Cracked Heel Salve Recipe with Essential Oils for Natural Skin Care

Learn how to make this easy cracked heel salve recipe with essential oils for your foot care routine. If you’ve been dreaming of ditching your calluses, dead skin and rough heels for good, then this natural skin care DIY is a must. Formulated with natural ingredients to help promote healing, this DIY foot salve for cracked heels helps hydrate, soften and soothe dry skin for beautiful, healthy looking feet.

Ultra Healing Foot Balm for Cracked Heels

We’ve all tried homemade foot creams from time to time to help restore our feet to their former youthful glory. However, if your skin has become damaged or you’re dealing with thick calluses or cracked heels, they need more than just an everyday body moisturizer for dry skin. This cracked heel salve recipe works like an ultra healing foot balm to rejuvenate skin and restore lost moisture.

Formulated as a natural remedy for cracked heels, this best DIY foot cream contains all natural ingredients to promote healing as well as soften and protect cracked heels and feet. This peppermint foot balm is packaged in a convenient twist up tube so it is mess free. Use it in conjunction with my homemade pedicure scrub to heal cracked heels fast.

Not only does this foot and heel salve work great to remedy cracked heels, it’s also a wonderful moisturizer for dry hands, elbows, knees and lips. Pretty much anywhere your skin needs some extra love!

Essential Oils for Cracked Heels

I formulated my DIY cracked heel balm with essential oils for their natural properties that promote skin health. Specifically, I used peppermint essential oil and patchouli essential oil this recipe. I chose to use peppermint essential oil for its cooling skin care properties and patchouli for its ability to promote healing. However, you can use any essential oils you like to create this cracked heel remedy. Simply swap out your favorite blend, or use another essential oil, such as tea tree oil, in lieu of the patchouli based on your scent preference.

Following are recommended essential oil for cracked heels:

• Patchouli Essential Oil: Patchouli is one of my favorite essential oils for cracked heels. It’s renowned for its ability to promote healing — and for its potent, earthy fragrance. This essential oil is amazing for cracked heels and dry skin as well as dermatitis and acne. This oil is anti-inflammatory, analgesic (meaning it has pain-killing properties,) and antibacterial. It also performs as a fungicide and antiseptic. While its antioxidant properties help to benefit aging skin.
• Tea Tree Oil: Prized for its ability to promote healing, this essential oil also helps to soothe and calm irritated skin. A powerful, all natural antioxidant, tea tree essential oil works as a natural foot deodorizer and antiseptic. It is also both antibacterial and antifungal making it popular choice for healing balms and foot repair creams.
• Manuka Oil: Like tea tree oil, manuka essential oil comes from a plant in the Myrtle family. This small flowering shrub, however, is indigenous to New Zealand. Whereas tea tree is harvested in Australia. Both essential oils are possess antifungal and antibacterial properties. However, there are some major differences between tea tree oil and manuka essential oil. Unlike tea tree oil, manuka essential oils is a non-toxic, non-irritating and non-sensitizing essential oil. Its benefits also extend beyond those of tea tree oil. Manuka essential oil is 20-30 times more active than tea tree oil against gram positive bacteria. It is also several times more effective against strains of fungi and viruses. This makes a manuka salve especially beneficial for a foot repair balm.
• Peppermint Essential Oil: This refreshing essential oil provides a soothing cooling sensation for feet. It also helps to cleanse skin, unclog pores and reduce skin redness and inflammation.
• Lavender Oil: Lavender’s ability to promote healing, especially where burns are concerned, is unsurpassed. Not only does it assist in detoxing skin, but it also has anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and antimicrobial properties when used in skin care. This gentle essential oil for cracked heels also calms redness and skin irritation and rashes and is great for dry skin and eczema. Lavender essential oil also blends well with tea tree. Therefore, you can purchase a powerhouse blend of these two ingredients here.
• Spearmint essential oil: Another refreshing essential oil for DIY foot care, this oil cools and refreshes skin while also helping to relieve itching and dryness. It’s also a wonderful cleanser that aids in promoting skin’s resilience and elasticity.
• Eucalyptus Oil: Like peppermint, eucalyptus essential oil also has anti-inflammatory properties when used in skin care. It can help reduce redness and increase circulation, detox skin and assist in removing dead skin cells from feet.

