How to Care for Your Fingernails
Nails you can get results with and it’s thrilling! This year, for the first time, despite crummy “natural” nails from heredity, aging, poor circulation and typing all day long on my manual machine (the hum of an electric tells me the meter’s running so I should produce something brilliant . . . it makes my mind dry up!), I’ve got fingernails! File in one direction, don’t peel your nail polish off, wear rubber gloves in the kitchen, eat healthy . . . that’s all kid stuff for me, but it never kept my nails from peeling, chipping, disintegrating before my eyes.I’m already on megavitamins, thyroid and protein supplements. This is what did it: just some silly cuticle cream—again from Dr. 0.—faithfully rubbed into the nails at night; then I put on little cotton gloves to go to sleep. I also repeat the process as I do my face exercises in the morning. That has made my nails grow. If you have problem nails, I’m sure a dermatologist could give you a similar cuticle cream (the “growth” ingredient of the one I use is salicyclic acid, which basically firms up the keratin) to wear with little gloves, and probably you need to watch those other things—diet, kitchen chores, etc.—too.
Do we all agree? That cared-for nails with unchipped polish separate rich, glossy girls from the others more surely even than clothes or accessories? If you care to look rich and glossy, wear polish and keep it repaired.