ingredients and what they do, so you can also adjust and/or further customize them to your needs!
Table of Contents
First: a note on essential oils
None of the recipes below use essential oils. I know they’re a popular ingredient in foot soaks, but in my opinion it’s a complete waste. For two main reasons:
- Essential oils don’t disperse well in water – they’re oil-soluble. This means that whenever you add essential oils to a water-based solution it’s just going to bead and clump together at the surface. If you then drink or apply that to the skin you’re getting a concentrated, instead of a diluted, formula – a patchy distribution. This is potentially dangerous. Essential oils are a great addition to skincare, but they’re meant to be well diluted – always!
- The second reason is that essential oils are extremely volatile – they evaporate into the air very quickly! This process is even quicker in a hot environment, such as the warm to hot water we add to foot soaks. It takes large (sometimes HUGE) amounts of herbs to get a single 10ml (tiny) bottle of essential oil. To me it’s always seemed such a waste to add them to anything that you’re not going to leave on your skin, or inhale directly (the best form of essential oil absorption).
So, for these two reasons, the DIY foot soak recipes below use dried herbs instead. You can decide to use essential oils if you prefer, but take into consideration these things if you do.
4 DIY FOOT SOAKS
1 – Antifungal DIY Foot Soak
- 1 cup unrefined sea salt
- ½ cup magnesium salts
- ½ cup clove / cinnamon / oregano / sage
- In a large bowl, mix the sea salt with the magnesium. Choose one or more of the herbs above in dry form and, using a mortar and pestle, grind them for a bit.
- If you’re using the cinnamon or clove you can just buy the powder. You can use a coffee grinder as well, but the herbs don’t need to be powder fine. It’s just to open up the cell walls, so that the medicinal and aromatic properties are more easily steeped into the water.
- Mix everything together and put it in a large wide mouth mason jar. To use, take a good handful and add it to your foot soak, making sure the water is hot.
Good for: nail fungus, athlete’s foot, foot infections.
Why does it work?
Sea salt has long been used as an antibacterial and antimicrobial, both as saline solutions applied to damaged and open skin, as well as directly, as a means to preserve food. It’s one of the best natural disinfectants around and perfect for the base of an antifungal foot soak.
Magnesium salts (either as magnesium chloride flakes or Epsom salts) are anti-inflammatory and help relax the muscles and joints. They are also antimicrobial, so they will boost the disinfectant power of the sea salt.
Clove, Cinnamon, oregano and sage all have a strong antifungal activity. Clove and cinnamon together actually seem to work synergistically, which means they boost and complement each other’s antifungal and antimicrobial activity.
Oregano and sage are also very strong antimicrobials, so you can add them to the clove and cinnamon, or just use any of them as substitution herbs, if it’s more convenient for you.
Any of these four herbs will help clear away any foot or toenail fungal infection you might be struggling with.
2 – Relaxing “Sleepy-time” DIY Foot Soak
- 1 cup magnesium salts
- ½ cup unrefined sea salt
- ½ cup powdered lavender/chamomile
- In a large bowl, mix the magnesium with the sea salt. Take one or both of the herbs above in dry form and, using a mortar and pestle, grind them for a bit. Alternatively, use a coffee grinder if you want them in powder form.
- Mix everything together and put it in a large wide mouth mason jar. To use, take a good handful and add it to your foot soak, making sure the water is hot.
Good for: soothing nerves and relaxing the body; soothing tired feet; inducing sleep.
Why does it work?
The basis for this DIY foot soak is magnesium salts. These can be under the form of magnesium chloride flakes, or as Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate). Magnesium salt soaks are excellent for stiff joints, tired muscles and inflammation in general.
It’s still up for discussion just how much magnesium can really be absorbed through the skin, but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming and magnesium soaks or oil rubs are well known to help relax the body and facilitate sleep. For these reasons they are perfect as a base for a calming DIY foot soak.
On the other hand, both lavender and chamomile are very well established as sedatives, very effectively soothing the nervous system. They help you relax the muscles, calm the mind, and sleep better.
They are also strong antimicrobials and antibacterial, so they’ll help ward off microorganism overgrowth that might cause trouble. Both are also anti-inflammatory, so wonderful after a long day.
The unrefined sea salt is there to boost the antimicrobial, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties of the magnesium salts.
