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Every woman worth her salt should always have her nails in perfect condition. In as much as manicure and pedicure has been equated to pampering, there are many underlying health benefits to them. With this fact in mind, what are the benefits of nail care?
Taking good care of your nails has endless psychological and physiological benefits. It not only makes your nails well-kept and fabulous. It also makes them healthy. Practicing good grooming and care will aid in the development and regeneration of strong and healthy nails.
The best part of nail care is that you have a ton of alternatives that have good benefits to reap from. All you have to do is to choose what is convenient and works best for you. From lounging in a salon and letting your nails be pampered by someone else to a weekend at home DIY.
Nail care will give you that fabulous look at a dinner table. It also helps to maintain good hygiene while fixing a sumptuous breakfast for your family. I have listed below the top 10 benefits you can reap from regular manicures and pedicures.
Table of Contents
1. Healthy Nails
You can smell unkempt nails from a mile away. They are mostly brittle and susceptible to breakage and infections. Regular nail care will revitalize, strengthen, and protect from bacterial infections.
A healthy nail quickly regenerates in case of breakage. Whether you are doing it for health or beauty purposes, always ensure that your nail beds and cuticles get attention to detail. These places are highly volatile, and they can be a hotbed for bacteria-causing germs. Who wants to rock discolored nails?
2. Boost Blood Circulation
Do you know that “ahh” moment after a good manicure that has deep tissue massage in it? That is what I am talking about. It is not about the good feeling you derive from the massage and pampering. There is a boost in blood circulation to your nails that comes with the massage.
Poor blood circulation can cause a lot of distress and problems to your nails. It can cause cold and numbness that can paralyze the mobility of your fingers and toes. Sometimes it can go overboard and before you know it, you have swollen fingers and joint pains.
3. Beautiful Nails
Beauty and glamorous women are synonymous with fingers and nails. They are completely inseparable. Where there’s no glamour, there’s no beauty. Well-manicured nails will boost the beauty and confidence of a woman a notch higher. Yes!
When your nails are perfectly done to compliment your outfit, you will be strutting in cloud seven. Nail care is one of the secret weapons to beauty. You are a brand and how you keep your nails is a projection of what you are all about.
4. Relaxing Me Time
Lounging in a comfortable salon seat and letting someone else pamper and massage your hands and feet is exceptionally relaxing. You could drift off to Mars and come back. It makes you forget all the cares and pains of this world.
This could be a perfect me time to call a meeting and rebuke yourself if you are veering off the righteous path of life. It is that perfect time to crawl out of a brainstorm and jolt back into activity. That is what a good manicure and pedicure can do for you.
5. Keep the Nails in Good Condition
Our fingers are exposed, and they are vulnerable to harsh weather conditions and an unkind environment. The only way to keep them in perfect condition is through manicure and pedicure. This nail care is holistic and both physically and psychologically healing.
The good thing about the nail care procedure is, it does not only focus on the nails. It extends to the fingers, hands, toes, and legs. Your entire mobility system will reap from it and we are talking about a bounty of benefits.
6. Relieves Stress
Are you stressed and you just cannot focus on anything meaningful? Perhaps you should try focusing more on yourself first before thinking about anything else. Perhaps you should try DIY manicures and pedicures. They are so engaging and distracting and before you know it, time will have flown.
Sometimes if you need to do some critical thinking, this self-care routine will help you through that. It keeps you away from anything occupying. If you are in a salon, you can finally finish that book. You can drift away in meditation to those less chartered places in your mind. Believe me, when I tell you, you won’t be coming back the same.
7. Infections Diagnosis
Find a certified nail technician who can thoroughly examine the health of your nails before working on them. If they know their work well, they will notice any developing infections and other unusual changes on your nails.
With that, you can pay your general practitioner or dermatologist a quick visit for diagnosis. They say prevention is better than cure. Overlooked infection can cost you a finger or even worse, a finger!
