Everybody loves to soak their feet … right! So, how about soaking your feet and cleansing your entire body at the same time? Does this sound feasible to you? When I first heard about foot detox I thought it was something to do with actually cleaning the feet. My dad was a bus driver and I remember him coming home every night, sitting in front of the TV after eating is dinner, and soaking his feet in a bowl of warm salted water. He always said that it not only made his feet feel refreshed, it helped to relieve some of the stress of the day that came from having to deal with lots of angry rush hour travellers.

Soaking your feet is an incredible way of relieving stress throughout your body. It should be part of every person’s daily routine because it gives you that 10 to 15 minutes of relaxation at the end of the day which so many people seem to deprive themselves of. There are many different ingredients that you can add to the water to make it more effective including baking soda, vinegar, washing-up liquid, essential oils, or just pure sea salt.

One of the main reasons why your feet can smell is because there is about a quarter million sweat glands on each foot and each foot can produce over a pint of sweat in one single day. The bad smell actually comes from bacteria poop. The bacteria consume the sweat and the bacteria waste has a very strong odor. So taking these 15 minutes at the end of the day to soak your feet contributes towards eliminating the bacteria poop and sparing everyone else from the nasty smell.

Returning back to the foot detox treatment, let’s look at some sort of definition. The basic premise behind foot detox is that by using techniques involving either soaking the feet or applying a specialist plaster to the soles of the feet, the toxins and heavy metals are drawn downwards into the feet, where they are extracted either into the water or into the foot pad.

Let me first say that there is no formal research which has been done on any foot detox therapy. Also, a large amount of money is spent on the marketing of these products. This is probably not a good sign. Again and again, any website that is selling detox foot patches or the detox foot bath is so full of testimonials and barely shows any information about how the product works.

One method of home foot detox is the foot detox spa. This is basically a foot bath with small electrodes which pass a minor electrical charge into the water. Again, the principle is that the toxins and heavy metals are drawn down through the body and out of the foot into the water. The adherents of this method for you proof that it is working by showing you that the water is gradually changing color. This type of discoloration in the water is not hard to achieve. It is said by some critics that there is a chemical reaction between the saltwater and electrodes.

Another method is the foot detox patch. There are many different companies that sell these patches. It also said that they are produced by only one or two factories yet the price range seems to be very wide. The basic idea is that you apply a patch to each of your feet before you go to sleep at night. While you sleep, the foot detox patch works by extracting toxins through the soles of your feet and into the patch. Again, the proof is purportedly in the fact that the patch has turned dark brown color. Maybe this is just cleaning your feet, which could be one of the reasons why the discoloration is gradually reduced with each subsequent use. And how easy is it to put an ingredient inside the foot pad which has a chemical reaction with sweat, causing the pad to turn brown.

I think that the placebo effect, or the sugar pill effect, has a lot to do with why some people feel that these things are working for them. And, many people feel that if it is doing you no harm then why not use them if it makes you feel better. I would tend to agree with this in general. Although, I wouldn’t agree that just because the manufacturers state that the product is natural that it is not doing you any harm. Tobacco is a natural product and has certainly been proven to do a lot of harm. One old advertisements for Pall Mall cigarettes stated “Pall Mall’s natural mildness is so good to your taste”. Another famous advertisement for Lucky strike cigarettes stated that “Every smoker breathes in some part of the smoke he or she draws out a cigarette. Think, then, how important it is to be certain that your cigarette smoke is pure and clean – to be sure you don’t inhale certain impurities!” How advertising standards have changed!

I think that the end of the day you are probably wasting your money on these things. If you really feel that you want to buy a soothing or helpful product for your feet then you should spend your money on just a normal run-of-the-mill footbath, maybe one with a vibrating action or a mini Jacuzzi. Or you could spend your money on some nice essential oils to add to your footbath that make your feet and your room smell nice.

Photo by davedehetre on flickr