The Foot Peel Mask-Warning: Gross Pictures Included

I think I'm about done with the foot peeling.  It was...an experience.  If you've either never done a foot peel or never read about a foot peel, the idea is simple.  You soak your feet for twenty minutes or so, put on little plastic booties that are filled with a high level of an AHA, wait 60-90 minutes while your feet absorb as much goop as possible, then wait.  Over the next two weeks, the top layer of skin on your feet will peel off leaving you with nice, smooth feet at the end of it.

My foot mask came with my first Mask Time Box.  It was one of the deciding factors of buying the box.  I have gross feet.  I'd like them to be less gross.

The peel I used was the Double & Zero Double Effect Foot Peeling Mask, which retails at £6.50.  Mask Time describes it thusly:

A mask for your feet?! Say goodbye to dry, calloused feet with this peeling mask which is formulated with a Lemon extract and Fruit Acid Complex. It gently softens skin and removes dead skin cells thanks to the high concentration of Alpha Hydroxy Acids in the formula. The mask is basically like a thin sheet style pair of socks which you wear for 60-90 minutes and then rinse. Within 4-6 days, the dead skin will start to peel and fall off, and your silky soft and smooth feet will be revealed!

The front has some English on it, but the back, with the instructions, is all Korean.  Thankfully, they included pictorial instructions.

  

I tried to use Google Translate to help with some of the instructions.  It was about as useful as I expected.

Ignoring all of the instructions except for what I had previously read online, I went ahead and opened the packet.  Inside were two booties attached at the ankle.  The yellow bit is tape to fasten it around your ankle securely.

The word 'ignoring' in the previous paragraph is an important one.  Scroll back to the picture instructions.  What do you see in the second picture?  Scissors.  Guess what I didn't have close by?  Scissors.  My feet were wet from soaking and I was eager to start the peel, so I figured I could just rip the two booties apart.

I figured wrong.

What ended up being the left bootie was okay.  I got it on my foot properly and fastened it with the tape.  It was the right bootie, the one I put on first, that gave me issue.  See, what I didn't realise was that it wasn't just AHA gel inside the plastic, there was also a thin cloth that was soaked in the gel.  Your foot was meant to go inside the cloth sock which was inside the plastic bootie.  It was a Russian nesting doll of a foot mask.

When I ripped the booties apart, I didn't rip a hole to open up the sock part of the bootie.  It just sat uselessly to one side.  The inside was still wet, so I persevered and just arranged things so that the sock was under my foot, figuring that it was the bottom part of my foot that really needed the peeling action.

After I put the booties on, I put a pair of thick socks on over them so that I could still walk around.  I was expecting a parcel in the post and figured I would look like less of a crazy person if my plastic booties were hidden inside socks rather than out in the open.  It also allowed me to walk around my flat for important things like tea whilst I waited the 90 minutes for my feet to absorb the gel.

It was while walking around during those 90 minutes that I learned the purpose of the socklet.  The plastic booties weren't particularly strong, but the sock provided a protective lining.  Without utilising the sock, one risks tearing the plastic bootie.  Can you guess what I did?  Yep.  I tore my bootie.  Thankfully, this was towards the end of the 90 minutes, after my parcel had been delivered, so there wasn't much walking about that needed to be done.  I carefully arranged the plastic around my foot, held it in place with the sock, and sat still for the remaining time.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the bootie steps of the process.  Really, it just looked like me wearing hiking socks.  It's not that exciting.  Go put on some thick socks and you'll know just what it looked like.

I used the foot mask (I'm tired of typing "plastic booties"!) on the 17th.  Each day following it, I soaked my feet in hot water with Epson salts for 20 minutes and, on the 20th, I started seeing some peeling action.

By the 22nd, they had reached their full glory.

I warned you that there would be gross pictures.  The most difficult part of this peel wasn't remembering to daily soaks, it was the fact that you're not meant to peel the skin off.  You're meant to let it fall off naturally.  I wore socks for a week straight to help with my lack of willpower.

During the following soak, my willpower gave out.  I didn't peel the the skin off like I wanted to, but I rubbed my feet together while they were soaking and that caused loose skin to roll off.

After a few more days, my dead skin was mostly gone and taking off my socks didn't result in what appeared to be a pile of dandruff appearing under my feet.

Final verdict?  My feet are softer, but not as soft as I was hoping for.  I think this could be a result of my starting point more than the foot peel itself.  I definitely will do another mask like this, perhaps during the autumn half term, but I think post soaking I will use a pumice stone.  I think the skin felt ready for a good pumicing right after the soaks.

Rating: 9/10