The appearance of our hands matters a lot. Sadly, our nails are often brittle and split for various reasons. It’s hard to grow them longer, let along giving them the desired shape. How to care for nails to make them stronger? Read on and test my top nail treatments.
Plenty of women dream of long, strong, lovely-looking nails that don’t break during simple day-to-day activities. Regrettably, the reality turns out to be different for some of us. Nail breakage and brittleness affect many women for numerous reasons.
Brittle, split nails – causes
The most common reasons why nails break include:
- deficiency of keratin, main ingredient building the nails.
- diet missing vitamins (B, E, F) and minerals (silicon, zinc).
- lack of nail care or improper nail care.
- keeping hands in water for too long.
- hands are “in touch” with chemical-laden cleaners too often.
- wrong removal of nail polish (acetone is dehydrating).
- wearing gel nail polish for too long.
- dermatological conditions e.g. nail fungus.
How to strengthen your nails?
If your nails look limp and break, it doesn’t mean you must break down too. They still can be fixed. All you need is following the right nail care routine and introducing a few simple rules.
Detecting the cause of your nail breakage and eliminating it is a priority – e.g. when a detergent is a wrongdoer, start wearing rubber gloves while cleaning.
A healthy diet is another crucial thing affecting the state of nails. Your nails love vitamins B that you’ll find in dark leafy greens, cheese, bananas and liver, as well as iron which is included in asparagus, brussel sprouts and spinach.
Rules of the Best Nail Care
Decent nail care is the key to success. Leaving the nails just as they are is no good: they are going to break and split, plus you’ll be left with very dry and pointy cuticles.
You need to find the time to nurture your nails at least once a week – cut them, file the right shape with a delicate paper file and remove the cuticles. Another essential thing is delivering proper conditioning substances – a hand lotion is sometimes enough but some of you need a strongly-nourishing butter or oil.
Remedies for brittle, splitting nails
Natural remedies come in handy. You can use home treatments to strengthen your brittle nails. What’s going to help you?
1. Castor Oil
The most popular and the highest-rated natural oil. Castor oil is ideal for nail care, nourishing, strengthening and adding shine to nails. You only need to rub the oil in regularly.
2. Olive Oil
Olive oil comes second amongs best oils for nail care. Soaking nails in warm (not hot!) olive oil is an easy way of nourishing, repairing and reinforcing the nails and cuticles.
3. Garlic Nail Mask
Rubbing healthful garlic into the nails is a brilliant remedy for nail breakage. You simply crush a clove of garlic, mix it with olive oil and massage into the nails.
4. Flaxseeds
Another nail strengthener is a flaxseed nail soak. It’s easy to prepare: pour hot water over two spoons of flaxseeds, put aside for a few minutes and then soak your nails in the blend for around fifteen minutes.
5. Beer Nail Treatment
Even beer can remedy your brittle nails! It’s rich in biotin, phosphorus, selenium and potassium so rubbing it in the nails might help strengthen and repair them.
