The painful process would begin before feet grew too much and would be performed on girls aged three to eleven. The feet would first be soaked in a bath of animal blood and herbs to soften the feet and was followed by a foot massage. Then the nails were

a normal foot compared to a bound foot

cut back as far as possible. Then bandages, which had also been soaked in the blood and herb mixture, were wrapped around the feet tightly in a figure eight pattern. The bandages were wrapped tight enough to cause the toes to break.  Bandages were unbound then rebound to ensure the health of the feet. Then the feet were rebound even tighter by a professional foot binder. No pain relief was ever given during the process.

The most common risk of foot binding was infection, especially from the toenails which were likely to become ingrown during binding.

Bound feet were considered to be very erotic by the Chinese. Sex manuals had many ways to incorporate bound feet into lovemaking. Some men preferred the women to keep the bindings on their feet and never to the see naked feet. Also, the feet slightly restricted a women’s ability and would keep women from doing men’s work such as politics.