Cracked Heel Salve Recipe

© Rebecca D. Dillon

My cracked heel salve recipe yields two 75 gram containers of a peppermint foot balm! The peppermint essential oil used to make this ultra healing repair balm helps cool hot, tired feet. If you prefer to have the patchouli shine through in this foot care DIY, simply use .15 oz. of patchouli essential oil and .1 oz. of peppermint oil. The patchouli essential oil is included in my cracked heel salve recipe for its ability to not only promote healing, but also for its natural deodorizing and antifungal properties.

You will need to use a digital scale to make my peppermint foot balm recipe as all of the ingredients are need to be weighed. In addition to the ingredients and other tools and equipment listed below. Keep reading to learn how to make a cracked heel balm for your summer foot care regimen.

DIY Foot Balm Stick Ingredients

• 1 oz. beeswax: No beeswax heel balm is complete without this ingredient! Used to harden the balm to form a peppermint foot balm stick, beeswax also helps to lock in hydration, moisturize skin and provide skin protection.
• 1 oz. cocoa butter: Rich in fatty acids that promote youthful looking skin, this body butter helps to improve skin elasticity while also moisturizing and nourishing dry or damaged skin, such as cracked heels.
• 1 oz. sal butter: Another excellent, all natural body moisturizer, sal butter is similar to cocoa butter in that it’s rich in essential fatty acids that hydrate dry, parched skin. In addition to its moisturizing skin care properties, this body butter can also help soothe itching. And, because it also contains squalene, it may help improve the skin’s protective barrier function.
• 1 oz. refined coconut oil: Adding coconut oil to your heel balm recipe provides it with several skin care benefits. Not only does it moisturize skin, but it also assists in preventing the growth of fungus and yeast. Coconut oil also has antibacterial properties.
• .5 oz. 100% neem oil: Another key ingredient used to formulate an ultra healing peppermint foot balm, neem oil has been shown to also help to promote healing. Used both medicinally and cosmetically for hundreds of years, neem oil is naturally antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal and possesses both moisturizing and regenerative properties. In addition it also has anti-inflammatory and analgesic (pain killing) and contains both vitamin E and essential fatty acids. Used topically on feet, neem oil helps to treat skin conditions such as athlete’s foot and candida.
• .5 oz. safflower oil: This noncomedogenic carrier oil is also rich in fatty acids that nourish skin. It is anti-inflammatory and helps to hydrate and soothe dry skin.
• .25 oz. lanolin: Because lanolin is very similar in composition to the oils secreted by our own skin, it is able to provide a protective moisture barrier when used in skin care products. It’s both an excellent moisturizer and a skin smoother. Lanolin is capable of not only penetrating the outer layers of our own skin while still allowing it to breathe, but it is also a humectant able to attract and absorb up to 300% water.
• .1 oz. sea buckthorn oil: This carrier oil is prized for its ability to promote healing and rejuvenating effects on the skin. It can aid in promoting healing for burns, cuts, wounds, sunburn, rashes, and other types of skin damage. In addition, daily use of sea buckthorn oil has been shown to help slow down the signs of aging by nourishing the tissues in your skin and body.
• .1 oz. patchouli essential oil: Renowned for its ability to promote healing, this essential oil helps to expedite healing of cracked heels and dry skin. It has anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antifungal, antiseptic, and antibacterial properties when used in skin care applications such as this beeswax heel balm.
• .15 oz peppermint essential oil: This essential oil provides a soothing cooling sensation for feet when used to make a peppermint foot salve. It also helps to cleanse skin, unclog pores and reduce skin redness and inflammation.

Tools and Equipment Need to Make a Cracked Heel Salve

In addition to the ingredients necessary to make this healing beeswax foot balm DIY, you will also need several common kitchen tools. These include:

• A digital kitchen scale to weigh out the ingredients called for in this foot repair balm.
• Mixing bowl and measuring cups for combining the foot salve ingredients. I prefer to use glass containers, however you can use any heat and food-safe bowls of your liking.
• A spatula or other utensil for mixing the ingredients together.
• A double boiler is necessary to melt the butters, beeswax, and lanolin called for in this natural foot care recipe. Alternately, you can also melt these ingredients at 50% power in a heat safe container in the microwave.
• I used two 75 gram white styrene deodorant tubes  to package and store this foot care product. You can find these awesome twist up deodorant tubes I used for my cracked heel repair balm recipe at SKS Bottle & Packaging here. These twist up tubes work great for making a DIY foot balm stick and can be reused once the initial product is gone. Alternately, you can also pour this salve into a tin or other container.

