Your nails are directly related to your health and personal hygiene. Dirty nails not only show bad personal hygiene, but also lead to many health problems. The germs in your nails are bounds to go inside your body while eating food. If you’re curious to know how to keep your nails healthy and shiny, read on to find out more.
IDENTIFYING THE CONDITION OF YOUR NAILS
Healthy nails are strong and hard and do not break easily. On the other hand, unhealthy nails are week and brittle and tend to break easily. Maintaining your nails can be a difficult task at times, but it’s nevertheless important because dirty nails can lead to bad health.
Nail bed is the skin onto which the nail grows. Observe your nail bed carefully; is it pink or dark pink? Or is it pale white? Pink or dark pink nail beds are the symptoms of healthy nails. Whereas pale white nail beds are a sign of unhealthy and week nails.
TIPS ON HOW TO PREVENT DISCOLORATION OF YOUR NAILS
Two common nail problems are; greenish nails and discoloration. Sometimes nails may appear greenish due to the presence of a fungal infection. These infections are highly unhealthy and should be cured immediately.
Discoloration, as the name suggests, is a common problem in which the nails lose their color and look like a dull shade of off-white. There could be many reasons for nail discoloration, such as; smoking, hair color and tints.
Other than this, nail indentations, white nails, yellow nails and nail split ends are a sign of unhealthy and week nails.
TIPS ON HOW TO KEEP YOUR NAILS SHINY AND CLEAN
- Don’t bite your nails. Biting you nails is a very unhealthy habit and must be avoided in order to prevent the germs from your nails going into your mouth.
- Use nail enamel remover for removing nail polish. Ever scratch the polish off your nails, this damages the shine of outer most layer of your nails.
- Don’t use artificial fingernails. They not only damage your nail’s natural shine, but they also cause fungal infection.
- Use a nail buffer to clean the outermost layer of your nails and to remove scratches from the same. This restores the shine in your nails. But don’t use a nail buffer too often as this weakens the nails after sometime.
- Dipping your nails in rosewater helps in restoring the natural glow of your nails.
- Wash your nails in luke warm water once in a week. Add 1 tablespoon of lime juice to the water; the citric acid present in the lime juice helps in removing germs from your nails.
- While doing any kind of work that can damage your nail surface, wear plastic gloves. Especially while gardening or washing utensils.
- Moisturize your nails regularly. Just like any other part of your body, nails need moisture. Apply some moisturizer on your nails while moisturizing your hands. Make sure that you do so after removing your nail polish.
- If you’re fond of growing your nails, file them regularly. This way they’re correct shape and size. If you have long nails, don’t forget to clean them thoroughly at least twice or thrice a day
- Don’t keep very long nails. Grow your nails to a manageable size and make sure that they don’t over grow from that length, because long nails tend to break while doing house chores. Accidental breaking of a nail can be very painful at times.
- If your nails have indentations along the length of your nails then this is a sign of lack of iron or calcium. Make sure you take iron and calcium supplements in order to keep your nails and healthy and shiny.
- Don’t pick on your cuticles or push them back. Use a cuticle remover to remove them if you must. Irritated cuticles may lead to infections
- In order to keep your nails strong and healthy, don’t use your nails as tools to open cans or any other task that requires a sharp cleavage. Use nail strengtheners to keep your nails strong and to prevent them from breaking easily.