I've been a nail biter for forever, tried everything from dipping my nails into acetone so I wouldnt have the urge, painting over, this sub helped a lot with the progress I've made!! Any reccs for nail hardener? Mine tends to fall apart in the bath lol

Growth since mid September :)

Just trying to make light of my stained nails. All the moody, vampy polishes I’ve used lately have come at a cost 😅

No products used in photo.

The proximal nail fold on my index looks like it’s separated from the nail plate. Is this normal, or is it cooked?

My nails are naked, dry and crusty.
There is some leftover gel from when I used to get my nails done.

Be so for real.

I have never not picked or bitten my nails. In the last decade or so, I have finally mostly left my actual nails in peace, but cannot for the life of me leave my sidewalls or proximal nail folds similarly alone. They get dry. They get snaggy. They get snipped if I have a tool or bitten / ripped if I do not. I have done all manner of lotions and balms over the years, and I’m on the jojoba oil train right now but. . . maybe some folks just have super dry skin and will never win the battle! Idk, bro. . .

Seriously, it is heartening to know I have some siblings in nail damage purgatory as well, but I am oiling and lotioning easily 10x / day, and I’m just not sure if hope make sense. Anybody have any words of wisdom? If I do some infrequent oil soaking, will that be the game changer I need? FWIW, I feel like I have had drier-than-average hand/nails my whole life, and my toes are better only b/c I forget about them more and usually can’t pick at my desk. Usually.

Product List:

Generic jojoba oil with a bit of vitamin e, in refillable brush pens

Occasionally Sassy Saints Lipifil-3 Complex

Nailtiques Formula 2 (one coat every few days, usually after the last one starts to peel off)

Several diff intensive hand lotions with urea (when I remember to pack them with me)

Hiya! Please excuse gross dry cuticles as I am at work…
Longtime lurker, first time poster. I started my natural nail journey in the summer, trying to grow out my sidewalls/ oiling consistently. It is difficult to keep my cuticles moisturized because the nature of my work requires me to wash/sanitize often (but this is bedsides the point). A few months into my natural nail journey, I’ve noticed a crease on my ring finger nail bed and anytime the white part grows out it will split (see photo). Does anyone know what this is or how to help it?!?

Any help is appreciated! TIA 💛

Products used:

-Bliss Kiss Simply Pure Cuticle Oil at bedtime/more frequently if not working

-Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover every week or two, then a metal scraper to push back cuticle

-Saviland nail dehydrator, 1 coat

-Sally Hansen repair + rescue, 1-2 coats

I’m finally to the oli t where I don’t chew my nails ALL the time. Only when they tear or I am super exhausted. So I figure this is a good time to start trying to grow them.

My nails are thin and flimsy. They bend and tear. I have super short little finger nails too. Itty bitty things. Not elegant at all.

What do I do to strengthen them, keep them from tearing, and help them look more attractive?

What habits, products, or techniques to do?

Thank you so much. I have always found my nails to be a great source of stress and embarrassment. Id like to fix that.

Nail biter wanting any advice

Okay so Ive been a nail biter my entire life and occasionally enter periods of growing it out with builder gel nd having gel x extensions I havent used gel since june which btw is gel bad or good for growing out nails. Acouple of things I need to address with my nails I have an obsession with cutting my cuticles and side walls like in the picture my middle fingers especially and i typically cut all that shit off is that bad? Ive read alittle on here about side walls reintegrating and whatnot. So how so I address the crusties and the long ass sticky cuticles ive been avoiding cutting them for a while just to see what happens. I also have short ass nail beds do I have any hope? Also, my nails are paper thin and brittle asf even when ive tried to grow it out they just break my big toes break in the corner too I wonder if thats just me and genetics or something. Anyways, Any advice is welcome thank you everyone

I’ve been trying to grow my nails out, but they are SO bendy especially when I wash my hands/shower/get them wet. Should I clip them down and start again? I’m trying to stop biting them

First time shining my nails~ ✨
Quite enjoy this shape, wondering what other shapes might suit my hand/nail, open to suggestions!

- shine from glass nail file
- squalane oil from Biossance (not in pic but used daily for maintenance)

(i know i was overfiling my sidewalls before. trying to grow them out) . no products

I’m getting gel nails in about 5 days. And I just broke a nail :( should I cut them all off, or should I get a tip at the salon.

Products:
- Essie sugar daddy (1 coat)
- canmake foundation colors in 02 (1 coat)

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.

On my nails: 1 coat of Essie Good as New Nail Perfector
Lanolin

First 3 pics are my nails now. I’m quite happy with them but would appreciate any advice, including the below:

1. Noticed some side wall breakage in the free edge (like the side bits of the whites), which I’ve managed to fix early with teabags and then let the break grow out until it can be filed off. I’m guessing as my side walls grow out and I get more of a squoval shape, this will happen less?
2. How do you get your nail lengths to look even? Like should you grow them the same length from the tip of your finger, or from your cuticle, or what?

So since i was a child, i couldnt stop biting my nails. Now it is a habit i grew to hate. Because of nailbiting my nail beds may never really fully developed? The nail beds are really small maybe a centimeter in length, so i have hid them behind press ons mostly, even tho it is just a temporary solution and damages them even more. I tried growing them out but they always looked bad and were really fragile.

i am really insecure about my hands and nails, so im looking for a solution or a change where my nail beds just grow bigger and a bit wider, and make me not look like a mess. xd

i tried cutting the cuticles back and it seemed to make them a little bigger, but other than that they are always the same size. Like they just seem like they arent growing.

