In Utah, I run around barefoot or in slippahs waaaay too frequently. It’s not unusual to see me scampering to the mailbox, quick stepping through the snow because until that moment when the sub-zero cold hit my tender tootsies I forgot that normal people wear thick socks and boots in December. There’s something to the saying that you can take the tita out of Hawaii, but not the Hawaii out of the tita.

A side effect of my refusal to wear shoes are rough, dry, and cracked heels. Too much desert, not enough humidity, and definitely not enough hours in the ocean and walking along the beach. I’ve tried all kinds of treatments and lotions from snooty spas to good ol’ Vaseline and plastic wrap, but nothing seems to work very well.

So when I saw this new, easy fix on the internet it’s no wonder I gave it a try. It came up on my Pinterest and Facebook feed at least ten times over the summer and was always accompanied by a zillion testimonials of how amazing it was. Maybe you saw this, too:

This is crazy. Mix 1/4 cup Listerine (any kind but I like the blue), 1/4 cup vinegar, and 1/2 cup of warm water. Soak feet for 10 minutes and when you take them out the dead skin will practically wipe off.

I know, right?

So I got all the stuff together, mixed quadruple the amounts (I wanted my heels covered) it in a big shallow bowl, plunked the bowl in the tub, perched on the edge, plopped my feet in, and goofed on my iPad for 10 minutes. The results?

Smurf foot.

My skin is blue and no amount of scrubbing with anything short of a sandblaster is going to change it. And of course, the color’s deepest where the skin looks its worst, the exact part I wanted to remove, not highlight like a muffin top over leggings.

My son, the honors chemistry student, laughs and says I should’ve known this would happen and goes through some long-winded explanation about how the acid in vinegar breaks down oils in the foot so the blue dye in the Listerine can penetrate better and then rambled on about quantum mechanics and turning straw into gold—I don’t know, I stopped listening.

Punked.

And no slippahs for at least a week!