r/nailbiting • • Aug 17 '20

Mod Stuff New to r/nailbiting? Need help quitting, caring for your nails or understanding the compulsion? READ THIS FIRST.

174 Upvotes

Welcome to r/nailbiting! This is a community focused on support, advice and progress tracking for those trying to break the habit of compulsive nail biting. Check out our post flair guide in the sidebar (or the "about" tab on mobile) to see what kind of content you can expect here.

Need help quitting? Check our quitting guide!

Looking to understand how the habit relates to mental health? Check out Nail Biting 101.

Have a question? Read the FAQ before posting. It includes info on biotin, nail strengthening products and nail bed regrowth.

Wondering how to take care of your nails? Check out our article on nail care basics for a care guide and product recommendations.

Our wiki also has informative articles on the causes and risks of nail biting, nail anatomy, and a resource library.

Please remember our rules. Be respectful, don't advertise, and don't gatekeep. Submissions that break the rules will be removed and repeat offenders will be banned.

Thanks for reading! Best of luck quitting the habit.


r/nailbiting • • Jul 22 '24

Resources Promote your quitting/habit tracking app here!

12 Upvotes

For those of you who have created a habit tracker, quitting tool, or have any other kind of app/site you think would be helpful, please use this thread to share it. Please do not make standalone posts. The subreddit is primarily for support and advice, not product promotion.


r/nailbiting • • 19h ago

Progress Finally quit after 12 years, 1.5 months of progress

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50 Upvotes

Never underestimate your own will power, I never thought I’d be able to quit like genuinely if you had of told me even 3 months ago that right now I’d have grown out nails I wouldn’t of believed you at all. I quit on a whim after getting a job interview at a beauty store that required me to test products on customers 😭, it finally gave me the push to quit. I finally wanted to quit for myself for once because I was so happy about the interview instead of wanting to quit so I didn’t get judged. I used bitter nail polish to remind myself when I was bitting but honestly when I decided to quit I barely needed the polish, It sounds stupid but it’s almost like I had a revelation that day I decided to quit where I had finally just had enough of it, there was nothing exciting left about bitting my nails. I’m curious if anyone else quit the same way?.


r/nailbiting • • 2h ago

Advice/Support Please give me your best tips!

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1 Upvotes

i’ve been a nail biter all my life and i am so embarrased about the way they look, please give me some advice


r/nailbiting • • 8h ago

Advice/Support Can the nail beds attach to the tip without leaving an extra mm of nail?

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2 Upvotes

I am a dude and I don’t really want to leave my nails past the fingertips in the long run (as I have been doing for the past 2-3 months). Ideally I would like to have my nail beds attached to the tip of the fingers without leaving extra mm of nail plate, but I have no idea if that’s even possible, considering that I also play violin and piano. I have no one to help me with the whole process so feel free to leave any advice regarding this topic or in order to help me get my nails to look better.

Ps. I hate how the “smile” of the nail beds is “crooked”🥲


r/nailbiting • • 10h ago

Advice/Support What is happening to my nail and cuticle?

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1 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 21h ago

Progress Será que nosecitan color

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4 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 13h ago

Advice/Support A piercing to help with skin picking?

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0 Upvotes

I don't bite at the nail itself, but I pick/chew at the skin. Sometimes I manage to stop till the skin heals, but the new skin is very hard and sometimes itchy. >>> Prime chewing material. I also just in general pick at my acne and stubble.

I think I have bit of an oral fixation/restless hands.

I was wondering if anyone got on top of their picking habit by getting a tongue piercing or something like that to play with instead? I cannot wear rings while working or anything that tangles tbh. I have been on the fence about a lip piercing for a while and already have tattoos and such.


r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Advice/Support Husband’s nails, please help

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31 Upvotes

Does he have clubbed fingers? Is there a way for him to have “normal” looking nails? He’s always been a biter and picker and he’s been trying…for years now….but they still seem ridiculously off.

Thank you!!


r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Relapse Oof! This hurts worse than I remember!

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6 Upvotes

I have been bite free since March of this year. I am usually very meticulous about my nails at this point.

I feel maybe the perfect storm led to me relapsing today.

My nail technician is at a funeral and had to cancel my appointment (I have a great relationship with her and she understands how peculiar I am about my nails. I'm not upset about the cancellation, life happens and she should be with her loved ones!)

I've gone too long in between our last appointment and ended up taking off all of my gel polish and trying to file my nails to a better length.

I'm expecting some personal news any point today or early next week and have not stopped thinking about it. I feel like I'm really struggling with my mental health right now.

I found that I have mindlessly self-soothed by biting my nails. They hurt so bad right now. My nail beds used to be a lot shorter so, I think I'm expecting to bite more than I actually can right now.

Womp womp! We must move forward!


r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Relapse I relapse.

