Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Bathe the feet for ten minutes in hand-warm water with two tablespoons of salt. Dry them, take the softened callus down with a pumice stone or a file in one direction — do not cut. Then apply a rich cream or plain oil thickly and pull cotton socks over, overnight. Every evening at first, later two or three times a week.
A crack does not come from callus being too thick but from its being too dry: a dry horny layer loses its stretch and splits at the rim of the heel when you tread, where the load is greatest. The bath softens the layer so it can be taken down — the salt speeds this only a little, it mainly keeps the water pleasant. The last step is what decides: fat on damp skin with a sock over it acts as a seal under which the water does not evaporate. It is exactly that occlusion which brings moisture back into the horny layer; the cream alone, without the sock, partly just evaporates.
Do not cut and do not use a plane — what is taken off too deep grows back thicker, and a cut on the foot is more awkward than a crack. Do not remove the callus entirely: it is the body’s answer to pressure, and without it treading hurts. Filing every day keeps the cycle going.
Always with diabetes or a circulation disorder — foot care belongs in practised hands there, and a crack can become a way in. Also with redness, warmth, pus, deep cracks that bleed, and if the skin stays like that for weeks despite care.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.