How to Make a Cracked Heel Balm

Following are directions on how to make a cracked heel balm with essential oils:

1. To make my cracked heel salve recipe, you’ll begin by weighing out the beeswax and cocoa butter and combine in a 4 cup glass Pyrex measuring cup. Heat in the microwave at 50% power until melted. (Alternately you may use a double boiler.) Be careful when removing your container from the microwave as the glass will be hot. I recommend using a potholder or towel to protect your skin from the heat.

TIP: If you live in a warmer climate or plan to transport this product outside of a climate controlled environment, you’ll want to increase the beeswax in this recipe to 1.25 oz.

2. Next weigh out and stir in the sal butter, coconut oil, lanolin and neem oil. Stir until these ingredients have liquified completely. If needed, pop back into the microwave at 50% power just until melted.

3. Now weigh out and stir in the remaining ingredients.

4. You will now fill two 75 gram white styrene deodorant tubes with your cracked heel salve. To fill these deodorant tubes, first place the container upside down, with cap and disc insert in place and the base off. Fill the tubes with the now liquid cracked heel repair balm from the bottom, up to the plunger (the internal mechanism with three oblong holes that will move the product upward). Be sure not to fill above the plunger or the tube will not function properly.

5. Once the cracked heel salve has solidified completely, snap the base back onto the bottom of the tube, then apply your labels. (Download the free printable labels for my cracked heel repair balm here.)

Can I Make Ingredient Substitutions to This Heel Balm Recipe?

If you need to make substitutions for this heel repair balm do to allergies or product availability, you can substitute kokum butter for the cocoa butter and babassu oil for the coconut oil. In addition, the sal butter may also be swapped with refined shea butter.

How to Use a Foot Repair Balm

To use this DIY foot balm to repair cracked heels, unscrew the cap and remove the disc. Then simply twist up to dispense product for use. Apply the salve to feet and heels and massage in. This foot care product may be used as often as desired. However, I recommend twice daily application for extremely damaged feet. To expedite healing, use a DIY foot scrub twice weekly prior to application. 

The Fastest Way to Heal Cracked Heels

To quickly help heal your cracked heels and repair damaged skin, I recommend that you follow these steps:

1. Soak feet. Begin by cleansing your feet then soaking them for about 20-minutes in an Epsom salt foot soak.
2. Exfoliate skin. After soaking your feet, pat dry. Then exfoliate feet using either a pumice stone or a pumice foot scrub with coconut oil. Pay particular attention to problem areas such as heels. Then rinse and pat dry.
3. Moisturize heels. Once you’ve exfoliated your feet, apply a moisturizer with essential oils for cracked heels. My DIY foot repair balm is a wonderful solution as it contains essential oils that promote healing as well as moisturizing ingredients that deeply hydrate and protect skin.

Healing Foot Balm and Salve Recipes

If you like my beeswax heel balm, then be sure to try these other homemade foot balms, salves and creams to repair cracked heels:

• Lanolin Foot Salve Recipe: This natural lanolin and beeswax salve recipe makes a wonderful alternative to commercial lotions and creams for hydrating and protecting extremely dry skin. Made using essential oils for cracked heels such as lavender and tea tree, this beeswax foot salve is ideal for everyday foot care.
• DIY Foot Repair Salve: This natural foot repair salve recipe contains neem oil, prized for its strong antibacterial and antifungal properties, to help promote healing and tackle troublesome foot care issues. Learn how to make your own as part of your natural skin care routine for healthy looking feet.
• Rosemary & Neem Oil Foot Balm Recipe: Treat your feet with my all natural rosemary & neem oil foot salve recipe. It’s perfect for dry and even cracked feet and helps to prevent fungal growth and infections caused by diabetes or ingrown toenails.
• Peppermint Foot Cream Recipe: Another foot care product made with essential oils for cracked heels, this lavender and peppermint foot cream is an easy way to naturally care and repair dry, cracked feet.
• DIY Antifungal Foot Salve: This natural antifungal foot salve recipe is a great way to naturally promote skin health. Used daily it can help to treat fungal foot infections as well as prevent their reoccurrence. 
• Callus Treatment Balm Recipe: This homemade callus treatment balm recipe naturally promotes foot health and assists in banishing tough foot calluses for good.

If you like my DIY cracked heel salve, then be sure to pin this natural skin care recipe to Pinterest for later. For more of my natural foot care recipes that contain essential oils for cracked heels, be sure to follow me on Pinterest. You can also find and follow me via Blog Lovin’, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.