To Ask How To Stop Biting Nails

[WednesdayBeetlejuice]

And how to help them grow without covering them with gel or acrylic and somehow end up with nice strong nails.
Happy to spend money on purchases if they have good results.
I have tried the stuff that tastes vile. The habit is too strong for that to stop me. I just want nice hands.

They look amazing!
Good colour choice too. Any idea what it is? I am always looking for good colours for my short nails

Definitely a nail file, even at their lowest, keeping them smooth can help. Also, keep small nail clippers to hand, and clip any bits of loose skin, so you’re not tempted to pick at to them.

I used to bite and pick absent-mindedly, so I try to stay aware of what I’m doing with my hands and keep them away from my mouth. I have even been known to sit on my hands in the early days of kicking the habit.

It is hard, but it can be done - good luck!

They look lovely OP. Keep up witn your cuticle cream and hand cream. Really massage into the base of your nails and cuticles.

The colour is called Espresso

As always the acrylics only lasted a week or just under and made my nails worse. But they have grown slightly. So today I’ve tried bare nails and have kept putting cuticle oil on. And I’ve gently filed them to try and give them shape.

Keep going OP. File only very gently and try to keep up with nail and cuticle oil and hand cream and really massage into the base of the nail.

Clipping every day so they are short. Once you have stopped the habit then you can let grow but for now they need to be unbiteable.
Keep a nail clipper on you at all times and snipping any loose skin/ growing nail.

I used to find even if I let them grow once they got to a point where I found biteable I would then chew them off. I found only by breaking the habit meant I could grow my nails.

I didn't want to paint my nails either so I switched one gross habit for another and found gum chewing helped massively.
Took a while but after years of having chewed nails and skin I'm now pretty sure i could kill someone as they now grow thick and strong.

They look really great, keep going as you are not dar. I really recommend taking a multi vitamin, it worked wonders with the strength of mine.

Thanks all I didn’t think about cutting them short when they grow. That does make sense.
It is when they grow that they break and get jagged and then I end up picking at them!
Any advice on how to stop getting hard cuticles that I also end up picking at? Hand cream and cuticle oil alone doesn’t seem to soften them.

Anxiety got the better of me again 🙁 so I’ve bought some cheap stick on nails to stop me picking at them.
I’ve pulled off the cuticles on one finger and my thumb and pulled skin off the side off my finger which is why I’ve got plasters on so I don’t make them worse.

Cracked heel balm containing urea is great for hard cuticles. Is there a Home Bargains near you? If so, get their balm as it's only about £1.60. It's as good as Flexitol so don't pay more when you don't need to (save that money for the nail bar!). Anyway, just massage a tiny amount into the cuticles twice a day and let it sit.

Been using regular moisturiser, cuticle oil and also my steroid cream to keep the ezcema at bay that I get on my fingers when stressed.
actually surprised with how quickly they are healing.
Todays picture.

Get braces op!! Has been a miracle for my dd who has been biting her nails daily for a decade!!

Drench unfortunately I don’t stop at just biting lol. I also pick and pick at them. I have a little counter on the Home Screen of my phone counting the hours I don’t touch them. Hoping it will help motivate me.

For those who get BIAB - what happens when you stop getting it? I assumed the benefit was that it made your nails stronger so you could eventually stop having it but then saw a thread on here that said that was only while the BIAB was on - once taken off and not reapplied it was exactly the same downside as gels/acrylics - the nail is very weak and prone to breaking. So essentially if you start the cycle of biab you're committed to keeping it going forever!

OP - I know you mentioned fidget toys but have a look at fidget rings - you either slide a middle band around or twiddle beads or something. My nail picking/biting is an anxiety thing so they give me something to do instead and you can wear them constantly unlike the toys. You can get cheap ones on ebay etc - not the nicest looking but they do the job, then nicer ones on etsy etc if they work for you.

Also burts bees cuticle cream works really well for me but it is flipping expensive for a tiny pot. Does last quite well though. Vaseline can work but the burts bees has quite a strong fragrance which puts me off putting it in my mouth. Also repeating the recs for Sally hansen.

I bit and ate my fingernails and bits of skin for at least 40 years, ugh, and managed to stop by only allowing myself to eat nails I had cut off with scissors. As they were bitten to the quick this involved letting them grow a bit so I could cut them.

A few months of this and the whole habit faded to the point where I just stopped and now it seems totally disgusting!

Biab has been the only thing that has stopped me. Gel I picked off if I had a bit lifting and acrylics I used to grown them but don’t particularly like the feel. My hands were so so sore before and now I have such lovely nails

60 hours in and still going strong!

For the skin picking, how about a ring that you could fiddle with instead? This has helped my DD enormously and her hands/fingers look beautiful now.

Also, moisturise regularly throughout the day. Keep a big pot of vaseline at your desk. It's much harder to pick slippery skin!

On Friday I had a very anxious day which resulted in me biting all my nicely growing nails until they bled.

over the weekend I’ve had stick on nails on to stop me making them worse.

This afternoon I’ve put my own colour changing gel on. In hopes to stop me catching them and making them worse. And also to shame me into not making them any shorter grr.

Really embarrassed by the state of them right now.