I Wore Closed Shoes to a Pool Party in 90 Degree Heat. That Was the Day I Gave Up.

Nine years of hiding my feet, and eleven products that did nothing. Then a dermatologist in southern Japan explained, in about four sentences, why not one of them had ever had a chance of working.

It was my sister's 60th. Her yard, her pool, about thirty people, and one of those days where the air just sits on you.

Everybody was in the water. I was in a lawn chair in the shade in sneakers and socks.

My niece came over with a drink and asked, in the nicest way, why I wasn't getting in. And I heard myself say I'd pulled something in my back.

I hadn't pulled anything. I just could not take my shoes off in front of thirty people.

My toenails were thick and yellow-brown. Two of them crumbled at the edge if I caught them on a rug. My big toe had gone so hard I couldn't cut it with regular clippers, I had to file it down just to get into a closed shoe without it hurting.

I had been hiding my feet for nine years. Not weeks. Years.

Then one sentence undid the whole nine years

It came from a dermatologist in Fukuoka, in southern Japan, and I will give it to you now rather than make you wait for it, because it is the only part of this that actually matters:

Killing the fungus was never the hard part. Reaching it was.

I will explain exactly what that means in a moment. But first I want to show you what not knowing it cost me, because I think a lot of people reading this are sitting on the same bill and have never added it up.

Nine years, itemised

The tablets were the worst of it. My doctor took me off them after my liver bloods came back off. I remember thinking, I have now damaged an internal organ over a toenail.

And the second podiatrist, who was perfectly kind about it, told me that once it is underneath the nail bed you are managing it, you are not getting rid of it. I paid a hundred and eighty dollars to be told to give up.

So I did. I bought bigger sneakers. I stopped booking pedicures. I became a person who is always, for some reason, a little bit cold and would rather keep her socks on, thanks.

What my daughter sent me, and why it made me furious

Not at her. At the nine years.

It was an interview with Dr. Takumi Ogawa, a dermatologist who practices in Fukuoka, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. Twenty four years treating skin and nail conditions.

His question was one I had never thought to ask. Why does chronic nail fungus barely exist in his practice, when in America people carry it for a decade or more?

Your toenail is not a surface. It is a barrier.

It is dense layered keratin, and it evolved specifically to stop things getting through it. That is its entire job, and it is extremely good at it.

The infection does not live on top of that barrier. It lives underneath it, in the nail bed, working forward from the base.

So every cream, every lacquer, every oil on that receipt was being painted onto the outside of a sealed lid, while the colony sat underneath it, undisturbed, for nine years.

The ingredients in Western antifungals are not the problem. Most of them will kill the organism perfectly well in a dish. The problem is delivery. Almost nothing sold over the counter will carry those ingredients through the nail plate at a concentration that means anything. We have spent forty years solving the wrong half of the problem.

Dr. Takumi Ogawa, MDDermatologist, Fukuoka  ·  24 years clinical practice  ·  Kyushu region

I have since found one way to describe it that finally made my husband understand.

It is like posting letters through a door that was bricked up years ago. Nothing wrong with the letters. They were never getting in.

Which also explains the part that used to drive me mad

Every time I finished a course of something it looked slightly better for a few weeks. Then it came back worse, and usually it had spread to another nail.

That is not bad luck and it is not you doing it wrong. Surface treatment knocks back whatever is growing at the surface. The colony underneath is untouched, and it simply refills the space.

You are not failing at the treatment. The treatment is not arriving.

And it does not sit there quietly

This was the part I did not want to read, so I will keep it short.

Left alone, nail fungus does not stay the same. The nail keeps thickening. The edge keeps crumbling. It can begin to lift away from the nail bed, which is when it starts to genuinely hurt in closed shoes. It spreads to neighboring nails and to the skin around them, which itches and cracks.

For anyone with diabetes or a compromised immune system it is taken more seriously than that, because breaks in the skin around the toes can lead to secondary infections.

The longer it runs, the deeper it is dug in. Nine years was not a neutral wait. It cost me.

What Dr. Ogawa's team did about it

Once you accept the problem is delivery, the job changes completely. You stop hunting for a stronger antifungal and you start solving how to get a good one through a keratin barrier.

What came out of that work is a precision pen called Orivelle, and the approach behind it is what they call sub-plate delivery.

The plant the whole thing is built around

The hero ingredient is Houttuynia cordata. In Japan they call it dokudami, and it has been used in Japanese skin preparations for something like four hundred years. It grows wild across Kyushu, which is where Dr. Ogawa practices and where it is still gathered in small batches.

That is also why the product runs out. It is not a marketing line about limited stock. The supply is tied to a small-batch botanical harvest.

Around the hero ingredient sit sixteen more:

Plus eleven further active and supporting botanicals in the full 17-ingredient formula.

Worth saying plainly: these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Orivelle is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, and individual results vary.

