TO DEFEAT YOUR HABIT:
• figure out what triggers your urge to pick at your hands and nails. Stress, anxiety? Boredom? Stimulation? Whatever the reason, address it. Try out fidget toys until you find something that scratches that itch in your brain for you. For me it was anxiety and needing stimulation. So when I needed to busy my hands, I crocheted. And then eventually I switched to wearing a fidget ring! Just find something that feels good for you to do with your hands that ISN'T picking your nails, and then keep that object with you all the time, until the picking habit is thoroughly broken.
TIPS FOR GROWING STRONG, HEALTHY, PRETTY NAILS!
• You need to oil your nails and cuticles every day, at least twice a day. The best oils for this are jojoba, argan, and coconut. I use jojoba. It needs to be 100% pure. You can find the oil for affordable prices on Amazon. Google 'cuticle oil brush pen' and buy a couple of those on Amazon too. Fill them with your oil of choice, and then put one in your purse, and the other somewhere you'll see it every day, like by your bed, or at your favorite spot to sit. Brush some oil onto your nails, underneath the nails, and on the cuticles. Every day. Try not to skip! Oil is what's needed to properly hydrate your nails. And a properly hydrated nail is flexible. Flexible = strong. People think that a HARD nail is stronger but that's actually not true. A hard nail is a brittle nail, and brittle nails are way, way more likely to break at the impact point. So keep them oiled!
• I don't recommend using strengthener polishes, for the same reason as above. They make your nails rigid and brittle, which makes them less likely to survive day to day impacts and stay intact.
• If you find that your nails naturally grow out very thin and bendy, it means you are lacking in keratin-supportive vitamins, or iron, or both. A safe thing to do to help this issue is to start taking a hair, skin and nail multivitamin. Pregnancy vitamins also do AMAZING things for your nails. If low iron is what makes your nails thin, you'll need help from your doctor, but you can boost your iron by eating dark leafy greens and red meat.
• To further strengthen your nails and guard against breaks, follow these tips:
File them into an oval or almond shape. They've got a lot more structural integrity than any of the square tip shapes. It's because unlike a square corner, there is nothing on a rounded tip to snag. And the force of impacts tends to glance off of a rounded nail, like an arrow would glance off of a helmet. But don't go too far - pointy nails like stiletto are too thin at the tip to be resilient, and end up being more breakable again.
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Always keep your nails polished. (*Only if you're using regular lacquer polish. If you're doing anything that needs a heat lamp, then you need to give your nails a break like every 3rd month.) It adds structural integrity and protection to the nails to have them polished, and helps keep their exposure to water at a minimum. Water exposure is bad for your nails. If water soaks into your nails, they become WAY easier to break or tear. For the same reasons, you should always wear gloves when you wash your dishes, and if you do anything that keeps your hands wet for a long time.
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As your nails start to gain length, the most vulnerable spot on the nail, the place most likely to break or tear, becomes the side edges of the nail, past the edge of your nailbeds. To help support these vulnerable spots, always make sure you do a careful job of 'capping' your entire free edge with base coat AND top coat, with every manicure. And if it's been about a week and you can see a line of your bare nail peeking out from beneath the polish along your free edge, then it's time to add another layer or two of top coat, being sure to re-cover your free edges, especially the sides.
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When you're painting your nails, try to make your coats as thin and even as possible. To give your nails the best, most protective structure, you want to make sure that the tips of the nails are always as lightly covered as possible, with no excess heaviness or extra polish. The thickest part of your nail, where you can apply a bit more polish, is the apex - the slightly raised bump on the nail plate, a tiny way down from the cuticle. The apex needs to be the strongest part of the nail, because that's where all of the stress from impacts gets absorbed into your finger. An ideal manicure is neat, structurally trim, with an entirely capped free edge, no flooded polish in the cuticles, and no more than 4 coats of product.
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I personally recommend putting base and top coat on the undersides of your nails too, as they start to get long - it helps keep your free edges capped longer, and adds even more protection. But try to leave a couple millimeters bare at the way back, because that let's your oil penetrate your nail more easily.
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The thing that attaches your nail plates to your nailbeds is called your hyponichium, and you want to let that grow, as your nails do. They give very important structural support to the nails. To keep your hyponichium healthy, avoid stunting its growth. Don't pick aggressively under your nails with anything hard or pointy, to clean under your nails. Instead, be very gentle and use a brush. I honestly use a spare toothbrush and warm soap and water, and that works great.
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For cuticles, use an orange-stick or cuticle pusher gently to push them back. I recommend doing this a maximum of once per week, there's no benefit to doing it more often than that. Oiling every day basically eliminates any dry flakes or hang nails, so you don't really need to trim the cuticles anymore. If you want a Russian manicure look, please go get trained on how to use the nippers and dremel tools - you can really hurt yourself badly if you don't know what you're doing, and you risk gnarly infections if you don't use properly sterile tools.
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Toenails are a bit different. For best health and results, they need to be cleaned underneath and at the corners at least once a month. I use a pointy little metal tool called a culette. Getting rid of the skin and crud etc that naturally accumulates under our toenails is an important part of making sure there isn't too much pressure on your nail plates, or too much stress on your nails. For the same reason, it's recommended to keep your toenails cut to a length where they do not come into contact with the closed toe of your shoes. If your nails rub against the inside of your shoes, it puts stress on the toenails, and can result in bad painful breaks.
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If you do gel/builder/acrylic/etc, you NEED to make sure that your acetone remover is able to break down the polish, before you try to take it off. Properly broken down builder or gel should get gummy, and scrape off easily like old gum. I recommend buying salon quality acetone, if you don't wanna be sitting around forever. It works better if the acetone is warm. You can warm it up by putting some in a metal or glass bowl and then putting that bowl in a slightly larger bowl, with some hot water in it. !!If you try to take the polish off and it's giving you a hard time, wait some more. Let the acetone work! If you get impatient and try to just peel it off, you will tear strips of your nail off with it, and that's how you end up with paper-thin nails that rip and tear and break super easily!! Patience and quality acetone are a must, if you are doing anything other than regular old polish lacquer. BTW, never ever try to use clippers on a gel/acrylic/builder nail. You can cause GNARLY cracks on your nailbed and really hurt yourself
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My last advice is about changing the way you use your hands to interact with the world. To minimize impacts, stop using your fingertips to do things. Push buttons with your knuckles instead. Reach for things more slowly. Make extra sure you have a secure grip on a handle, before you pull on it. Same with carrying bag handles. And never trust a soda can, lol.
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I hope this helps you! Good luck, I'm really rooting for you! :)
