You can take care of the nails on your feet by giving yourself a royal treatment at home! You can collect tools for manicure and pedicure and even maintain a set that you can use professionally. At home pedicure, procedures are not much complicated as the one done in the spas and it can be accomplished with the basic equipments.

Before starting on the procedures it is necessary to visit a beauty supply store or a drug store in order to get the materials required for the treatment. A large folded towel is placed on the floor in front of which the footbath filled with water and a few drops of liquid soap, nail scrub, oils or salts are kept.

The next step at home pedicure involves removing the old nail polish completely using cotton bands dipped in acetone remover since the usage of cotton balls could leave behind traces of cotton strands on the nails. If this does not remove the polish completely then the cotton has to be soaked on the nails for some time until it comes off completely.

When you are going for an at home pedicure, high quality clippers are much preferred for cutting the toenails as they give us much better results and the nails have to be cut leaving about 1/8th of an inch length so that the nails don't extend over the tip of the toes. For acquiring a soft square shaped nail, its best to file from around the corners and edges in one direction using Emory boards and not metal files as they could rip the nails.

In Emory boards, the smooth surface is for softening the nail edges whereas the coarse surface is for shaping them. Soaking the feet in a bath of salt and aroma oils or Epsom salts will do you good. Calloused feet require being soaked for longer hours and adding milk to the warm water will help loosen the dead skin. Cuticle remover is applied to the nail bases and using orange wood stick the skin is pushed back to where it meets the nail.

Trimming of loose skin is done using cuticle nippers and care should be taken to see that the toe flesh is not cut. Exfoliators, foot scrubs, or if possible wet pumice stone is used to remove the dead cells in the balls and heels of the feet. Scrubbing too hard may cause the foot to turn red, in case of which the scrubbing should be stopped.

At home pedicure requires a nourishing foot cream that is applied on the feet including the area between the toes and rubbed, and the cuticle is re-hydrated by using cuticle oil. A thin base coat of three strokes, with one down the middle and the other one on each side is applied followed by a thin topcoat. The cuticles should not be painted. An orange wood stick with cotton wrapped around it is dipped in nail polish remover to remove excess of polish. The nails are to be dried before wearing shoes. Pedicure socks are available which can be worn without covering the toenails.