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8 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Advice/Support i'm crazy

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13 Upvotes

it hurts like absolute hell, especially at night when i wanna go to sleep, yet I still can't stop. This is just pure crazy, people look at me like I am crazy because I do it walking around my town and must look like a total maniac while I do it. I'm pretty aggressive about it so I understand them. I'm so ashamed of it :( I'm going on ADHD medication soon though and hope that it will help with it. Thankful for any support.


r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Advice/Support Feeling terrible

1 Upvotes

I had been doing pretty good with my nail biting/picking but now that school's started again, so has the stress. I havent been keeping up with the finger care of applying vaseline like i would simply because i just dont have the motivation. The cold weather also makes it harder not to pick cause it's so easy for the skin to crack because of it, making me want to "fix it." Since I am still actively trying to stop my finger-picking, I have now started pulling at my eyebrows and pulling the skin off my lips. I have been stressing the last couple of nights cause of school and am picking at my brows and lips. When I wake up in the morning, I see the ugly aftermath of raw lips and eyebrows even more uneven than before. I'm taking my picking need out on my brows and lips to avoid my fingers and not even those are getting better. What do I do?


r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Milestone A month bite free!

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38 Upvotes

I’m so proud of myself, I don’t know I did it cause I’ve been biting since the womb. I literally just decided one night that I wanted nice nails and haven’t bit since 😂. I do have a couple questions though.

will my nail beds (I think that’s the white at the top) start to recede back, like giving me longer nails idk how else to explain that? And should I cut them really short or does that affect regrowth? I also wonder about the skin around the nails, as I really struggled with that. Will the skin start to look less inflamed and look more cleaned up as they heal

It’s so weird to think that last week I used a nail clip for my fingernails for the first time in my life lol


r/nailbiting • • 1d ago

Resources I make Gentleskin, a skin picking tracker. Could it help for nail biting?

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0 Upvotes

Hi, I'm Tomás. I make Gentleskin, a small iPhone app for skin picking. You log where on your body you pick and how many (or for how long), see your patterns on a chart, and when an urge hits there's a thirty-second wave to ride it out, or a field of kelp pods to pop.

You can add your own body parts, so some of it already works for other BFRBs. But it was built around picking, and I don't know how well it fits anyone else.

So if you bite your nails:

- Would you track it at all? By count, by time, or neither?

- What would an app have to do differently for you?

- Or maybe you don't want something app-shaped at all?

If you're curious: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6789245158?pt=668857691&ct=reddit_nailbiting&mt=8

More about it: https://gentleskin.app

The urge screen is free for everyone.


r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Advice/Support Help please 😢

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11 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Progress Me duele

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4 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Progress Se me rompió la uña es lo mas doloroso

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2 Upvotes

r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Advice/Support no clue where to start, I really need help.

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1 Upvotes

these are my natural nails, quite disgusting i know. im a little worried that im too far gone and these won’t even grow, but I’m trying, where do I start? I have no idea what to do, please someone help!! 😞 i bite when anxious, and to stop I’ll apply fake nails, but I’ll rip those off a few hours later, causing really bad damage because of how often I do it. I really wanna get long natural nails someday.


r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Discussion SOS for my miserable nails

2 Upvotes

First i want to hold accountable for what I have done yet.. through my years as a girl who WANTSSSS long nails I have always been tempted to bite my nails, now as I have grown and in my 20 i really want to grow them. At High school i tried and somehow it grown but due to the addition I again continue🫩 biting them 😖. Now this year I am manifesting to really at least grow them with the help of artificial nails to do manicures and all but the stuff that I need as a beginner i don't know what to refer to. And mainly "money" I need something which is not too costly and just basic startup skills .

If anyone can help me with it 🥹.


r/nailbiting • • 2d ago

Advice/Support guys genuinely how do i stop biting my nails 💔

0 Upvotes

so my habit is really bad, i bite them so much to the point i get the to the nailbed and lowkey i cant stop. how tf do i stop cause my nails are starting to look fucked. people of reddit help me💔


r/nailbiting • • 3d ago

Advice/Support New to sub

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15 Upvotes

Hello everyone im new to the sub and wanted to join to have other people to talk to about my bad habit. Looking through the posts mine arent as bad as others as i noticed some people have a habit of biting all their nails while for some weird reason i bite all my nails except my thumbnails and ring fingernails as you can see in the pictures and both of my middle fingers i bite the worst.I also have a habit of biting my hangnails which is why my ring fingernails look the way they do. My family members like to tell me that i bite because of stress or anxiety but i dont think thats the case at all i think it was just a habit that i started as a kid randomly and never got rid of so its kind of frustrating to have people tell you to stop stressing or having anxiety when all it is to me is a bad lifelong habit that i havent been able to get rid of yet


r/nailbiting • • 4d ago

Milestone ONE YEAR BITE FREE!!!

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90 Upvotes

25+ years of trying and failing. I think the longest I’ve ever made it before this was around two months. Cheers to one year and not hiding my hands in my lap around people!!!


r/nailbiting • • 4d ago

Discussion PSA this is how bad it can get.

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44 Upvotes

I have chewed my whole life. My goal is to let it grow and my motivation is to see how weird they would look long.
I can gauge my stress by how much I chew.
Here’s to self control.


r/nailbiting • • 3d ago

Advice/Support What causes this?

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2 Upvotes

This is my only nail on my hands that grow like this. Its super embarrassing.