DIY | Verruca Treatment That WORKS!!!!

Verrucas. What can I say. They are evil, horrible little things that can be painful as well as unsightly.
So what are these demons? Verrucas are essentially a wart or a 'Plantar Wart' meaning its in the sole of your foot as apposed to on the surface of your skin.

Verrucas are caused by an infection of the skin by a virus called the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is highly contagious. The viral infection is spread through skin contact with contaminated surfaces.

I got my first verruca about 6 years ago, my second about 2 years ago and my third this year. I had tried every over the counter product from Bazuka gel to the freezing kind. Nothing worked. I was so fed up, so I turned to the interwebz to do a bit of googling and found, one specific ingredient keep popping up. 

Vinegar, or more precisely Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV). I had nothing to loose I already had the vinegar so for me it was free and on the 9th of July I started my treatment. 

Treatment is simple. All you need is your ACV, some cotton wool and some heavy duty masking tape. Oh and a sock.

EVERY night, soak a small piece of cotton wool in ACV, place over the verruca and tape in to place. Pop a sock over your foot to keep it all in place and sleep with it on your foot ALL night. Remove in the morning. You must repeat this every night. However it can get a bit painful in the early days so a night off when its too much is fine.

The key to this treatment is PATIENTS and PERSISTENCE. It took me nearly 2 months but honestly its the best thing I have ever done for my verrucas.

Before I go on I'll warn you...there will be up close and personal pictures of my verrucas so sorry if your squeamish. But every forum I looked on only described the treatment, I really wanted to show how it looks so that if you suffer and want to try this you know what it will look like and basically not poop your pants like I did!

These were my verruca's on the 9th of July. The one that's 2 years old has been the most uncomfortable one as its right on the bend of my big toe on a callous.

This is the morning after. As you can see the ACV has cause the surrounding area to swell up and look uber gross and a little tender. From what I can guess, and please note this is just a guess. The swollen are I think is where the root of the verruca reaches. Over time it gets smaller.

Once the swelling receded, it wasn't painful and I could walk around as normal.

Over the next few weeks this is what I woke up to.

This is 5 days after I started treatment, taken in the evening before bed. As you can see the verruca has turned black and begun to scab and slowly die. (yay!)

On the forums it said that once it reaches this sort of stage you can use an emery board to begin to file down the scabbing. Some people said that they dug the scab out. That sounds really gross I'm sorry. But that is what I chose to do as well. After trying to file the scab down I took a pair of sterilised nail scissors as they are much sharper and pried this scab out of my foot. Each time I did this I could feel a tugging coming from deeper with in my foot, the root I would guess.

 I also took the thought that by doing it this way I would get the ACV in deeper. But it was also a uncomfortable way of doing it. Some nights my feet would really hurt so I would always take the night after off. I stand up all day at work so for me it wasn't ideal but I wouldn't change the way I did things.

As you can see over time the surrounding areas of the verrucas have become pink and tender looking as a result of over night ACV soaks the skin has also started to peel. Of a morning though now the surrounding area doesn't swell up as much and you can see the verrucas look no where near as deep as when I stated.

There was a long period of time where nothing really happened much after this but each time I poked at my verruca it didn't feel as deep as it once had.

This was taken today as you can see the ones on the sole of my foot have basically vanished, but the one on my toe is still visible although massively reduced. I haven't treated them for a few weeks. But I'm going to start treatment again on the one that's left.

I really hope that his helps anyone out there looking for an effective way to kill verrucas, I'm so happy that I found this and even more so that its natural and works!

Jeni xo

Review | Tangle Teezer

As my hair has got longer, its become more of a nightmarish tangle, so I thought I'd try out the Tangle Teezer well known for its kick arse knot fighting abilities.

The Tangle Teezer has fast become an iconic hair tool, with its bright colours and funky design.

I picked my teezer up from Boots for £10.99 and is the original design. It has 2 different lengths of soft, bendy plastic bristles, long and short in an alternating pattern and fits comfortably in the palm of my hand.

I have to say I was skeptical about whether this would work well, and after using it for a few months I can safely say its pretty good!

I wanted to do a comparison test to show how good the teezer really is. I don't normally brush my hair from root to tip when its wet but it was the best way to show how it works.

Before

Using a wide tooth comb I brush from the top of my head and immediately get stuck, so gently start again, then get stuck again and then again. Not so groovy.

After (just the right side)

 The tangle teezer is so smooth and took me 2 seconds to go through the left side of my hair

One of the down sides I must admit is is that fluff gets stuck in the bristles very easily. I took this picture a few hours later after my hair had dried and all the fluff from my jumper ended up in my brush! Its also not as smooth when I brush my hair dry, it can get stuck in some of the stubborn knots and take a few tries to work through. But all in all its a good brush and I would definitely would recommend it :)

Jeni xo