Reviewed by Evan Lewis, PhD. Last updated 10 August 2026.
A daily foot care routine is four steps and takes about a minute: wash, dry properly between the toes, put something on the skin, and let the shoes dry out. Everything after that is adjustment for what your week actually looks like. Here's the base routine, then the version for your feet.
What are the four steps?
- Wash them properly. With soap, with your hands, working between the toes. Not just whatever runs down from the shampoo.
- Dry between the toes, not around them. This is the step almost everyone skips and it's the one that matters most. Dab rather than rub, and get into the fourth space between the little toe and the one beside it, which is the tightest gap on the foot and the slowest to dry.
- Then do something to the skin. A towel is the end of the wash, not the end of the routine.
- Deal with the shoes. Unlace them, pull the insole out, and let them stand open somewhere with moving air.
That's the whole thing. If it takes longer than a minute you'll stop doing it by Thursday, which is why nothing else on this page is compulsory.
What does the evidence actually support?
Three habits have real research behind them, and they're the unglamorous ones.
Washing socks and removable insoles at 60 °C. A 2022 study contaminated 180 cotton gauze pads with three Trichophyton species and put them through domestic laundering. 40 °C left the fungus alive. 60 °C and 90 °C removed it. Tumble drying didn't finish it off, and neither did a week in a freezer at −20 °C. Most households wash socks at 30 or 40.
Rotating two pairs of shoes. The NHS advice is direct: do not wear the same pair of shoes for more than two to three days in a row, use a separate towel for your feet, and wear flip-flops in changing rooms and showers.
Not going barefoot on shared floors. In sampling across seven indoor swimming pool facilities, the dermatophytes behind athlete's foot were detected on floors and nowhere else, with the highest counts where people converged walking barefoot between rooms.
Everything else is preference. Those three are load-bearing.
Where does a spray fit, and what is it?
Step three is the one people ask about, so here's the plain version.
Sole Shield is two ingredients: aqueous iodine and distilled water. You spray it on clean, dry feet and into the shoes at the end of the day. It's a daily step, not a course of anything, and it goes where a wash cycle can't reach, which is a shoe you're still wearing and skin that's about to go back into it.
Two things it is not. It's not a deodoriser and there's no fragrance in it, so there's nothing in the bottle to mask a smell with. And it's not a surface disinfectant for floors or instruments.
One thing worth knowing if you've bought iodine at a pharmacy before: "decolorized iodine" sounds like the gentle option and isn't. The FDA-registered label lists 45% alcohol and warns that it will stain skin and clothing. Ours is water-based, which is why it doesn't sting split skin between the toes and doesn't mark a white sock. That's a label fact about a different product, and it's the whole reason the formula matters more than the ingredient name.
What products does a daily foot care routine need?
Fewer than the internet suggests. A daily foot care routine at home runs on four things: soap, a towel kept for your feet only, something for the skin, and a second pair of shoes to rotate into. A pumice or foot file is optional. Everything else, the tubs and salts and peels, is a nice evening rather than a routine. It's the same short list whether you're after a foot care routine for men or one for women. Feet are the part of a skin hygiene routine most people skip, and the fix is keeping the kit small enough that you don't.
Now the version for your week
If you train in a gym
The change room floor and the shower are the exposure, not the weights. Keep flip-flops in the bag, do the four steps after training rather than at bedtime, and put the trainers somewhere they can dry rather than back in the bag. What to do in the few minutes after the gym, pool or a public shower covers the detail.
If you run
Mileage brings its own version of this: damp socks for two hours, repeated pressure on the second and third toenails, and shoes that never fully dry between runs. A foot care routine for runners is the four steps plus two habits. Rotate two pairs so each one gets 48 hours, and change out of wet socks at the door rather than at bedtime. If a toenail darkens after a long run or a new pair of shoes, that is usually bruising under the nail from the shoe rather than anything you picked up, and it grows out.
If you train on mats
Barefoot, on a shared surface, for hours. It's the highest-contact environment on this list, and the etiquette matters as much as the routine: don't train on a broken foot, don't walk to the toilet barefoot and back onto the mat, and shower promptly. Mat sports have their own version of this problem. A bjj foot care routine and judo foot hygiene come down to the same three moves: shower straight after training, dry between the toes before socks go on, and keep sandals at the edge of the mat for every trip off it.
If you dance
Ballet is barefoot studio floors, shoes that rarely get aired, and skin under constant friction. A ballerina foot care routine has to work around tape, blisters and callus that is doing a job, so this is not the place to file everything smooth. Wash and dry between the toes after class, stand the shoes open somewhere with moving air rather than leaving them in the bag, and cover split skin before the next class rather than after it.
If you're in work boots
Occlusive footwear and heavy sweating are both listed risk factors, and a steel-toe boot delivers them together for twelve hours. The two moments that count are the boot coming off and the boot going back on. Work boots and athlete's foot works through the shift hour by hour.
If you're on a twelve-hour hospital shift
Same enclosure problem, different shoe. Two pairs alternating, insoles out at the end of every shift, and the four steps when you get home rather than in the changing room at 7am. Nurse foot care and who uses Sole Shield and why both go deeper.
If you swim
It's the deck and the change room, not the water. Chlorine is not doing what people assume on a wet tiled floor that dozens of bare feet have crossed. Sandals from the locker to the pool edge, and dry properly before socks go on.
If you're skating or in ski boots
The gear is the storage container and the foot is the source. Unbuckle everything, pull the footbed, and never zip wet kit into a bag. Why hockey skates smell explains the four-step chain behind it.
If you travel
Travel foot hygiene is mostly about floors you did not choose. Flip-flops for the shower, socks through airport security, and the same four steps in a hotel bathroom. The carpet between the bathroom and the bed gets more barefoot traffic than anything you're worried about. Hotel bathrooms and your feet ranks the ten moments in a stay.
