When I was in the first or second grade we had a hygeine lesson where the teacher passed out a bunch of emery boards and orange sticks and she showed us how to smooth any rough spots and use the stick to push back the cuticle. It was very important to her that the white crescent at the base of the nail be exposed. I got the impression at that tender age that it was far more than aesthetics, like you’d suffocate in your sleep or something so I took my stick home and religiously pushed back my cuticles… for about a week before I lost the stick.
Since then I’ve sort of neglected my cuticles to the point especially as I got older, except for my thumbs, the crescents are completely submerged. Astoundingly, I haven’t suffocated. From time to time I have wondered though, what she was going on about. Was there some sort of health reason for pushing back those tiny pieces of skin or was for her Looking Good extremely important, even for us boys?
I can’t see any legitimate health reason for this but am prepared to be proven wrong by Dopers who know better.
Just a WAG but I’d wager this was being pushed by the teacher as a way to get the students to think about and examine their hands. Are they clean enough for polite society? It’s the teacher’s way pf saying, “Hey, you’ve got hands and how you maintain them says something about you. Look at them from time to time and keep them presentable.”
Drying and cracking skin around your cuticles can lead to greater risk of infection around your nail bed, etc. It also considered poor hygiene, up there with not brushing your teeth.
I have never pushed a cuticle in my 57 years, and never thought it needed to be done. I don’t have drying and cracking skin, everything looks normal. I do brush my teeth at least once a week.
My 1/2 moon crescents are half my nail. I can’t imagine them covered up by skin. I massage cocoa butter into them several times a day. Plus: My finger tips always smell like chocolate.
I’ve had the occasional cuticle that tore when part of it didn’t let loose as the nail grew away from it. It was more likely to happen back when I was growing.
I think the “moons” have been part of folklore for so long that they get pulled into both aesthetics and hygiene.
The white “crescents” (lunulae) vary quite a bit from person to person based on genetics. For me, they are only visible on my thumbs and my index fingers, no matter how much the cuticles are pushed back.
Cuticle pushing? Hogwash. I have tiny lunulae on my thumbs and none on any other nails except for my right index finger which got smashed when I shut a car door on it. Now it has one, offset at about four 'o clock.
I have never had a manicure but I think that a standard part of the service is pushing back cuticles. It’s grooming, not hygiene. So is filing your nails. None of it is needed for cleanliness or health.
If she did I don’t recall and in any event, modern technology has likely come up with a different answer. This was six decades ago, you know, when butch wax was still a thing.
Whenever I, for one, get a manicure I ask that my cuticles get pushed back, and not trimmed.
I was told, and empirically confirm (perhaps with confirmation bias) that trimming makes those little itchy and unsightly threads of skin there pop up more easily.
I have never in my life pushed back my cuticles. It sounds painful (though in fairness my cuticles aren’t very big - there’s nowhere much for them to go except straight under the skin of my finger). In fact, the first thing I ever heard about cuticle-pushing was what BeeGee said - you can get an infection, so don’t do it.
Also, emery boards make my skin prickle all up and down my back. Horrible things. Smoothing out rough spots on your nails are what nail scissors were invented for. I’m glad I never had school classes like that, it would have been torture.
Me either - I just picked a tiny bit at one of them and it felt pretty unnatural, although not as unnatural as trying to put a piece of plastic into your eye or letting a needle poke around in your veins several times.
It’s all I can do to keep my nails trimmed, let alone worry about cuticles!
so I took my stick home and religiously pushed back my cuticles… for about a week before I lost the stick.