I have bitten my fingernails since I was little and I’m tired of having ugly hands, so I wanted to stop. About two months ago, I had artificial nails applied. I was to have them redone every two weeks as they grew out. I figured that something this expensive would help remind me not to ruin it, and of course if I can’t get to my nails, there’s nothing to bite.
When they applied the tips, the guy went over my nails with a dremel tool with a file attachment “to even out the surface”. I balked, but was told that this was the way it was always done. They were very reassuring, so I said okay. I had the powder gel refilled twice after that, once at a different place which was significantly less expensive. Each time, they filed the new nail down a little so the powder gel would stick.
About two weeks ago, I had gone an entire two weeks without biting the new nails, and my natural nails were visible behind the fake ones, so I figured I had succeeded. Yay! I filed off the gel coat, then soaked my fingertips in non-acetone polish remover for about 40 minutes and peeled off the softened fake nails.
I was floored by the nails that had grown in. They were soft and thin like flower petals! They hardened up a bit after a couple of hours, but they were too thin to file and just tore off if there was a snag. I lost them all down to or past the part where they attached to the finger within a day. I could see the ridges from the different filings, and there were a couple of red lines, which I think is from where they filed too low.
So two months and over a hundred dollars later, I’m about back where I started, except that I still have to grow out the filed parts. The nails are really thin and sharp. I’m doing on okay job not biting them, so I suppose that’s a little bit of a win.
I have two questions. First, are there products that will help this growth process along? I’ve been using Sally Hansen Vita-Surge Strength formula, but I’m thinking that nails are dead keratin and I don’t know that anything is actually penetrating and doing any good.
Second, I looked at the nails today and where I previously had white moons, now I have white going all the way across the nail base, about the width of the growth since I took off the nails. My thumbs look normal, as does my one weird finger with the arthritic bone growth in the joint closest to the nail. The rest are basically the same. Is that something I should be concerned by?
Typically nails will only be permanently damaged if the nail bed is damaged and it does not sound like that happened, however, what you have re the thin weak nails and odd cuticle shape does not sound normal. I’d see a doctor if I were you.
And once the Doc has vetted your nails, and they are OK try this, it is how I stopped biting my nails.
For about a year straight I kept my nails neatly trimmed and filed to basically the quick, without actually taking them below the quick. Perhaps you could see a pencil line of white of the nail. No buffing the nails, no nail polish, no chemicals at all. I carried around a 400/600 grit emory board and would use the finest side GENTLY to make sure that my nails stayed smooth. I used a good quality cuticle oil every morning and night, and resolutely managed to not nibble on hangnails by carrying around a good quality nail clipper everywhere. If I noticed a rough edge to a nail, i gently took it off with the emory board. If I noticed a hang nail, I gently trimmed it off with the clippers. I NEVER put my fingers in my mouth.
After about a year, I noticed that I had stopped wanting to nibble my fingers for any reason, so I let the nails grow out to where there was about a mm of white showing, then I let them grow a bit longer, to where I can have nails of about a quarter inch long and nicely shaped without trouble. Longer than that and it interferes with typing and cooking. I still carry the nail clippers and emory board, and use cuticle oil, and don’t bite my nails.
Your nails are typical of what happens after acrylics or gels are removed.
Go to a more expensive nail salon where they don’t use the dremel tool on your nails and they just use a regular nail file to roughen the surface prior to applying whatever treatment you want.
I have done acrylics and gels in the past. Now I go to a salon that does SNS nails. They apply a coat of some hardener/base and then dip the nail into powder. I can go 3 weeks between fills, and there is never any chipping or lifting like with gels or acrylics. I do pay more than going to the asian nail salon at the mall, it costs $30 for a fill and $50 for a full set, but no one is going near my nails with a dremel.
You might have some luck eating lots of gelatin. It’s an old folk remedy, but it does actually seem to work better than placebo level.
There are also some vitamin supplements that are supposed to strengthen hair and nails, but I’d ask a doctor about those to get the specifics.
I’ve always had very thin nails, and I let a girlfriend convince me to get fake ones done a few years out of college. It took my poor nails over a year to recover from the insult. I’ll never do it again. They were pretty while they lasted, but not at all worth the damage they did.
ANY treatment you do to the existing nail itself is temporary. Nail material is dead, like your hair.
It takes 3-6 months for a thumbnail to grow out. So it will take a good while before you will see any results. IMHO, aruvqan’s solution is the most practical.
~VOW
I’m a guy so I am curious. How does a fake nail glued to your regular nail damage it? Do the binding chemicals/glue affect the keratin of the nail or is merely the physical presence of something on top of the nail?
The artificial nail won’t stick well to a smooth nail surface, so first they have to rough up the surface with an abrasive. Cheap nail salons use dremel-like rotary tools with sandpaper-like round bits and file down a significant portion of the nail bed to rough it up for the adhesion of the nail, leaving your natural nails significantly weaker than they were. A better nail salon will use a regular nail file and just remove a little bit of the nail bed to prepare the surface. It still weakens the nail, but it is the difference between using a power tool and using a manual tool.
Once the nail surface is roughed up, it is dehydrated with an organic solvent and the nail applied. The artificial nail (acrylic, gel, whatever) adheres to the rough surface of the nail that was previously exposed.
Once you have your new nails, they sometimes crack or lift after a certain amount of wear. So now you are left with half an artificial nail or a cracked one. If you are impatient, you will rip the rest of the nail off lifting off more layers of your own nail bed. If you are patient, you soak the nail in acetone and rip if off once it is softened a bit and you still remove a layer or two of your nail bed that had adhered nicely to the artificial nail. If you are really, really patient or you have an appointment that day with your nail girl, you let her do it and hopefully she won’t rip off too many layers before she re-applies a new nail.
:eek:
Biotin, baby. 
I know I’m not the only Doper who swears by it. It’s at any grocery store in the supplements aisle next to the calcium and such.
The hair and nail vitamins they sell at WalMart are cheap and work really well to get your nails in better shape fast. In order to get your own nails to look good, you just have to wait it out, try not to bite them, and maybe keep a clear coat of a decent “vitamin” formula on them. In a few months, they’ll look great and it won’t cost anywhere near as much as artificial nails.