Beauty Tip of the Day!

An ingrown toe nail can be painful and unpleasant. Here is a method that will allow your toenail to stop growing into your skin, along with some general pointers. It may even prevent you from having to get surgery to remove the ingrown toenail!

1. Soak your foot in a mixture of hot (or as hot as you can stand it) water and Epsom salt. Do this for 15-30 minutes at least twice daily. The goal here is twofold: to soften the toenail and prevent the ingrown nail from becoming infected.

2. Gather your tools and get ready. Get a cotton round or a cotton ball ready, a pair of tweezers along with something pointy (like a tool that helps you remove cuticles, for example).

3. Trim your toenail, taking extra care around the ingrown section. Make sure your toenail is cut perfectly straight without any pointed parts near the edges. Toenails that are rounded off have an increased likelihood of growing into the skin, causing ingrown nails.

4. Keep your toenail slightly raised. Putting a small piece of cotton between your toenail and the skin should keep the ingrown toenail from coming back.
From either the cotton round or the cotton ball, remove a small piece of cotton with the tweezers.
Hold the bit of cotton in the tweezers by the corner of the toenail that is ingrown.
Use something pointy to push the cotton under your toenail into the corner. Don't push too hard or you will hurt yourself! The piece of cotton should form a little ball under your toenail in the corner. It doesn't have to be so big that it sticks out from the top of your toenail, but make sure it is not too small either. If you firmly but gently pack as much cotton as is comfortable, you will have the right amount of cotton to do the job.
Remove cotton daily to cleanse area and replace with new cotton to reduce risk of infection.

5. Stop infection. Apply infection-preventing ointment to the site and keep it bandaged. Neosporin works fine for these purposes.

6. Give your toe some air! Don't wear socks or shoes when you're at home.

7.Check back. If you keep the cotton in place and treat your feet well, your ingrown toenail should grow back out within a few weeks.
Replace the cotton every day to keep the toe from becoming infected. If the toenail is painful, replace the cotton every other day, checking daily for infection.