I’m not a total foot-phobe like many of my friends, but I’m not in love with mine either. I have an abnormally large gap between my big toe and the rest of them, making them look a bit square and well… clubby. It doesn’t stop me flashing them though and I practically live in sandals now the sun is out.

To be honest, the only times I really think about my feet are in bed. I’ll go to rub Craig’s leg suggestively then stop myself when they snag the duvet cover and give off a little scratchy sound that drives me mad. I can’t complain too much about this - I mean I hardly go to any effort to keep them in good nick - I’m too embarrassed of them to have a professional pedicure, and home remedies and pumice stones don’t seem to work . They’re victims of a life-time of knee-high boot / high-heel confinement, and barefoot gardening.

My biggest issue with my feet is hard cracked skin around my heels. I’m on my feet a lot with the children, so I’m not surprised I’ve built it up, it probably cushions them from countless potential Lego injuries too, but I’m fed up with them looking like some kind of craggy rock formation. So when I was asked by Pedi Reviews to review the Emjoi MICRO Pedi Gift Set with Manicure and Pedicure Kit (quite the mouthful, I know) I said yes straight away.

At an RRP of £80 (yet sold in a number of places for £29.99), this is not likely to get your credit card twitching in your wallet, yet it’s made some pretty big waves press-wise. I remember watching my very first MICRO Pedi advert all those years ago and mentally slapping it on the Christmas present list, but Craig is pretty useless at gift-buying and I completely forgot to buy it for myself. Now I have one of my own I took to good old Google to furnish me with some tips on how to get the best out of it, and was shocked to discover that many other hard-hoofed MICRO Pedi owners weren’t impressed.

I’ll address these criticisms head-on, if only to smash them down.

Most complained that the roller stopped performing its magic if any pressure was applied to it, or that the batteries gave out midway through a session. Yet most were having a justified whinge that the MICRO Pedi was the most expensive on the market, yet had mineral rollers rather than diamond (apparently the latter is tougher and longer-lasting).

Not wanting to let any of that put me off, I took a long bath and dried my feet thoroughly for sanding treatment. The award-winning Emjoi MICRO Pedi Device is one of the most powerful hard skin removers on the market - how could this go wrong? It uses a coarse anti-bacterial mineral roller which spins 360 degrees some 30x per second to effectively buff hard skin into oblivion, so I approached the whole thing optimistically.

The device itself is well made, sturdy and sits comfortably in your hand. It isn’t a heavy item either weighing in at 340g. Inserting & removing the heads is as simple as pushing a button. To switch on, you push a central button in and up (to prevent it accidentally switching on in your hand luggage - I found this smooth to operate however some I’ve heard the odd grumble from other users (I suspect this is where the button has clogged with dead skin which is a grim reality for any device of this nature). I’ve also been forewarned (quite stridently) that you should take real care removing / replacing the battery cover as this isn’t robust enough to withstand bashing shut & prising open with the regularity it requires. This is a load of tosh though and it works just fine.

Strangely enough, my experience has been nothing but glittering for my little MICRO Pedi. I think the secret is to resist the urge to apply pressure and just watch the telly with your foot over a bin whilst lightly skimming over the gnarly bits. Your first session will be long, yet not unpleasant (if you don’t look inside the bin. Yeah - don’t do that) and you may need replacement heads fairly quickly if you’re dealing with peaks like Everest. I spent some 3 hours playing with mine for my first session and it was actually really relaxing

When you’ve got your feet looking gorgeous, you’ll want to maintain them. Handily this set comes with a spa-like quality coconut extract MICRO Pedi Ultra-finishing Cream which does a grand job of moisturising your feet for hours on end and soothing any redness (this smells absolutely gorgeous too). From then on, whipping out your MICRO Pedi every few days will keep everything sweet down there with rollers lasting a few months between replacements - it’s then that this bad boy will go from money-guzzler to worth its weight-in-gold.

You also get a pedicure adaptor and five miniature attachments, designed to deliver salon quality results; a Cuticle Tool, a Fine Shaping Tool, a Shaping Tool, an Emery Tool and a Buffing Tool. Some of these tool are better than others with the cuticle tool and buffing tools being particular stand-outs, and the emery tool less impressive. I won’t pretend that I haven’t achieved better results with manual buffers (this wasn’t so hot at ironing out ridges for example), but given this requires far less effort, I’m more likely to give this a fortnightly outing get my nails looking Instagram-worthy.

This set also comes with toe separators, a surprisingly good manual professional nail file, a pretty little bag to stash it all away in, and nail clippers. Plenty in there to keep a busy mum lightly buffed and looking fab come the school run. I’m impressed how much is included for the price (although batteries and a replacement head wouldn’t have gone amiss) & it would make an ideal pressie for someone beauty-conscious.

I’m yet to come across any of the negatives anyone else has, so am glorying in the fact their feet must have been far uglier than mine prior to treatment. I would point out that you might want to consider third party replacement heads from Amazon as the cost really would mount up if you were MICRO Pedi-faithful (so to speak).

Overall I’m a little in love with it. I haven’t had such soft feet since toddler-hood and I actually really enjoy using it. I’m now totally sandal-confident and can lay on my back barefoot at the park without positioning my bag over my feet. I’m also now enjoying pedicures for the first time in my life as I know my feet are among the prettiest they’ll see walk in from the high street.

For more reviews and home manicure and pedicure tips, from Emjoi and beyond, check out Pedi Reviews