8. Healthy Skin
Who wants to have hands that feel as coarse as the sandpaper? Nail care is holistic. Both your feet, fingers, and hands will reap from that. It will make the skin surrounding the nails soft, supple, and healthy.
These parts of the body are extremely susceptible to cracking, drying, and unbearable sores. This is because they are exposed to harsh weather conditions and environments. The best way to keep them in good condition is through a full manicure and pedicure.
9. Boosts Elegance and Confidence
You would look out of place if you wore a nice little dress, classy pumps, and your nails are bitten and irregular. Nail-biting is one sign of stress and depression. That is not a picture you want to paint about yourself at that board meeting.
Dressing up for elegance is never enough if your nails are unkempt. Wearing beautiful and perfectly done nails is not the cherry on top of the pie. It is the sundae! Always wear a polish that compliments your skin and outfit. You will definitely turn heads and eyes will follow you till you disappear!
10. Versatile Impression
We all want to be mysterious in a way and we want to keep people trying to figure us out. No one wants to be second-guessed. Be versatile and unpredictable with your manicure and pedicure but maintain hygiene and elegance.
Wear your well-kempt natural nails from time to time. Especially when you need that modest simple look. When you decide to do falsies and gel manicure polish, never dramatize them. Wear subtle and classy.
Best Tips for Healthy Strong Nails
It is so empowering to just have healthy nails. Strong and healthy nails are not only for your good looks. They shift something in your inner person and give you that audacity to be bold. Just like wearing healthy natural hair with healthy edges. These tips will help you to maintain the good condition of your nails.
· Moisturize, moisturize, and moisturize!
Your entire skin, including the hard soles on your hands and feet, needs moisturizing. This means that even your nails and hair require the same thing. Make it a habit to moisturize your nails as part of your self-care routine.
Un-moisturized nails are often brittle, dry, and coarse. There are hand lotions available in beauty stores specially formulated to nourish your nails and to keep them well hydrated. Moisturizing. Consider investing in a good dermatologically tested hand lotion.
· Avoid Immersing Your Nails for Longer Periods
Yes, we have all heard; regularly wash your hands to keep them clean and kill germs. That is 100% true and that is what you ought to do. However, avoid keeping your hands long immersed in water as this weakens your nails.
If you must use water for a long time, like washing and swimming, consider wearing protective gloves. It has been reported that keeping your nails for long in water will also strain your delicate nails it
· Be Gentle with Your Nails
Be extremely kind to your fingers. They need that to stay strong and well-kempt. Act like a diva and don’t use them to pick heavy elements. Don’t use them either to pop bottles open, and don’t dig into the nailbed. Not even if there is something lodged beneath.
Perhaps your gel polish is lifting, and you just want to do away with them. Don’t peel them off. Instead, create ample time to carefully remove the gel polish without being aggressive to your nails.
Here you can read about getting your gel polish removed.
· Be Careful with Nail Products
Don’t just grab anything you see on beauty store shelves just because you saw it on someone else. What works for my nails will not necessarily work for yours. Take time to understand your nails and use the right products for them. If you are trying out a new product, introduce it slowly.
Be considerate and minimal with nail tools such as files and buffers. They can thin out your nails and make them easy to break. It can also remove the protective layer on the nails thus allowing products to sip into the skin in the nail bed.
· Mind Your Nails’ Size
If you have thin and weak nails, don’t grow them long. It will cause unwanted breakage and make your edges uneven and unattractive. Always keep them short and neat. If you must grow them long, use nail strengtheners to avoid careless breaking.
Constantly clip your nail tips to your desired size and gently file the edges smoothly. This will prevent jagged catches from catching things like threads and fabrics. If you want to get the best out of your nails, keep them that tender love and care.
· Mind the Weather
Just the way bad weather can be hard on your skin, it can also be so unforgiving to your nails. Both cold and extremely hot weather conditions can make your fingers brittle and excessively sensitive. Consider wearing protective gloves and nail lotions to keep them well moist.
