i use Avon for feet. its great. have had the same troubles before. but after i was told by a friend who had same thing that it realy worked. i tried it. and guess what i have pretty feet and toes again. try it and see if it helps your BF`s too.

Even though 5 days out of 7 I must wear shoes at
work (I work as a bus driver and shoes are part of
the uniform), I find that the callouses on the balls of
my feet get dry, and when they get too dry the skin
beneath them cracks and can even bleed. So before
I go to sleep each night, I put some petroleum jelly
(vaseline) on the balls of my feet. This solves the
problem. Lotion may not be greasy enough, because
most lotions are water-based. So give simple
petroleum jelly a try and see what happens. Happy
BFing and flip-flopping! :-)

Hi!

Over the years I've had increasing problems with cracked heels. I've found the major contributing factor I can control is footwear - sandals with a firm heel ridge are the worst. In bare feet I walk so that my heel-strike varies enough to distribute the wear-and-tear evenly across my heels. I might get broader callouses, but not such deep ones that they crack. And the ground surface is somewhat abrasive, so it wears callouses down as they form. Closed heel shoes usually buffer the heel-strike - although you get the mechanical effects distributed up through your legs, which may contribute to knee and back aches, there's not the direct hit on your heel you get with bare feet. In many sandals, the foot lifts off the shoe bed and strikes down on it again with each step in a way that doesn't happen with closed shoes. In addition, the strike is consistently on one part of the heel, so that part is subjected to more wear than in bare feet.

I find barefoot walking on wet sand helps wear down the callousses - that's convenient for me because I live near the coast, and the climate here is pleasant. There's the old-fashioned pumice stone, if you prefer to do it at home, or a bunch of more "high-tech" modern abrasive devices... I'd advise anyone not be over-zealous in their use. Some degree of skin roughening is functional - that's why we get callousses in the first place.

If they get particularly bad, I use a moisuriser with a high urea content specifically designed for feet. Some of them smell quite horrid, but they work well. I don't know how international these brand names are, but I use NS8 lotion or Eulactol Heel Balm. Sometimes I use other brands that also contain tea-tree or eucalyptus oil. They smell better, and have anti-bacterial properties, too.

Good luck!