Six Foot Care Tips Every Traveler Needs To Know

Noir Men’s Grooming Salon’s Six Foot Care Tips Every Traveler Needs To Know

My feet hurt.

I was walking through Paris – a city with blocks longer than those even in Las Vegas – and my feet had given me all they had in them. It did not help that my shoes were falling apart; I did not realize they were so worn out before I packed them. 

My feet began to swell to the point that it was painful to walk and my only solution was to sit down every few blocks at a cafe and have some French wine. I drank a lot of French wine in Paris on that trip.

If I had only known Natasha Ray back then.

Ray is a foot manicurist and foot care expert who runs Noir Men’s Grooming Salon in Beverly Hills, CA.  She says things like “your feet are the windows to your soul,” ‘when you feet hurt, your knees hurt” and throws her arms up and and rolls back in her chair when you tell her that you clip your toenails with scissors. 

In other words, she knows a lot about feet. 

And so, for you fellow travelers out there, here’s how to avoid what I encountered in Paris. They are Ray’s travel foot care tips:

ONE

In addition to comfortable (and not worn out) shoes, pack non-cotton socks. “Cotten socks tend to make the feet sweaty,” she says.

TWO

“Hydrate” your feet. You do this by packing a foot cream. Ray has a full lineup of foot-care products for sale on her website and the one she recommends for travel is an exfoliate called the Rosemary + Mint scrub that removes dead skin cells. The rosemary herbs also help fight bacteria that causes foot odor. It’s $40 for 8 ounces and should be as important an item in your suitcase as your toothbrush. 

THREE

Let your feet “breathe.” In other words, take off your shoes from time to time and expose them to the fresh air. At the same time, if you wear sandals and open-toed shoes a lot, be sure and put on closed-toes shoes on occasion to protect the feet.

FOUR

Wash your feet. Do this at least once day, including between the toes. 

FIVE

Elevate your feet at the end of the day. That helps circulation and so too, does rubbing them. Ray likes to say “hydrate, exfoliate and elevate” as buzzwords to take care of your feet while traveling. 

SIX

Get a pedicure before you leave. Sure, she says this because she gives pedicures but she brings up a good point here. Getting toenails trimmed keeps them from growing too long and potentially “stabbing” other toes (I’ve actually had this happen, thus the scissors). Plus – and I’m talking to us men out there – girls don’t like seeing ugly toenails at the beach or while you’re sitting at a cafe if you’re wearing sandals or flip flops.

I wish I had known these tips before my feet ached in Paris to the point that my Paris trip was nothing more than a series of cafe wine stops. Not that I minded drinking wine at Paris cafes, but had I “hydrated, exfoliated and elevated” I could have gotten a lot more out of my first trip to the City of Lights.

Kevin Wilkerson is a frequent traveler who publishes the website PubClub.com. He does not take care of things like his feet until he is forced to do so, like most men, of course.