Nails - Fingernail
careAcrylic nails are dumb
One day my thumbnail broke off completely. It was an
emergency situation so I walked into the local ladies nail
boutique and asked for half a thumbnail. The chatty girl
talk abruptly stopped and everyone in the room looked at me
kind of funny. They automatically assume you want to do all
the nails of both hands and cover the entire nail surface.
Then there is trimming, filing, buffing etc. Well that's
what ladies do. For them, false nails are fashion
accessories, not tools of the trade. "Why would you want to
do only one?", they ask. "Because that's all I need", I
reply. A good thing to keep in mind is that a ladies beauty
boutique is a place where women go to exchange stories
about boyfriends and beauty tips. That's why it goes all
quiet when a man walks in. If you unwittingly take up the
offer for "the full treatment", you could be there for
ages. My advice is to remain focused on the job at hand. Do
it and get out of there quickly.
Please don't touch my cuticles.
Here's a thing. Don't ever let a manicurist shape your
nails or mess around with your cuticles. For the
uninformed, cuticles are hardened portions of skin that fit
tightly against the base and side of the nail plate. They
can peel, lift, split and bleed when they lack natural
oils. Using a Vitamin E hand cream will prevent this. The
important thing is that the cuticle is a barrier to keep
bacteria from entering your body. Whatever you do, don't
cut them, unless you want risk infection. Manicurists will
offer to cut them if they are really ugly (the
cuticles, not the women). They also have this torture
device called an orange stick which they use to push back
and prod the cuticles in order to remove the loose bits.
Shape your own nails
Maybe it's just me thinking like a man, but you'd think
that a simple instruction like "please give me half a
thumbnail" is pretty clear and unambiguous. Why does it
have to be so complicated. Just tell them to form the basic
nail and let you do the filing and shaping at home. For a
guitarist, that's a very personal thing because the sound
and feel of a nail needs to be tested on the guitar as you
shape it.
Don't become an Acrylic junkie
Acrylic nails are not the horrible, pre-shaped plastic
nails you buy over the counter in a department store. Those
mass produced things are too small anyway and designed for
tiny girl hands. The biggest one, the thumbnail, hardly
fits on my index finger. Acrylic nails are created with a
mixture of acrylic powder and acrylic liquid. These two
elements create a chemical reaction not unlike two-part
epoxy resin. There is also a primer liquid which is
basically an acid-like cleaner used to prepare the nail
surface so the acrylic sticks well. This really stinks. So
I got my brand new thumbnail in a few minutes, thanked the
nice lady and walked back out the front door into the fresh
air. After I shaped the edges, it sounded great. I was so
impressed, I bought my own powder and liquid kit. Doing it
in a boutique can be very expensive.
It's amazing how you can get hooked on that stuff. Even
though I only intended to use it for splits and breaks, I
found I had to keep using it because when the broken nail
grew back to the right length again, it was weak and thin
as paper because it had been deprived of oxygen from being
covered so long. I used acrylic for a couple of years until
one day I managed to get some of the primer liquid into an
open cut (underneath the nail) and caused a painful
infection which took a couple of weeks to heal. Like I
said, the only problem (apart from the smell) is that this
primer liquid is a form of acid. This is not real good for
open wounds.
In an emergency, acrylic can make a very nice nail that
sounds good......if you're willing to take the risk. I felt
I had no choice at the time. The downside is that I had to
wait until strong new nails grew out to replace the weak
nails. So I basically took a break from flamenco for a few
weeks and played with no nails. Apart from my own bad
experiences with it, I have seen (and heard) some other
horror stories relating to acrylic so I strongly advise
against using that stuff.
