Nails are an indicator of your general health. It is important to take care of your nails at all times. You must strive for strong and healthy looking nails. People notice your nails, especially if you use them when speaking.
There is no excuse for jagged, uneven nails
There has been a great change in manicuring methods of late. The old steel implements of torture are banished, and the ivory instruments have long since taken their place. Steel should never be put to the fingers, except to use the scissors when the nails are too long, or to trim the skin in order to free it from hangnails. Read more »
Clean, manicured fingernails are timelessly attractive
The Finger Nails require special attention if we desire to preserve them in their highest condition of beauty and usefulness. To keep them clean, the nailbrush and soap and water should be used once or oftener daily, as circumstances demand. Once a day at least, on wiping the hands after washing them, and whilst they are still soft from the action of the water, the free edge of the scarfskin, which, if not attended to, is apt to grow upward over the nails, should be gently loosened and pressed back in a neatly rounded form, by which the occurrence of cracks and sores about their roots (hangnails, nail springs, etc.) will be prevented, and a graceful, oval form, ending in a crescentlike space of white, will be ensured. Read more »
This is a very troublesome and often painful affection. The edges or sides of the nail are disposed to turn down and grow into the flesh, giving rise to inflammation, ulceration, and often great pain and suffering. The best remedy I have ever known in this difficulty is to scrape with some sharp-pointed instrument, as the point of a penknife, a sort of groove or gutter in the center of the nail lengthways from the root to the end. It must be scraped down to near the quick, or as thin as it can be borne. This renders the nail “weak in the back,” so that it will gradually and ultimately turn up at the sides until the edges come above and over the flesh. Continue this as fast as the nail grows out and grows thicker, and you will eventually succeed in getting the nail in its proper shape and position. It will be proper to poultice if there is much inflammation, and also apply healing salve. If ulceration, bathe the part also occasionally with tinctures aloes, myrrh, and opium, equal parts mixed.—Gunn’s Domestic Physician.