After a long winter, being able to shed our winter boots for cute sandals means finding a way to make our winter-worn hooves look beach beautiful. Combined with the need for a relaxing afternoon of pampering, this makes a pedicure sound like a must for our to-do list. What most of us don’t realize is that a pedicure isn’t just applying some nail polish and massaging our calves -- it’s a formal procedure. Nail technicians are required to complete training, and nail salons must go through licensing processes to minimize the risk of infections in their clientele. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

Your salon probably uses Barbicide, UV light “sterilizer” boxes and chemical solutions to disinfect tools. While this means that they are complying with regulations for their industry, it doesn’t mean that these steps are effective at killing all bacteria and infectious agents from the tools that will come in contact with our skin. Only facilities that sterilize their equipment in an autoclave -- a machine that uses pressure and steam -- can say that their tools are truly sterilized. However, tools such as nail files are rarely sterilized, and tools such as emery boards, pumice stones, nail buffers and foam toe separators cannot be sterilized, leaving open a risk for transferring fungal infections during the pedicure or manicure.

Foot baths may add to the luxury of our pedicures, but they can harbor infectious agents as well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) track clusters of infectious outbreaks and documented a cluster outbreak of Mycobacterium fortuitum, a cutaneous infection that spread to more than 100 spa customers from foot baths in a Northern California nail salon. These patients wound up with prolonged boils on their lower legs that left scars when the boils healed.

If this isn’t enough to get you soaking and polishing your feet at home, here are five pedicure procedures that you should modify or wipe out of your pedi routine to minimize your risks of infections: