# What causes hangnails?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 22, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579 "2004-09-22T22:56:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/1 "2004-09-22T22:56:31Z")
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of hangnails – both the painful next-to-the-nail kind and the fringe-like ones above the nail. What causes these?
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### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/2 "2004-09-22T23:51:58Z")
I think you are clipping them wrong. Don’t use a clipper for the fingernails, it is beveled and meant to round out the nail. A toenail clipper, on the other hand, is a straight slanted line…no way to round off the cut. If you round off the cut, the edges are going to grow into the skin, and, hangnail results.
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### Author:  [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2004, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/3 "2004-09-23T00:50:56Z")
Dry skin, my friend. Dry skin.
get yerself some good lotion and massage it into your cuticles daily. Your hangnail problem will be no more. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2004, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/4 "2004-09-23T01:42:31Z")
> [@ltfire](#):
>
> the edges are going to grow into the skin, and, hangnail results.
Isn’t that an ingrown nail, not a hangnail?
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### Author:  [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/5 "2004-09-23T21:08:17Z")
[QUOTE=Ruken]
Isn’t that an ingrown nail, not a hangnail?[/QUOT
Guilty
:smack:
You nailed me.
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### Author:  [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/6 "2004-09-23T23:15:43Z")
I agree with the dry skin diagnosis. My cuticles are horrible in the winter, they are cracked and dry and I get a lot of hangnails. I rarely get them in the summer.
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### Author:  [@MaceMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaceMan)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-hangnails/265579/7 "2004-09-24T02:31:46Z")
I think that hangnails are indirectly related to ingrown nails. In my case, my fingernails seem to flare up and out slightly from the nail bed near their side edges …it is a lot like my ingrown toenails (along the sides of the nail on my big toes), except they are are more deeply imbedded in the flesh, so they never rip off and hang. I really think it’s a genetic thing about how your nails grow.
Things that cause my hangnails to get worse are rubbing the nail against a pencil while writing, and clipping my nails too short near the corners. I bought some cuticle scissors, and now I clip any hangnails as soon as I see them, before they become inflamed and painful.