Builder gel to help grow bitten nails

[NebulouslyContemporaneous]

In desperation about my inability to break my nail biting habit, I followed advice I have seen in a few places and went to a salon to have builder gel applied, just a few days ago.

It is a lovely, knowledgeable salon and the staff member I saw was brilliant about explaining everything to me (I'm a total newbie with all things to do with beauty treatments).

She has suggested appointments every couple of weeks to begin with, as my nails are so grotesquely short at the moment (way below the ends of my fingers). And then reverting to the normal frequency.

My plan is to let them get to a normal healthy length (I don't want super long nails), then just have one or two more gel applications until I can start to feel reasonably confident that I have broken the habit.

I guess I just want to ask anyone if they have experience of using builder gel in this way and how they have got on with it.

Was it successful for you? Did you manage to 'stay clean' once the gel was removed? Were your nails strong enough without the gel to avoid the kind of minor splitting that encourages nibbling? Were there any downsides of using the gel? Does it thin your nails?

Because I have never used gel before I'm also a bit ignorant about how to care for my nails with it on. Eg, I forgot to ask the staff member whether I can use the very stiff nail-scrubbing brush that I often need to use after gardening. Would that damage the gel? What other actions might damage it?

I’ve always been a bad nail biter and now I have builder gel all the time which allows me to leave them alone. As soon as it’s taken off I start biting them again. With the builder gel they are very hard so when it is taken off they feel very soft and impossible to stop biting.
If you are gardening I would definitely wear gloves to avoid needing to scrub them after. The gel can get water under and start lifting off

I'm not a nail biter OP but I have builder gel on mine as my nails were breaking due to physical work, and I keep gel on just to keep them stronger.

I also have short nails and do not get them redone anywhere near every two weeks. It is more like every 4 to 5 weeks.
I end up going back as my then they have grown too long for my liking. So have them shortened again and redone.

I know some peoples grow quicker than others, but I'm not sure why they have suggested you need to go back so soon.

I suspect your nails will look odd in a couple of weeks with the regrowth as they are short. I wonder if keeping them looking perfect will stop you gnawing on them and by getting you back in sooner they can keep on top of it.

Builder gel will help as you won’t be able to bite them as it’s too thick. Just don’t change the habit to peeling the gel off instead.

I went down the acrylic route to stop biting mine - it's worked in that I no longer bite them and have lovely long nails, but I am under absolutely no illusions that if they were left without overlay on, the slightest unevenness or imperfection and I would be back at them again - I have to be very careful to get any slight edge filed while at the salon, and if I have rough skin on my cuticles - I'll go at that instead at the slightest chance.

I love having nails, but I'm a compulsive nail biter and I'd relapse at the drop of a hat. I also bloody hate having to have them done every 3 weeks but it's the price I pay.

@NebulouslyContemporaneous , for gardening, wear thin latex or vinyl gloves. I wear cheap thin cotton gloves underneath them.

I stopped nail biting by having acrylic nails, and I was probably having them done weekly to start with. Biting the acrylic ones damage teeth.

My nail biting was very bad. The nailbed was bitten down to about 3 mm.
It took about 6 months to stop. I've not bitten them since.

After 2 weeks with mine when they were short - they needed re-doing as there's not much nail for things to be attached to, so the pivot point where they'll be liable to start coming off is so near. These days I go 3 weeks - I can stretch it to four if I have to but they really look crap by that point and I can't type properly etc by then so they're annoying.

My nails and hair do grow really fast though.

Thanks v much, all of you, for your replies, which are all really helpful.

After 2 weeks with mine when they were short - they needed re-doing as there's not much nail for things to be attached to, so the pivot point where they'll be liable to start coming off is so near.

Yes, I think that's what the therapist was trying to explain to me. And I think that she was also saying that she can't draw out the length into any kind of slight extension while they are so short. [EDIT: I may have misunderstood about the 'slight extension' - It doesn't sound like that is something you can do with just gel. Perhaps she was talking about different treatments. It's all so unfamiliar to me.]

Thanks for all the other advice, too. Several of you have the view that you are never really an ex-nail biter, and that relapse will happen if you don't keep going with the gel. I wonder how long I would be able to stretch it between appointments once my nails have grown to an acceptable length. The therapist said (I think) once a month, but I'm not sure whether I can commit to that long-term.

Will def wear gloves for gardening but yesterday I managed to get my nails filthy even with gloves on. I guess my heavy duty leather gardening gloves had got dirty inside. The suggestion of lightweight inner gloves seems a good idea.

The suggestion of lightweight inner gloves seems a good idea.
I managed to get a job lot of them for something like £1 in a charity shop. They're good under washing up gloves or the flimsy disposable ones too.

I bit my nails a lot when I was younger. My nails have never been strong and when I have nothing on them they are soft, split and break. I started having gel a few years ago which I loved, but they still tended to break or split.

Earlier this year my nail lady ended her nail business and I've been having my nails done by someone new with builder gel, OMG it's a game changer. My nails have never been so strong. I have mine done every 4 weeks.