Maintaining the playing edge
The playing edge of the nail should be kept smooth and free
of any rough spots. Use emery boards for bulk removal and
progressively finer grades of emery paper for final
shaping. It's always wise to test how it feels on the
string as you reduce the nail length. You can always file
off a bit more if you need to, but if you go too far, you
can't put it back on once it's gone. I also test a nail
edge on my clothing. Woolen jumpers are good for this. If
there is even the smallest split edge, your woolen jumper
will get hooked on it. For a final polish, use a piece of
thin cardboard wrapped around a nail file. This polish can
make all the difference to how your playing will sound and
how the nails feel as they strike the strings. I also make
a point to polish the underside of the nail. It does make a
difference.
Left hand fingernails
The nails of the left hand fingers serve no purpose in
guitar playing and only get in the way. Keep them very
short. If you have a habit of nail biting, try munching on
these left hand nails and leave the right hand nails alone.
It is worth noting that descending ligados (slurs) are
executed with the flesh of the left hand fingertips, and
not with the left hand fingernails as some people
believe.
Making nails stronger
Calcium, Gelatin & moisturizer
I'm not a nutritionist, but I believe nails can be made
stronger by increasing calcium intake. I can't remember
when I didn't have strong nails. But then again, I can't
remember a time when I didn't consume lots of milk, cheese
and yogurt. I have no proof, but I suspect there is a
connection. Nails are made of protein fibers called
Keratin. Some people believe that Gelatin contains the
necessary protein to promote nail growth and swear by it as
a remedy for soft or brittle nails. Gelatin is a
slaughterhouse byproduct, made from the skin, bones, and
other inedible connective tissue of pigs and cattle. All
this is chucked into a vat of acid to disintegrate the cow
hairs and rat excrement and then boiled to extract the
collagen. Would anyone like a marshmallow? Anyway, I had a
student who was blessed with really soft nails that were
prone to splitting. Among other things, I showed him an
article about gelatin so he decided to embark on a daily
course of Gelatin in the form of jelly beans. After two
weeks he reported that his nails had definitely become
stronger. He was a happy chappy.
Because gelatin contains essential amino acids which the
body uses to produce collagen, it has been used for over a
hundred years in a variety of medical treatments and in a
mind boggling array of foods we eat every day. Gosh! It's
even used to coat the pills and capsules prescribed by your
doctor. Among nutrition type experts, the jury is still out
on whether it's really any good for you. Party poopers.
Leave it to the experts to pour cold water on a popular
idea. As soon as one group of experts delivers a research
paper with a particular set of findings and conclusions,
another group of experts will instinctively set out to
disprove or debunk those findings. The general public in
the meantime becomes totally confused and don't know who to
believe.
I always view research findings with a deep suspicion that
they are dictated and predetermined by some hidden
commercial agenda. It's always enlightening to discover who
actually commissioned the research. I personally think
they're all a bunch of over-qualified idiots but sometimes
you have to make personal choices based on the only thing
you can trust; namely, your intuition. Damn! I used to like
jelly babies, now they got me eating carrots. The common,
but inconclusive consensus seems to be that the gelatin
remedy for weak nails is all a load of bullshit. Their
argument is that gelatin is a poor source of protein and
amino acids and that brittle nails have more to do with a
lack of moisture than protein deficiency. One thing they do
agree on however is that using moisturizer will
certainly help to strengthen weak and brittle nails.
Another thing they agree on is that applying a nail
hardener is a good idea, but avoid products containing
toluene, sulfonamide or formaldehyde.
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Strengthen weak nails with a
simple Vitamin.
A reader suggested that Biotin can be a
lifesaver for people with weak nails.
Biotin is Vitamin B7, a B complex
Vitamin.
It is also known as Vitamin H.
In his own
words.
"Its a vitamin B
thing and my cousin who is a horse vet told
me that they give it to horses to harden
their hooves. Trust me here, I tried most
of that other sh*t you mentioned, none of
it holds a candle to this. I normally have
the thinnest nails. Not anymore. You can
buy it at any grocery store. One pill a day
first thing in the morning. It takes 40 -
60 days to grow in when you start but the
difference is amazing. So buy a tin of
Biotin."
Mikael - USA - 29 July
2009
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