Before you go further, work out where you actually are

This matters more than people think, because it decides how long you should expect to wait before you see anything, and that is the number one reason people quit a treatment that was working.

How long it actually takes

Nobody clears a toenail in a week. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you a disappointment. What you get in a week is evidence, and that is a different and more useful thing.

• Days 5 to 7The most commonly reported first sign. The flaking slows down and the edge stops crumbling when you catch it. Nothing has changed color yet. This is the point at which most people know it is doing something.
• Weeks 2 to 4A band of clear, normal-colored nail appears at the base, at the cuticle. This is the one that matters. It means the new nail is coming in uninfected.
• Months 2 to 3That clear band grows forward and pushes the damaged nail out ahead of it. Toenails grow slowly, roughly a millimetre a month, and there is no way to speed that part up. This is why the timeline is what it is.

The single most useful thing I can tell you: stop staring at the tip of the nail. Watch the base. That is where the answer shows up first, and it shows up weeks before the rest of the nail looks any different.

Set against everything else on my receipt

How you use it

Simpler than painting a nail.

What happened to mine

Day six, the edge of my worst nail stopped crumbling. That was it. That was the whole event, and I nearly missed it.

Week three, there was a thin line of pale, normal nail at the base of my big toe. I photographed it, because I did not trust myself.

Month three, that line was most of the nail.

I got a pedicure in June. First one since 2017. I did not explain myself to anybody and nobody asked.

I am not the only one

Orivelle has now been used by more than 100,000 people, with over 5,731 verified reviews and a 4.9 star average. A few that sounded like my own experience:

What it replaces

I want to put this next to the receipt, because the arithmetic is the part that still annoys me.

Against any of those numbers, a pen you keep in a drawer and use for twenty seconds twice a day is not a serious financial decision. And right now it is running at 70% off.

The 30-day guarantee is the part that decided it for me

Thirty days is longer than the five to seven days it takes to see the first sign. So you find out whether it is working while you can still get your money back. That is not a small thing after nine years of one-way purchases.

Dr. Ogawa's last word

"I am careful about what I claim," he says. "What I will tell you is that in twenty four years I had not seen a response this consistent from a topical, and the reason is not complicated once you accept that the barrier, not the ingredient, was always the obstacle."

"I have spent my career watching people treat something as permanent that never needed to be. That is the part I wanted to change."

Nine years I spent on the outside of that door. If you have your own version of my receipt, and your own version of that pool party, I would not spend another summer finding out.

From the comments

212 total

Ecab S.3 hours ago

I was hesitant at first to purchase this when I saw the ad online. But the safe and non toxic ingredients of the Orivelle pen made me decide to try it. Surprisingly, after only less than 2 wks of use, I noticed improvements on my discolored nails. Less yellowish/brownish, the discoloration was slowly vanishing, thickness lessened and nails looked healthier. I have never experienced it with other OTC nail treatments. Great buy! It did not disappoint me.

Helpful (84)

Linda R.6 hours ago

I've wasted money on creams before, but the Orivelle pen is different. It's easy to use and my nails are finally looking clear again.

Helpful (51)

Diane S.Yesterday

I ordered Orivelle pens and it's just been less than a week and I'm noticing a difference. I'm very excited to see how my toes look in another week. I tried lots of other methods and didn't have success.

Helpful (67)

MB

Marcus B.Yesterday

How long does shipping usually take? I'd rather not wait three weeks to start.

Helpful (19)

The Barefoot ReviewEditor

Orders ship the same or next business day and typically arrive within 2 to 5 business days. Shipping is free on multi-pen orders. Tracking is emailed once it leaves the warehouse.

Travis H.2 days ago

I had little hope in any product that claims to solve the toenail fungus issue but I must say that I am impressed at how quickly I could see the changes in my toe nails. It's such a delight to see my toe nails start to look normal again.

Helpful (93)

JW

Jessica W.2 days ago

No more yellow nasty nails. My toes look normal again and I can get a pedicure without feeling extremely embarrassed!!

Helpful (108)

PW

Paula W.3 days ago

Do you apply it to the whole nail or just the yellow part? Article doesn't say and I don't want to waste it.

Helpful (24)

The Barefoot ReviewEditor

The instructions supplied with the pen say to cover the whole nail plus the skin immediately around it, not just the discolored area. A thin layer is enough. Morning and night.

LT

Laura T.4 days ago

My best purchase this year. I'm finally nail fungus free because of Orivelle, it helped me so much in the past 2 months.

Helpful (76)

Gary R.5 days ago

Ordered last month after reading this. Six weeks in and there's clear nail at the base on both big toes. Wife has now started using it too. Only wish I'd found it before I spent $400 on the tablets.

Helpful (132)

Darren6 days ago

This stuff actually works lol. I was super skeptical at first but my toenails legit look normal again. Way better than the junk I was buyin' at the drugstore. Highly recommend for sure.

Helpful (88)