3 – Skin softening DIY foot soak
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar (AVC)
- Pumice stone
Or
- 1 cup hot Milk
- (opt.) handful of chamomile/lavender
- Pumice stone
- Add the apple cider vinegar to the hot water in your foot soak.
- If you choose to use milk instead, warm the milk and then add it to the hot water of your foot bath.
- If using chamomile, grind it beforehand using a mortar and pestle. Then add that to the foot soak. You can also add it directly to the milk when you heat it up and add the whole thing to the foot soak.
- After at least 10 minutes soaking your feet, use a pumice stone to help release and remove the hard bits.
Good for: dried cracked heels, calluses, corns, rough skin patches
Why does it work?
ACV is an acid, mostly acetic acid, but also citric and malic acid – in short, AHAs. I’ve talked about the value of AHAs for skin renewal and regeneration in another post about how to tighten skin naturally, if you want to check that out. But basically they help break down and “eat” away at the dead top layer of the skin, boosting skin renewal.
As it relates to foot soaks, they will also help to literally soften the rough patches of skin on your feet, so you can more easily remove them with a pumice stone.
ACV is also antibacterial and antimicrobial, so it will help keep your feet healthy and fresh. On top of that, it’s anti-inflammatory and it has skin soothing properties.
Just like AVC, Milk is another form of AHA, specifically lactic acid, and so has the same effect as described above. It helps to slough off the dead skin cells and soften rough patches for easier removal. It is also very soothing to the skin and it will help with any redness, itchiness, and irritation.
As mentioned earlier, chamomile and lavender are excellent anti-inflammatory, skin soothers and softeners, so they’re a great addition to the milk foot soak.
They also have antimicrobial abilities (which the milk lacks), so it’s a good way to complement it. If your feet are feeling a bit sore or inflamed theywill further boost the anti-inflammatory properties of the milk, since it is also an effective muscle relaxer.
A personal side note on ACV
I remember many years ago, when I first started using vinegar water rinses on my hair, I was so blown away with the results I was recommending them to everyone.
My best friend at the time had a gorgeous mane and was game to try. She reported back saying that a small corn on her foot had just disappeared (“dropped off” was the expression she used), in the couple of weeks since she had started adding the vinegar water to rinse her hair in the shower.
She was convinced it was due to the vinegar, since that had never happened before and she wasn’t doing anything else. Knowing what I know now about vinegar, she was probably right. Oh, FYI, she was loving the hair too!
Related content:
4 – Deodorant DIY Foot Soak
- 1 cup green clay
- ½ cup baking soda
- ½ cup peppermint leaf / eucalyptus / thyme
- In a large bowl, mix the green clay with the baking soda. The clay’s ions react with metal, so use a non-metallic spoon for this.
- Then, choose one or more of the herbs above and, using a mortar and pestle, grind them slightly. Again, you can use a coffee grinder if you want them powder thin.
- Mix everything well and put it in a wide mouth mason jar. To use, take a large handful and add it to the hot water of the foot soak.
Good for: sweaty or smelly feet.
Why does it work?
Green clay is a magnificent adsorbent, effectively pulling toxins, dirt, and even heavy metals from the tissues. Clays also help to absorb excess moisture from the skin, so if you tend to get sweaty feet, a clay-based foot soak or powder is a great tool to have on hand.
All clays possess similar properties, but green clays are typically more absorbent. It’s a great base for a deodorant foot soak, since the nasty smells usually come from the accumulation of humidity that leads to bacterial and fungal overgrowth.
You can use any type of green clay, but some will swell up more than others (like bentonite), so you might get different consistencies.
Baking soda, on the other hand, is a very effective deodorizer, which is why it’s such a common ingredient for DIY deodorants. It is also an effective antimicrobial and hence all the DIY toothpaste recipes as well. This means that not only will it neutralize any nasty smell, but it will also help to eliminate any bacteria or microorganism that might be causing it.
Peppermint, eucalyptus and thyme all have antimicrobial and antibacterial properties, and of course, they all smell incredibly fresh! So any or all of them together are great additions to a deodorant foot soak.
These are just four very simple examples of DIY foot soaks you can totally adjust to your needs. Feel free to customize them and take elements from one to incorporate into another, for double effects.
If you give any of them a try, let me know what you think in the comments!
