It is important to keep the nails on your hands and feet trimmed. If you don’t keep an eye on the length of your nails and take care of them, they can become sharp and jagged, which carries the risk of scratching yourself or someone else. You don’t need to trim them too often, you just need to tidy them up every few weeks to make sure they are growing healthily. Read our tips and we’ll share the secrets of nail care with you.
How to Trim your Hand Nails
Before trimming your nails, remove nail polish from them and wash your hands with soap and water. After that, it is recommended to make a bath, this will soften the nail plates and make it easier to cut them, especially steaming will be useful for people of age.
Prepare the tool, it can be manicure scissors with straight ends or tweezers. They must be of high quality and sharp, otherwise after the use of nails will split. To avoid infection, it is recommended to treat the tool with alcohol before work.
Try not to cut your nails short. This increases the risk of infection and can cause the fingertips to expand and become rough over time. The minimum length of the nail plate should be 0.5-1 mm.
Nails can be shaped in any way you like, but note that the ideal nail shape is the one that follows the contour of your fingers. In any case, the hand nails should be rounded. If this is not done, it can lead to ingrowth of the nail into the skin.
To keep the shape of the nail neat and flat, trim it only with the tips of the scissors, taking small steps – from the edge of the nail bed to the center. Do not try to cut the whole nail with a single clamping of the blade, its damage and splitting is inevitable. Use nail clippers in hard-to-reach places. After trimming, file the nails. Do it in one direction, from the edge of the nail to the middle.
How to Trim Toenails
Cutting toenails needs attention, because they are prone to ingrowth. Close or uncomfortable shoes, fungal lesions and toe injuries contribute to this.
Unlike the nails on the hands, the toenails should be trimmed evenly, avoiding rounding. If the corners of the nail plates are constantly cut, it can lead to a change in the trajectory of their growth and ingrowth into the skin. It is not recommended to cut them too deep, and even more so on the side. Go to my website Yurovskiy
Before you start trimming your nails, hold your feet in a warm bath with liquid soap, sea salt, soda, lemon juice or herbs. Then wipe them with a towel and cut off excess nails with a sharp pair of scissors. Do this from one edge to the other, in small incremental movements. File any sharp corners left at the edges with a file.
How to Trim an ingrown Nail
If you have not managed to avoid an ingrown toenail, you need to start treating it as early as possible, better at the appearance of the first symptoms.
Place your feet for half an hour in a warm bath with chlorhexidine or furacilin solution. This will disinfect the wound and remove the dirt.
Apply an antimicrobial ointment, such as Levomikol, to the inflamed area.
Use a disinfected wooden stick or sharp file to pry under the edge of the ingrown nail, pull it to the surface, and file it.
Slightly cut the edge of the nail vertically. The nail plate will begin to pull down toward the middle and release the skin as it tries to grow back.
Treat the inflamed area with green and try to put a small piece of sterile bandage under the nail.
Completely cut the ingrown toenail is not recommended, as this will lead to recurrences of the disease. To avoid this, you need to let the nail plate grow together with the corners.
What is the right way to cut a baby’s nails?
When mothers first see their baby, they look at him – what soft hair, blue eyes, funny folds … and terribly long nails. Yes, babies are usually born with nails long enough for a good French manicure. Naturally, the question immediately arises, how to trim the nails of a newborn.
Baby nail kit
Let’s start with the main thing – the infant’s nails will have to be cut often. Like the baby itself, they grow rapidly. And since the baby’s movements are not yet coordinated, he can scratch himself. Allow this is undesirable, because the skin is very sensitive.
You may ask about gloves, anti-scratching. The answer is that modern pediatricians are skeptical about such a closet item. In their opinion, such mittens interfere with the proper development of fine motor skills and knowledge of the child’s own body.
A child’s manicure set includes three items – nippers, scissors and a file. The clippers are used to cut the main length and the scissors to trim the corners. The file completes the grooming procedure and trims the roughness.
It is important to buy exactly a children’s set, items from an adult set will not work. Children’s tweezers usually have a limiter, so as not to “bite off” too much, and scissors in the set with rounded edges.
Preparing for the process
Once again, each child must have their own items for clipping nails. They must be safe and belong only to him/her. The rest of the family members can not use them – on the blades remain particles of dirt and bacteria, fungus. In this case, the baby’s immune system is still weak and unstable to resist such infections.
Check the blades – they should be sharp. Otherwise you will not cut the nail, but simply break it off. Treat items with an alcohol solution or hydrogen peroxide, and disposable alcohol wipes will also work.
Wash your hands with soap and water, and wipe your baby’s hands with a wet wipe. Moms know that trimming a baby’s nails is best after bathing. With newborns, we do not recommend doing this – their skin and nails are still too thin, when steaming you risk cutting off the excess now.
Procedure
Relax, breathe in and out. Smile. Sing your baby’s favorite song. The main thing is that there was no panic, otherwise the son or daughter will also instantly feel it. We will now explain in detail how to properly cut nails. You will only have to repeat it.
Put the baby on his tummy – in this position, he is now less mobile and will be less of an obstacle to your actions.
Hold your baby firmly by the hand or by the heel. If there is a dad at home, trust him to do it – let him join in the process, too.
Use pliers to cut the main length in a straight line. Do not cut it “to the flesh”, leave about 1 mm of length – otherwise you will hurt the baby.
Use scissors to cut the remaining corners.
