Women are cutting back on visits to the nail salon.  This isn’t surprising; manicures and pedicures are a luxury we can forego.  It is surprising, however, that nail polish sales have not increased, indicating that women aren’t doing it at home.  They are going cold turkey on the manis and pedis.  

Giving up manicures is understandable. Highly sculpted nails are tough to do on your own.  But pedicures?  Easy!  Are women too intimidated to scrub their feet and paint their toenails themselves?  Do they think it can’t be as luxurious when you do it at home?

Whatever the reason, ladies, I’m going to show you that you do not have to forego taking care of your feet.  It’s the height of summer, and you don’t want calloused, stanky, unpainted toenails in your sexy sandals, do you? 

Heck no!  Let’s go!

Fortunately, home pedicures are incredibly cheap.  You can make it as luxurious or as simple as you want.  If you go to spas to pretend you are an Egyptian goddess for foot pampering, you’ll have to coerce or bribe your significant other to massage your feet for you.

Basic Tools Needed

1. Nail polish in color of your choice.  $2.99
2. Clear base and top coat. $4.99
3. A foot file. $3.95
4. A loofah sponge. $3
5. Luxurious hand and foot lotion. $22
6. Nail clippers.  $1.99
7. Nail polish remover. $2.99

You can use your everyday $3 bottle of pharmacy hand lotion if you want.  I highly recommend splurging on the luxurious spa lotions if you can.  It will enhance the illusion of luxury.  I like the Body Shop Africa Spa Hand and Foot Butter.

Optional Equipment

1. A wash basin to soak your feet.
2. Favorite candles for luxury lighting.
3. Favorite soft, relaxing music.
4. A bathrobe.
5. Anything that will make you feel relaxed and pampered.  Chocolate?  Bon bons?  Cucumber infused water?  Go ahead, girlfriend.  You’re worth it.

Your Home Spa

First step is to wash your feet.  This is not the luxurious part.  Depending on how long it’s been since your last pedicure, and whether you’ve been splashing around in mud puddles, this could be quite nasty.  Scrub away in your bath tub first.  Wash your feet with soap, and scrub under the nails if you have a nail brush.  When you’re satisfied with the cleanliness of your feet, you can move on to the relaxing part.

Get in your bathrobe.  Light the candles.  Fill your wash basin with warm, but not hot, water.  (Optional: You can just soak your feet in the bathtub instead.)  Add a little lotion to the water.  It might not dissolve completely – that’s ok.  Soak your feet for about 10 minutes to soften the calluses and nails.  Read your favorite girly magazine.  Watch Oprah.  Take a nap.  Call your best girlfriend and gossip.  Do whatever it is that you normally do at a spa.

After about 5-10 minutes (not too long – no pruned feet!), take the loofah sponge and start scrubbing at the ball and heels of your feet.  Try to scrub off as much of the hard calluses as possible.  After the bulk of the hard bits are removed, scrub with the foot file to fine tune.  Pat dry.

Rub your hand and foot butter all over your feet.  Do you have your candles and spa music going?  Ahhh!  So nice!

Your nails should be soft by now.  Trim with nail clipper.  Make sure not to trim too far, especially at the edges, or you risk painful ingrown toenails.  Use a nail file to smooth rough edges.

Take nail polish remover and swipe your toenails with it to remove any of the residual lotion.

Apply a base coat to all nails with the clear nail polish.  Wait approximately 2-5 minutes for the polish to dry.  Apply the nail color.  Allow the polish to dry.  I usually wait 5-10 minutes.  Apply the clear polish as a top coat.  Allow it to dry.  Use a blow dryer on low setting to dry quicker, and make the polish hard and long lasting.

Finished!  Now your feet are ready for your favorite pair of sexy open toed shoes.

The Cost Savings

A pedicure costs about $18-30 per visit.  The cost of the materials for a home pedicure (excluding the optional components) is $41.91.  Let’s say the nail polish and foot butter will last 100 pedicures.  It costs approximately $0.42 per home pedicure at that rate!  The paint on pedicures tends to last a long time(manicures wear much faster.)  I wash, scrub and lotion my feet weekly in the summer months to keep them soft.  I reapply the paint whenever I get tired of the color, or when it starts to lose its shine.

There’s no reason to give up the pedis, ladies.  The embarrassment of gross feet is just not worth it.  If you can afford $0.42 a week, do it in your home spa!

I save money on packaging by custom fitting a box to my item using an old box. Here’s how I do it without a lot of measurements or an advanced engineering degree.

Warning: See comments below. Do not try to do this with USPS Priority Mail boxes! Thanks, Stephanie!

Step 1: Get an old box you have lying around from your last Amazon.com order.
Step 2: I just sold one of my old books and have it ready to pack.
Step 3: Unfold the box completely.
Step 4: Lay the book inside. Looks like it should fit nicely with a few cuts.
Step 5: Push the book’s spine against the box’s fold, then make a crease and fold on the opposite edge.
Step 6: Fold the box against the top cover.
Step 7: Make a crease and fold the box so that it is enclosed except on the top and bottom edge. Note I haven’t made any cuts in the box yet.
Here’s the book with its folds and creases. See? No cuts yet. The creases will give us some guides to follow when cutting.
Step 8: It’s time to start cutting. Fold the box’s existing flap and trim it to the width of the book.
Step 9: Cut vertical lines at the corner approximately the same width of the book.
You should end up with a flap that folds along the bottom of the book.
Step 10: Repeat the cuts on the remaining 3 corners so you have 4 flaps.
Step 11: Cut off excess from the flaps. I have approximately 1/2 inch flaps here.
Step 12: Fold the top and bottom edges over the flaps.
Step 13: Repeat on the other side. Fold all your edges over and cut off any excess.
Step 14: I taped the bottom edges together once I had them folded over the flaps to hold them tight. The box is almost done. Just pop the book in and fold the top flaps and edges. Tape all edges tightly with good quality packing tape.
Step 15: The finished product! Just need to put the shipping address on, and drop it off at the Post Office on my way to coffee in the morning.

I consider the cost of this negligible since I’m using a box and tape I already had lying around the house. It’s a sturdy box with no excess packing materials. In the past when I bought envelopes from the Post Office, it would typically cost me about $2.30 to ship the book, then another $1.35 on the bubble wrapped envelope. If I had $5 profit after Amazon took their cut, that would leave me with $1.35. Lame. I could buy a short Americano with that; barely enough to annoy David Bach with. I need a real latte. Now with my custom box, I get to keep $2.70. Yay! Double tall mocha, please!

I learned this method from Instructables.com: Build a Cardboard Box. Try reading there if my instructions seem confusing.

Update 3/17/2009: Fixed numbering problems – oops. Reformatted steps for easier reading.