What to Do With Calluses If Pumice Does Not Cut Them
Work enough with your hands or feet and calluses are inevitable. Now that I am a weightlifter, my palms and fingers are covered with calluses ; When I played roller derby, they were on certain parts of my legs. Standard advice – gently scrubbing corns with a pumice stone or a clean cloth – is completely unsuitable for severe corns.
That’s why I’m a big fan of two specific types of tools, each slightly more specialized than what you can find in the skincare section of your local store, each much more suited to dealing with severe calluses.
Why do I need a corn file
Your first stop on the road to smoother, less injury-prone hands and feet is a foot file, also called a callus rasp. To be clear, you’re not looking for something that works with sandpaper or pumice stone; you need a metal tool. It should look like a cheese grater.
In fact, it can be so much like a cheese grater that it’s made by Microplane. I have one of their foot files and it looks pretty much the same as the one I use for lemon zest. Luckily, it’s a different color than the ones we store in the kitchen, which helps me to more easily highlight it as a personal care product rather than a cheese grater for my feet. (Although they even refer to it as a “foot grater” on their website. I’m sorry.)
If you’re not ready to set your foot grate to the Microplane, a lighter callus file like this will knock any pumice stone or sanding board out of the water as well. I’ve heard good reviews about PedEgg too , although I’ve never used it myself.
Why do you need an electric callus grinder
Already have a corn file but need to take a step further? I recently got an electric callus grinder, and I berate myself for not buying it early in my career.
This is the model that I have . It is battery operated and charged via USB. It has removable heads, so you can choose larger or smaller grits. More importantly, it can grind tough corn in minutes, rather than requiring countless sessions after a file bath.
If the calluses are on your hands and not your feet, there is another advantage: Its grinding surface is small enough that you can easily hit even calluses at the base of your joints that are almost impossible to get with your thumb. , flat, file in the form of microplan.
As we mentioned in our previous guide to eliminating corns , it is safe and even preferable to erase all hard skin you can deal with. If the tools you were using were difficult to fix, try a callus file or an electric callus remover.