A sudden change of temperature can also make your nails contract and expand. This is most likely to cause breaking. It even gets worse if it happens when your nails are coated with nail polish. It weakens the nail cells, but you could protect them by wearing gloves.
· Pamper Your Nails
Your nails are made up of keratin proteins. These proteins can easily be damaged through over-processing. This in turn leads to dehydration which makes your nails excessively dry because the natural oils have been stripped.
Frequent use of chemicals and polish is not a good idea. Make a point to wear your natural well-kempt nails for up to 3 months on end. This will keep them the time to repair and regenerate. Especially after breakage due to overuse of nail products.
· Stop Prodding and Picking on Your Cuticles
Yes, you heard that. Leave your cuticles alone unless they are overgrown and painful. Most people, including nail artists, treat the cuticles as though they were the ultimate enemies. That is not true. Cuticles are designed to be blockades for your nails.
According to a nail expert, tempering with cuticles is way more harmful. If your cuticles are compromised and hurt, their surface becomes a hotbed for infections. This will leave your nails severely damaged and painful.
· Try to Avoid Acetone Removers
If it were up to the nail artists, it would be better to leave your nails as natural as possible. But since we all have to somehow enhance everything we have, our nails included, they recommend using non-acetone removers.
Acetone removers are known to be dehydrating. They can also strip your nails and the skin around them the natural oils. This will leave them bare, dry, and susceptible to bacteria attacks. If you must, use hydrating non-acetone removers.
· Consult Your Physician/ Nail Expert
Just like you would consult your dermatologist before introducing a new product to your face, your nails also need just as much attention. They are your image too and you want to keep them as healthy as possible.
Most people naturally have brittle and weak nails. If that is you, consult with your physician or nail expert on the best supplements to use. There are tons of supplements that claim to strengthen and keep your nails healthy. Thing is, 90% of the claims are for marketing purposes.
Here you can read more about a perfect nail care routine.
What Are the 5 Things You Should Never Do With Your Nails?
I have touched on nail care tips, but this article will not be complete without the don’ts. Sometimes we unknowingly damage our nails and before we know it, it would be hard to salvage them. Here’s what you should not do if you must prevent damage to your nails.
1. Don’t Bite Your Nails
Even if it is a reflexive act when nervous or under duress, try what you can not bite your nails. Biting your nails will damage the nail beds. This happens when the nail is lifted and can no longer adhere to the bed. When the nail bed is exposed, it becomes a powerhouse for bacteria causing germs that cause infections.
2. Don’t Be Mean to Hangnails
They are very annoying, and you can easily be tempted to yank them off. Don’t! You will rip off live tissues and you will end up with a sore. You already know what open sores do. They attract germs and infections. Instead, be gentle with them by carefully clipping them off in a trim.
3. Don’t Use Harsh Products
Don’t go with product trends. Not even if they are the rage at the moment. Take your time to find dermatologically tested products to use on your nails. Once you find the ones that work best for you, stick to them and avoid any further trial and error. Remember to regularly wear your nails natural and to avoid acetone removers.
4. Don’t Ignore Problems
If you notice anything unusual and alarming, don’t overlook it. Don’t self-diagnose either. You are not a nail expert. If you see nail discoloration or unusual infections, make a trip to a physician and let them treat you. Just the way you would do if you saw a lump on unlikely parts of your body.
5. Don’t Make Your Nails in Unlicensed Salons
Most people are so used to just walking into any salon that strikes them as the best. Perhaps you should avoid these walk-ins and start vetting who does your nails. After all, you are spending money and you want value. Look for a certified nail technician who understands all about nails and stick with them.
Conclusion
If you are battling with a nail condition, known or unknown, don’t rely on the internet for diagnosis. It is wise to consult a physician or a certified nail expert. Also, stick to a certified nail technician and licensed salon.
Here you can read about wats imported when you provide nail care.
SOURCES:
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