Whether your feet need a boost before going summertime bare or your pedicure is a gift you give to a loved one's tired toes, pedicures are easy to do at home.

Whether you are doing it for yourself or someone else, procedure is same, although it's easier to massage someone else's feet than it is to completely massage your own.

To start, you will need a footbath or large, wide bowl. Choose from a selection of bath and essential oils, foot scrubs, or fizzing bath bombs. Organize toe nail clipper, emery board, nail buffer, spongy toe separators (if planning to polish toenails), nail brush, and follow-up scented foot lotion. In addition, you'll need towels for catching spills, and drying freshly washed feet. If you have nail polish on your toe nails, remove polish thoroughly before starting pedicure.

Take bowl or footbath and fill it with warm to hot water. Give yourself hottest water your feet can take for optimum softening of tough heel skin, and to promote relaxation. Toss in a fizzing bath bomb. Most are made with scent and Epsom salts, and, when added to water, turn a simple bath, or in this case, a simple footbath, into a bubbling, tickling massage. Add a drop of your favoring essential oil - lavender is a relaxing choice.

While feet are wet, use a foot scrub to soften calluses built up during everyday exercise and ordinary tasks. Be gentle. If tough skin on your feet has been building up over a few years, realize that it may take a few weekly pampering pedicures to bring your feet back to softness.

Rinse foot scrub off feet in cooling footbath. Feet can soften in footbath for a total of about five minutes, or until water is too cool for enjoyment.. Gently dry off feet with an absorbent towel.

While skin and nails are soft, take a few minutes to gently push back toe nail cuticles with an angled cuticle stick. Use big toe nail clippers to cut toe nails straight across. A caution: do not clip them too short for this can cause problems with ingrown toe nails as cut nails grow back. Grab nail brush and scrub across tip of nails and on top of nails. This is a safer way to clean out gunk under nails than to poke a stick underneath tip and down side of nails.

People with heart disease or those who are at high risk for developing it typically have too much LDL-cholesterol in their blood. Many factors help determine whether your LDL-cholesterol level is high or low. The following factors are most important.

Your blood cholesterol level is affected not only by what you eat but also by how quickly your body makes LDL-cholesterol and disposes of it. In fact, your body makes all cholesterol it needs, and it is not necessary to take in any additional cholesterol from foods you eat. Patients with heart disease or those who are at high risk for developing it typically have too much LDL-cholesterol in their blood. Many factors help determine whether your LDL-cholesterol level is high or low. The following factors are most important.

Heredity. Your genes influence how high your LDL-cholesterol is by affecting how fast LDL is made and removed from blood. One specific form of inherited high cholesterol that affects 1 in 500 people is familial hypercholesterolemia, which often leads to early heart disease. But even if you do not have a specific genetic form of high cholesterol, genes play a role in influencing your LDL-cholesterol level.