Winter Nail Survival and How to Stop Nail Breakage

Nails need special consideration during winter.

Winter is particularly hard on your nails due to the lack of moisture in the air that can dry them out. Even healthy condition nails are not immune.  The problem is even worse every year that you age since nails also develop a bit more brittleness with each birthday. However, there are some measures you can take to better strengthen your nails.

Changing Your Nail Care to Adjust to Winter Can Keep Them Strong 

Filing and shaping your nails is important, but don’t be fanatical about it.  Too much overdoing at this time of year with how dry the nails can be can weaken them further and cause splitting. 

Your best option is to go with a shorter nail. The longer you keep your nails, the more chance of subjecting them to breakage.  

Besides the nail surface, you also need to take better care of your cuticles now as well since they also are affected by harsh winter weather.  Moisturize your hands and cuticles every chance you get to help counteract the damage and keep them healthy.  After all, they defend the nails against infection.

Habitually moisturize both your hands and cuticles.  You can try hand lotions or creams specially formulated for both hands and cuticles in mind or separate products of hand creams, lotions, and cuticle creams and soaks.

Polishing nails also helps strengthen them in addition to separate strengthening products.  Yet, it is just as crucial to look for products without nail-drying chemicals like toulene and DBP.  Ingredients like acetone can be more brutal for weak nails.

If you don’t have a dishwasher or when doing housework, your nails would thank you if you wore gloves since the ingredients in those products can further weaken nails, especially the ones with antibacterial formulas.  Nonetheless, latex or rubber gloves often are hard to work in.  

What I found that work better is buying a box of surgical gloves at a pharmacy or one online that is latex-free and disposable.  They are about $10-$18 for about 100-120 count.  This type of glove is thinner for easier maneuvering for when doing dishes instead of the bulkier latex gloves.

For additional help in this area, I have two other posts that you should read:


http://nuts4stuff.blogspot.com/2014/02/restore-fragile-nails-with-these.html

http://nuts4stuff.blogspot.com/2014/03/tips-for-growing-and-strengthening-weak.html