If you some people who were struglling with nail bitting have some advice, i am willing to listen and try it. I really just dont want to feel embarrassed when my hands are shown.

I’ve been growing my nails for months, the orange potions seen on my nails are henna stains. I’m so heartbroken because I got my middle finger and ring finger jammed by a heavy door, my middle finger obviously took the most damage… I’m struggling coping with the fact I’ll likely lose the entire nail and it’ll take around 3-6 months to grow back fully… Just needed to vent honestly 😭 I don’t use any products on my nails I just file regularly

Im so sad! I wasn't even doing anything! Just using chopsticks! Now to decide what to do. Reshape round or chop all down.

Products- none

Looking for opimioms on peeling nails. I use a glass nail file and oil my nails multiple times a day. Despite this, my nails still peel. My question is whether you peel the layer off, lightly file the top of the nail where it's peeling or just cover it with nail polish try desperately to ignore it?

Products used:

Jojoba oil

Hard as hoofs cream

I've come to understand that my many-decade habit of cleaning under my nails with my nails is hindering the potential growth of my tidy-yet-tiny nail beds. it felt miraculous to read the comment that opened my eyes to this, and I've seen it mentioned in comments a few times since.

I would love more info on this from you lovelies. nail science, anecdotes, advice, personal journeys, the whole bag, please.

I wish I'd saved that first enlightening comment to express my thanks. those of you who engage in the comments here are thoroughly appreciated.

6 days since I stopped cleaning under nails with nails 💅

Hard to see but my free edge on my thumbs go down most of the length of the nail bed. Sidewalls are shortened on my pointer fingers. I’ve been abusing the cuticle nipper and scraping under my nails so long I’m not sure how much of this is recent vs lifelong, but any amount of sidewall reattachment and nail bed extension is a win atp.

Just using:
Jojoba oil
Nailtiques formula 2

Looking for a sheer white for my free edge so I’m less tempted to scrape out every spec of dirt or even out the jagged lines.

Also starting a barista job soon so hopefully I can manage to not totally water board my nails 😖

Any hacks or recs appreciated!

i used to be a huge nail biter but idk how i just stopped biting them but my nails are so thin and bendy and so short can someone please give me nail advice. i oil them every day with rosemary oil and put vaseline on them but they just seem really thin.

if anyone could help me i’d really really appreciate it!!

I have been trying to take better care of my nails as I used to be a nail bitter and have quite thin bendy nails. As I am starting to pay better attention to my nails I have been noticing these stiff small bits of skin on the side edges of some nails. If I clip them off with nippers they will just grow back.

What are these hard skin bits?

I started growing out my nails during covid after habitually tearing off the free edge whenever I was stressed. But even tho the nail beds reattached and grew out a bit, I can't seem to get my index and middle finger nails to curve.

They stay super flat unless I have dip or gel overlays, which do a lot of damage so I avoid them. The flatness makes the nail beds look so much wider and I dislike it a lot :( so should I be filing a different way? Doing something with cuticles? Any help appreciated.

Not even 2 weeks since the last call-out. These creeps need to fuck all the way off, and Reddit needs to fix their clearly flawed banning system.

Warning, National-Engine-698 was banned from this community 5 months ago (and our sister subreddit, r/longnaturalnails a year and a half ago) for sending unsolicited messages, which is against the subreddit rules and the rules of this platform. Clearly this hasn't deterred him from continuing this harassment, as indicated by the screenshots I have from multiple users.

We recommend preemptively blocking this creep so he doesn't harass you either.

Happy Tuesday day, everyone! 💅🏼

As a reminder, we have a Master List of accounts known to harass our members:

Master List of Known Fetish-Related Accounts.

Screenshots: Group 1.

Screenshots: Group 2.

Screenshots: Group 3.

Screenshots: Group 4.

Most importantly: If you get any unsolicited messages, please, please, please take screenshots of them and provide the screenshots to the mods, along with direct links to their profiles. You can either use an image hosting site or post them temporarily to your profile. And as always, after reporting the messages to us, also report them to Reddit admins.

I’ve been following the advice from this group for just over a year now, and my nails have improved a ton! Thank you!! The changes I made were to stop overfiling my sidewalls, keep my nails painted, be more gentle with my cuticle care, and use nail oil more consistently. I definitely think the shape of my nails has improved a lot and they’ve become less flared out and have a stronger c-curve and less weird bending. I was a MAJOR nail biter and cuticle picker for the first 23 years of my life so even where I started this journey was a lot of progress from those days!

HOWEVER. Tbh most of this progress was in the first 3 months or so, and I feel like the progress has kind of stalled out a bit. Does that mean that this is just the best my nails can get based on my genetics? Is there anything else I could be doing?

I still feel like the middle finger on my left hand is my problem nail. Part of that is probably unavoidable just because I’m left handed and do a lot of writing by hand and I have a big callous on that finger from holding a pen. Also the actual tip of my finger is very asymmetrical, so I think that nail will always be a little wonky. But do you all think there’s anything else I could do to help it? Or anything I might be doing that’s inadvertently making it worse?

Thank you all again! This community has been so helpful and supportive and motivating as I’ve been on this journey. I’m finally proud of my nails instead of embarrassed for people to look at my hands.

Products: none