As a New Yorker who considers a few miles of daily walking no big deal (thanks for tracking, Apple Watch), a barre-class addict and genetic haver-of-unfortunate-feet, I’ve had calluses that shock even the most seasoned pedicurist for as long as I can remember. Yes, Baby Foot is a much-cherished tool, but sometimes a peel just won’t cut it and a person needs to do some serious culling. My search for an effective callus tamer led me to discover the Tweezerman shaver/rasp, which is both horrifying and essential for those blessed with hearty calluses, which are great for surviving the elements, but not awesome for sandal season.
Think of the Tweezerman as a combination potato peeler and cheese grater, but for your feet. You use the peeler side to cut away layers of dead skin (one at a time) on your toughest calluses and the rasp side to file them down finely. The peeling process is very high risk/high reward: It uses actual razor blades to do its work, so you have to be careful not to get too enthusiastic about peeling off your dead skin in strips. It’s like a mandoline, but much more lethal, so it’s only appropriate for those really thick hunks around the ball of your foot and heel (remember: small layers so you don’t accidentally hurt yourself). A light touch is key: Better to slice thin layers off in a few steps than go whole hog and end up drawing blood. The rasp on the other side of the tool will take care of the rest with some back-and-forth rubbing, much like a metal version of a pumice stone.
For the extreme home-pedicure completist, follow this order: shaver, rasp, Baby Foot. Get the bulk of it out of the way, then refine, refine, refine. The process has completely transformed my weathered talons and made me actually look forward to summer, sandals and all.
Meant to fight bunions and hammertoes, they’re named after their inventor’s Iyengar yoga practice, which encourages the use of props to help make the most precise poses, from the stretch of the toes to the curve of the spine, and they look weird — like a gel ladder, a little bigger than the size of your foot, with just-thick-enough rungs that sit between each toe to stretch them outward from each other while also pulling them up away from the balls of your feet.
Heavy, matte-black, and stamped with the beautifully lowercase “type 001.” They look so elegant, it is nearly impossible to believe they are nail clippers — arguably the lowliest of grooming tools — but they are, which makes them modest and approachable.
The levering system has a satisfying springiness that chops with near-minimal effort; getting my Brookstone clippers to actually make that onomatopoeic clip felt like a negotiation every time. Most important, where my dull-bladed Brookstone would leave jagged edges and clippings I’d have to pull off with my fingers, the Green Bell slices through nails like a Santoku through a tomato.
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