Your nails are amazing tools for grabbing and scratching. They are helpful for many other things as well, but most importantly, they give other people an idea of how tidy you are. And let’s not forget that a good set of nails can also make you look and feel more beautiful. So taking care of them can be crucial to your well-being.
Here we will explain several ways to take care of your nails to prevent them from falling, breaking, or just looking messy. Let’s find out womenangle which helps your strong with best nail strengtheners. If you are excited to learn more about this, don’t hesitate and take a look further to find out!
Things You Must Avoid to Prevent Damaging your Nails
Clean Them Every Day
Everyone knows that a beautiful set of hands always starts with the nails. If you don’t clean them, they will very surely get dirty and look all dark & greasy. And that’s horrendous, gross, and sometimes even smelly. Dirty nails may also produce fungus. So keeping your nails clean is vital to prevent any issue.
That’s why it is critical to keep your nails clean, every day and at all times. After cutting some vegetables for lunch or dinner – clean them up. You finished gardening, and they are filled with dirt – clean them. Even after going to the bathroom, make sure to have them free of any bacteria.
Wash your hands with soap and get rid of anything below your nails in the process. If you can use a nail brush or something similar to wash the dirt, debris, and contaminants away – that would be even better. Just make sure never to have even the slightest filth under your nails, and they’ll stay clean and safe.
Don’t Ever Bite them!
While keeping your nails clean can be sufficient to get rid of all kinds of filth, several viruses and disease-inducing bacteria can still leave underneath. So when you bite your nails, you are prone to get infected with anything that could cause either a cold or a stomach ache. Sometimes, it could be worse.
Apart from that, biting your nails increases the chance of getting an infection. It could also end up in puncture skin around your nails which looks awful. And what’s even worse, it leaves your nails uneven and rough-looking – which can also be pretty ugly.
You should do your best to prevent biting your nails. Among the many things you can do there’s chewing gum to alleviate anxiety, eating well to keep hunger in check, using awful-tasting nail polish, or just paying a large amount of money to get them done beautifully. These tips may prevent you from biting them – and make you glad later.
Keep Them Dry
Bacteria, germs, fungi and other contaminants thrive in humid environments, and moist nails can be one of them. And to make it even worse, nails get very fragile when they are constantly damp, so they are easy to split and break. That’s why keeping them dry will make them healthy in the long term.
Whether you got out of the shower or went for a hand wash, drying them up before going further with your life is always a great choice. Even when cleaning dishes or washing clothes, using gloves can be ideal for preventing dirty water from entering your nails. And of course, it keeps them dry in the process.
The same happens with any gloves you use for work or any other activity. With shoes and socks, you’ll also need to do the same. Wash your nails and keep them dry from either water or sweat. This way you prevent the growth of bacteria that can be damaging over time.
Trim & Cut Properly
If you want healthy & good-looking nails, you need to keep them short and straight. Long nails are not healthy, even if you pay hundreds to beautify them they eventually weaken and split. So instead of letting them grow long, unhealthy, filthy and sometimes filled with bacteria – it is better to trim & cut them.
It is essential to cut them whenever they’re soft. This happens mostly after a shower or after cleaning your hands. You may also soak your nails for a few minutes in salt water or with creams containing lactic acid or urea (use sparingly). They will also soften them up and make them easier to trim.
But you don’t want to go too short either, as it could end up in ingrown nails or infections. Instead, just cut them, so they meet with your finger or toe skin. Keeping them straight or slightly rounded is always the best shape. Do all this to cut & trim your nails well, and you’ll never have any problem.
Hydrate your Nails
This goes a little against what we’ve told you already. But that doesn’t mean you should do the opposite. Instead, it consists of using moisturizing products and not letting your nails grow dry.
Just like everything else in the world, lack of water means certain death. Nails also follow this rule. When you don’t hydrate them properly, they will eventually get fragile, split, break or chip with time.
That’s why we recommend using moisturizers after washing them and drying them. Some moisturizing creams and ointments can be useful. The same with petroleum jelly. Oils such as avocado, castor, jojoba, shea butter, or even olive oil can also help to keep your nails hydrated.
A moisturizer will compensate for all the work and constant rubbing or scratching you do with your nails. They will grow strong and healthy if you hydrate them consistently. And more, you shouldn’t forget to keep your nails stronger with choosing the best nail strengtheners.
Wear Gloves when Doing Chores
There are many ways to maintain your nails healthy and safe from damage, but nothing as useful as wearing gloves whenever you use your hands for something harsh. With things like washing clothes, cleaning dishes, doing gardening, woodworking, lifting weights, or just anything that means using with your hands – wearing gloves is the best thing you can do.
The whole purpose is to keep your nails from damage. Doesn’t matter if it’s just soap, dirt, dust, weight, flakes, or toxic chemicals – a good pair of gloves will protect your nails completely. It’s still possible to chip your nails, to break them, or to simply weaken them in the process, but gloves will even minimize the damage if they don’t prevent them entirely.
Polish Your Nails Consistently
A nail polisher is always a useful product to have. The protective coating it leaves on the nails will improve the moisture on the nail while keeping it free of bacteria and dirt. Also, it strengthens the nails with time and maintains a healthy look.
Using nail polisher also keeps the nail from losing its color. It’s normal that people who work with chemicals or harsh liquids getting discoloration on their nails. With nail polisher, you can reduce this, sometimes even prevent it altogether.
The only problem is that nail polishers can be challenging to remove. You’ll need to use acetone, ethyl acetate, alcohol or butyl – strong chemicals that can be damaging to your nails. So we recommend using nail polisher carefully and avoid the use of removers as much as possible.
Take Care of Your Cuticles
All the skin that covers your nails protects and acts as a natural barrier for infections, germs, and more. But not everyone knows this. It’s common to find people cutting, removing, and pushing cuticles back to the fingers or toes as if that’s clean and healthy when in reality, it is not.
That skin is there to achieve one purpose only, and that is keeping your nails free from germs and filth. Otherwise, dirt would enter easily, and bacteria will grow faster on your nails. And that’s precisely what happens to people who tend to cut and push their cuticles back all the time.
What you should do is to clean your cuticles from the surface, and that’s it. Not even a specialized cuticle remover liquid helps. It will actually harm the nail even more. Manipulating your cuticles is prohibited unless you want to leave your nails fragile.
Protect Against Fungus
At the gym, pool, sauna, inside shoes or sandals, sometimes even socks can be the perfect environment for fungus to spread.
We recommend never walking barefoot in areas where other people do. Unless it’s your house, it is always better to avoid this. Also, never use footwear or socks from other people unless totally necessary. You don’t know who could have fungus in their feet, so be more careful when wearing other people’s clothing & footwear.
Fungus usually produces dark and discolored nails that itch and hurt. And what’s worse, you could spend weeks, months or even years getting rid of a fungus infection – so you’ll want to prevent getting one at all costs.
Go to the Doctor If Needed
Whenever you have an ingrown nail, a chipped or split section, fungus infection, or just anything related to your nails that could either hurt or look awful – it is always a good idea to contact an expert.
Dermatologists, for example, always know exactly what could be happening with your nails and how to fix that. Sometimes, problems with nails can be related to melanoma, diabetes, or problems with your immune system, so going to a doctor always helps.
Especially problems such as pus, pain, dark spots, infections, and anything that itches or hurts – they would be the perfect excuse to visit a doctor before it’s too late.
Keep Your Nails Safe & Beautiful!
So, are you ready to start taking care of your nails? It’s simple and doesn’t take much time every day to keep your nails free of damage and beautiful at all times.
Just follow our advice consistently, and you’ll have the most beautiful and healthy nails ever.