Aisling on Beauty: How to banish horrible hooves

I love many of the less savoury aspects of beauty, those down-and-dirty problems that real women deal with in their bathrooms every day. I relish talking about squeezing spots, extracting blackheads and the best way to dig out ingrown hairs.

However, I would prefer to serve a sentence in a maximum-security Texan prison than touch another person’s feet. I dread the beginning of flip-flop season, because I know those thick layers of skin that everyone has grown over the winter will be freely displayed to the world.

The easiest way to get ready for flip-flop season is to show no mercy and sand off all those hard yellow bits pronto. You can use a loofah, a foot file or a rough scrub, but the quickest and easiest way to get smooth feet is to use an electronic foot-sanding gizmo. Scholl Velvet Smooth Express Pedi Electronic Foot File and the Emjoi Micropedi both use an electronic roller system to painlessly sofen feet. The Micropedi is also available in a special version for men; hopefully this will encourage more of them to grate that unsightly cheese. This version is presented in a manly black case and uses a rougher sander than the standard versions.

If you really want to treat yourself, the Clarisonic Pedi system is a version of that brand's best-selling facial cleansing brush that is especially for feet, and it is blissful.

I am shuddering here, but I know that a lot of you love to pick your feet; if this applies to you, you need to get yourself a Purederm Exfoliating Foot Mask. Within a few days all that dead skin will peel away. I bet that you will not be able to resist "helping" the process along.

A hard skin remover that uses lactic or glycolic acid is another good solution. Clarisonic Pedi-Boost Sonic Foot Renewing Peel Treatment, or (my favourite) the inexpensive Scholl Hard Skin Softening Cream, which has salicylic and lactic acid to reduce hard skin and calluses, are both good options.

Creams containing urea will do the same job: Boots Pharmaceuticals Hard Skin Reducing Cream contains a whopping 18 per cent urea, while Eucerin Dry Skin Intensive Foot Cream, which contains 10 per cent urea, will moisturise and dissolve hard skin. amcdermott@irishtimes.com Twitter @aismcdermott