I did a post mortem on everything I've tried for my heels

The Solen Base Journal

Seven things, seven honest verdicts. Six of them I'd half worked out already. The seventh changed how I read the other six.

By Haider Jafri, founder · 6 minute read

A dramatised story. The routine, the objects and the quotes come from real posts and reviews we read while making Solen Base, and the people quoted were writing about other products, not ours. The narrator is a composite, not a customer.

I'm not a list person. But I'd had a bad week with my heels, the kind where they catch on your tights, and I'd just walked past a shop window full of sandals and felt that little drop in my stomach you get every spring.

So I emptied the drawer onto the kitchen table, made a cup of tea, and did something I'd never done. I wrote an honest verdict on every single thing I've tried. No excuses. What happened, and why I stopped.

Here they are, in the order I tried them.

The grater

A metal foot file, the cheese grater kind. It felt amazing. For a day. Smooth, lovely, I'd run my hand over my heel all evening.

Then two days later it was rougher than before, and a bit sore. I did it more. It came back harder.

"Over filing can make heels feel smooth for a day, then rebound rougher and more sensitive."

From a forum thread on dry heels.

Verdict: it took off the problem and gave it a reason to come back.

The expensive tube

Twenty eight ninety nine, with a percentage on the front. Four really good nights. Then a late one, and a tired one, and it went in the drawer.

Verdict: I don't actually know if it worked. I never used it long enough to find out.

The cotton socks

Cream on, cotton socks over it, into bed. Everyone recommends it.

I hate sleeping in socks. I'd pull them off in my sleep. And when I turned them inside out in the morning there was a grey patch on every heel, stiff, where the cream had dried into the cotton.

"Almost useless because the cotton soaks up the vaseline and leaves the feet dry. By morning, I felt as if nothing had been applied."

From a review of another brand's heel sock.

Verdict: the right idea, the wrong fabric, at the wrong time of day.

The pedicure

Lovely. Genuinely lovely. Forty five minutes of someone else doing it. And the look on the nail tech's face when she took my foot, which I've never quite forgotten.

Five days later, rough again.

Verdict: a nice afternoon, not a routine.

The peel

The one where your skin comes off in sheets a week later. It was grimly satisfying. It was also tender for a fortnight, and a month later I was back to where I started.

Verdict: a reset, not a fix. And I couldn't do it every month.

The water and the masks

Drinking more water. The foot mask I used once. A soak with Epsom salts.

Verdict: nice. Did nothing I could feel.

The seventh one

I sat and looked at the six for a while, and I nearly wrote "my skin" as number seven. That's what I've always believed underneath. That I'd tried everything and it was me.

But that's not what the list said.

What the list said was that every one of these things, without exception, had asked me for more. More effort. More money. More time. A stronger cream. A longer soak. A harder file. Something extra to do, at the end of a long day, when I'm tired.

And every one of them had died the same death. Not because it didn't work. On a tired Tuesday, when I just couldn't face it.

So my seventh verdict was this:

Nothing I've ever tried made the routine easier to keep. They all made it bigger.

That's the one that reorders the other six. The expensive tube didn't fail because it was the wrong cream. It failed on night five, when I skipped it. The cotton sock didn't fail because socks are pointless. It failed because I pull it off at two in the morning. The grater didn't fail because I was lazy. It failed because it was doing the opposite of keeping the skin looked after.

If I made it smaller instead

So I asked a different question. Not what's stronger. What's smaller?

What's something I already do every day, without effort, that the cream could just ride along with?

Socks in the morning. Every day, tired or not.

If the cream went on then, there'd be no walk to bed, no waiting on the edge of the mattress, no sock to pull off in my sleep. It would just be part of getting dressed.

The only catch: normal socks are cotton, and I'd already learned what cotton does with cream.

What I found

That's how I came across Solen Base. It's a sock made to go over cream, for the daytime. The Day Sock.

It's cotton on the outside and closed toe, so it looks like any grey sock and it's invisible under shoes. On the inside, it's lined with gel, which is the side that sits against the cream. So it's not cotton against the cream at all.

You use your own cream. Nothing is soaked into the sock. So the expensive tube from verdict two can finally have its proper go.

Cream on. Day Sock on. Shoes on. Out the door. Each pair lasts 3 to 6 months, and you give your feet a rest between wears.

The kit has three Day Socks and a Night Sleeve, open at the toes, for evenings. Everything washes at 40 degrees in a mesh bag.

What I want

I don't want an eighth thing that asks me for more. I want one that asks me for less.

I want to get through a spring without the drop in my stomach at the sandals. And I want the cream I've already bought to have its fair go, instead of becoming verdict number eight.

If your kitchen table would look like mine, have a look at how the Day Sock works. There's a fourteen night guarantee, and you won't need a new cream to try it.