(I am female, if it matters to how you answer.)
I am a patent lawyer, working two days a week as in-house counsel for a small local company and three days a week (well, let’s get real, actually 4-5 days a week) remotely for a DC firm. I do meet with clients about once or twice a month - not all the time, but not never, either. I rarely wear makeup, but I like having presentable hands.
I have been keeping my nails on the shorter side (if they get too long I make more typing errors), but not as short as a man typically would. I have been getting French gel manicures. Sometimes they last a week and a half, sometimes almost a month. (My nails grow out a bit in a month, but one of the advantages of a French manicure is that that is not very visible.) I have noticed that my nails seem to be prone to splitting and breaking lately, though. It doesn’t happen as much when they are short as when I let them grow out a bit, but one of my short ones just broke off the tip.
I do have a (bad?) habit of using my fingernails as tools, for example to peel off the plastic seal on a new bottle of Tylenol.
Is getting regular manicures a factor in this? Is the polish remover doing bad things to my hands? Should I stop using gel? (Non-gel manicures are lucky to last a week for me, while my current one has been going for 3.5 weeks and still looks decent, except for the one broken-off nail.) Is there a dietary fix for cracking nails?
Educate me, Dopers.
I get regular pedicures, but manicures rarely last more than a week for me, so it’s hard for me to justify the cost unless it’s for a special occasion.
For me, keeping my nails filed nicely and buffed is just as presentable as a manicure. If you like the pampering (and who doesn’t?) ask for a no-polish manicure, where they will shape and buff your nails and trim the cuticles. That may be easier to maintain and easier on the nails.
Get a bottle of a supplement called Biotin. The size I take is 10,000 mcg per capsule. It will make your nails a little thicker and stronger, but will take several months for them to grow out, so you won’t notice any improvement until then.
Not that I have had very good luck with this, but I hear that regularly using nail oil will help keep your nails from splitting. SimplyNailogical on Youtube has an extensive nail care video that goes through a lot of this and even has a recipe for DIY oil that she uses.
(I don’t have good luck because I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. My nails grow really poorly so I just keep them short. It also doesn’t help that I work in a car paint plant. I can’t keep polish on the things to save my life.)
I’ve had success using Pink Gel Coat. It looks nice, dries quickly and I can get about 10 days of wear out of it (and even when it does start to wear, it’s quite sheer so it’s not really noticeable). My nails tend to get dry and crack in the winter, and I’ve noticed a significant difference when using this - I usually end up having to trim my nails because they get too long! It’s not cheap (ordering for pickup from Walmart seems to give the best price), but much cheaper than going into a salon for manicures and it’s pretty easy and quick to use. Two coats and done.
Give your nails a gel break for a few months, take the biotin. I’m currently on a dip break while mine heal from the Dremel tool and acetone the use to strip off polish.