If you share a bathroom
A separate foot towel, a bath mat that gets washed hot, and one clipper per person. A 2022 scoping review found evidence of transmission in 44% to 47% of households with an affected member, and household members carrying it with no symptoms for up to two months. That isn't a hygiene failure. It's a shared floor.
What do you do about the shoes?
Strip them and rest them. Shoes are the part of this routine most people ignore completely, and they're the most likely reservoir. Insoles and laces can go in a 60 °C wash. The shoe body can't, so it gets brushed out, wiped, dried with air rather than heat, and rested for 48 hours.
We've checked the six popular methods against what the research shows in how to disinfect shoes. The freezer trick, which is the internet's favourite, is one of the ones that fails.
Why is the routine worth the minute?
Because the alternative repeats. Recurrence and relapse rates for superficial fungal infections of the feet run between 10% and 53%, and a 2019 review names an untreated shoe, sock or textile as a specific reinfection route.
Dermatophytes also last far longer off the foot than most people assume: over six months in the environment, and up to 18 months around a house. The full survival figures are here, and they're the reason a daily habit beats an occasional deep clean.
An honest limitation
A routine is not a guarantee, and nobody should sell it as one. Plenty of people do everything on this page and still pick something up, usually from an exposure they never noticed.
What the routine does is remove the two conditions the fungus most depends on, which are lingering damp and skin that never gets dried properly. That shifts the odds. It doesn't switch them off.
And if the skin is broken and weeping, if there's spreading redness or swelling, or if you have diabetes or poor circulation, that's a conversation with a professional rather than a routine. Those referrals stay in place no matter how good your habits are.
Common questions
What is a good daily foot care routine?
Four steps: wash with soap including between the toes, dry between the toes rather than around them, apply something to the skin, and open the shoes up so they dry. It takes about a minute. Adding a 60 degree sock wash and rotating two pairs of shoes covers most of the rest.
How do you dry your feet properly?
Dab rather than rub, and work the towel into each toe space individually, especially the fourth one between the little toe and the one beside it. That gap is the tightest on the foot and the slowest to dry, which is why interdigital athlete's foot usually starts there. Let the feet air a minute before socks.
Should I spray my shoes every day?
If your shoes are on all day, in a gym or on a shift, a nightly step is reasonable, and it matters more that the shoe is opened up and allowed to dry. A spray does not replace airing. Pull the insole out and stand the shoe open, then treat the inside as part of the same habit.
How often should I wash my socks at 60 degrees?
Every wash, if you can. In testing on contaminated cotton pads, 60 and 90 degrees Celsius removed dermatophyte conidia and 40 degrees did not. Tumble drying alone did not finish them off either, so the wash temperature is the deciding factor rather than the dryer.
Do I need a foot care routine if I have no problems?
Not an elaborate one. Washing, drying between the toes and rotating shoes is enough for most people. The routine earns its keep when there is real exposure involved, such as shared showers, mats, pools, boots worn all day, or a household member who already has something.
What foot care routine works for men who won't do a ten-step routine?
The same four steps, and none of the extras. Wash, dry between the toes, one spray, shoes open with the insole out. If you only do two of the four, do the drying and the shoes, since those address the damp the whole problem depends on.
What does a foot care routine for dry heels look like?
Soften first, then file, then seal. Dry heels crack because the skin has lost water and stiffened, so filing hard skin on a dry heel just makes more of it. File gently after a shower, use a thicker cream with urea on the heel itself, and keep the cream out of the gaps between the toes where you want things dry. If the flaking runs along the sides of the foot as well as the heel, that is worth showing someone rather than moisturising.
Can you use the same daily hand and foot care routine?
Mostly, with two differences. Hands get washed ten times a day and dry out faster, so they need cream more often than feet do. And the nails move at different speeds: fingernails grow about 3.47mm a month and toenails about 1.62mm, so anything growing out of a toenail takes roughly twice as long to reach the end. A daily hand and foot care routine that treats both the same will over-do one and under-do the other.
Is the foot care routine advice on Reddit worth following?
Some of it. The trouble with a foot care routine Reddit thread is that nothing is attributed, so a habit with research behind it sits next to something someone tried once. The three worth keeping are the ones with evidence behind them: wash socks and insoles at 60 degrees, rotate two pairs of shoes, and keep something between your feet and a shared floor. Anything promising a quick fix for a nail is worth reading the product label on first.
The bottom line
Wash. Dry between the toes. One step on the skin. Open the shoes.
Do that most days and you've covered more ground than any product on its own will. The rest of this page is just which version of it fits your week.
Evan Lewis, PhD, specializes in natural and nutritional therapies for the prevention and management of chronic diseases and their complications. His research spans chronic disease, diabetes complications, clinical nutrition, and nerve health, including the development of topical iodine therapy for foot care and wound health. IodinePure products are listed with Health Canada as cosmetics. This article is general information, not a diagnosis.
Sources: Akhoundi M, et al. Effect of Household Laundering, Heat Drying, and Freezing on the Survival of Dermatophyte Conidia. J Fungi (Basel). 2022;8(5):546. Jazdarehee A, et al. Transmission of Onychomycosis and Dermatophytosis between Household Members: A Scoping Review. J Fungi (Basel). 2022;8(1):60. Ekowati Y, et al. Potential transmission pathways of clinically relevant fungi in indoor swimming pool facilities. Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2018;221(8):1107-1115. Gupta AK, Versteeg SG. The Role of Shoe and Sock Sanitization in the Management of Superficial Fungal Infections of the Feet. J Am Podiatr Med Assoc. 2019;109(2):141-149. NHS, Athlete's foot. DailyMed, Decolorized Iodine label.
