Cracked heels
Signs:
The skin on the soles of the feet becomes uneven, dry, thick, rough, and easily cracked. Cracks can deepen, becoming painful and interfering with normal walking. Sometimes the wounds can become infected, and suppuration occurs, which heals poorly and slowly.
Causes:
The feet experience a lot of stress, since they bear the weight of the entire body. The situation is aggravated by prolonged standing, constant wearing of air-tight synthetic shoes or high-heeled shoes, and frequent contact of bare feet with hard surfaces - the ground or a hard sole. In response to excessive pressure and friction, the stratum corneum thickens and loses elasticity, corns and calluses appear, the skin becomes rough and dry, and finally, it becomes painful for us to walk because of the cracks.
Solution:
To cope with cracked skin on the soles and heels, you need to use active bactericidal and wound-healing agents and at the same time intensively soften, moisturize and nourish the skin of the feet to prevent the formation of new cracks.
Keratolytic substances (for example, urea) help remove the thick stratum corneum. Moisturized skin becomes more elastic, it can withstand significant loads without compromising its integrity, and the healing processes occur in it faster.
Dry skin on the heels also needs fatty lubrication - nourishing oils and plant squalane.
To prevent pathogenic bacteria from penetrating into the cracks, it is necessary to protect the feet with antibacterial components. Finally, it is necessary to take care of the rapid healing of cracks.
Most often, cosmetic products for cracked heels include such ingredients as:
- moisturizers: urea, sorbitol, betaine, glycerin, aloe gel;
- emolents: jojoba oil, shea butter, glycine soja oil;
- antebacterial components: silver, zinc, tea tree oil;
- wound-healing substances: allantoin, bisabolol.