Beauty magazines will tell you to exfoliate your feet with a grainy scrub before bed, before applying moisturiser and donning a pair of cotton socks to aid absorption. This may produce slightly softer feet come morning. But for better effectiveness, you need something tougher! Less Barbie, more Action Man.

Recently I bought a Pedi-Egg. This I found a little too tough. It is, basically, like a little cheese grater. A tip- do not get too carried a way with it whilst watching TV. It can damage the deeper tissues, meaning your heels will be more than a bit raw: ouch.

Now I'm using Scholl Hard Skin Reducing Cream. It contains urea, an ingredient that causes hard dry skin cells to 'unpack' and expose their water binding sites, in science speak, enabling cells to absorb and retain additional moisture. A bit like taking the plastic wrapper off a sponge so it can absorb better.

The Scholl cream claims to turn your feet around in 7 days. All very well, if you can remember to apply it twice a day. I never do, which is why I've got my eye on a Diamancel Foot Buffer.

Available at blisslondon.co.uk, they come in several varieties. With names like 'The Tough Buffer' and 'The Conqueror', these babies sound like the final solution to dry heel syndrome.

Ranging from 23-40 pounds, they don't come cheap- but then, they are made from diamond dust grit. Bliss London, who use them in their spa pedicures, claims that they conquer even the coarsest callouses. They're extremely durable, and you can wash them, too. (Unlike other foot files, which means they lurk in your bathroom, unwashed- eek!)

After Hard Heel syndrome, my least liked foot problem has to be The Lemming Toe. This is what happens when the toe kind of escapes from the front of one's open-toe sandal, like a lemming falling off a cliff. It can happen to all of us, but the toes of soap stars at awards ceremonies seem the most lemming-prone of all- see?

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