Brittle or Peeling Nails
This does get into some technical details - but some people do want a detailed explanation for nail peeling or brittleness...
What the nail industry won't tell you is that most nail damage is NOT hereditary and NOT due to a poor diet or aging. MOST NAIL ISSUES ARE ENVIRONMENTAL in nature.
They don't want you to know this. They want you to think your ONLY solution is to cover them up with gel or acrylic etc (which means money for them with trips to the salon every two to three weeks).
Understanding the Basics of the Natural Nail
Nail is created as new nail cells push older nail plate cells forward; and in this way older cells become compressed, flat, and translucent. Nails are not living cells and applying vitamins or essential oils is really a waste of time and money. One of the most crucial and simplest aspects of nail care is maintaining the correct moisture balance in your nails.
Moisture is essential for maintaining the health and integrity of the nail plate, as it prevents brittleness, cracking, and peeling. However, too much or too little moisture can also cause damage to the nail. It is not just moisture though - it is finding the right balance between water and oils within that moisture content.
Water Content - The Good:
Your nails, like the rest of your body, require hydration. Water is a main component of the nail plate, along with a combination of oils it accounts for about about 18% of its weight in a healthy nail. Water helps keep the nail flexible and resilient.
Water Content - The Bad:
Excessive exposure to water, such as through prolonged soaking or frequent hand washing, or even doing dishes can weaken the nail. It causes swelling and shrinking of the nail plate, which can weaken its structure and make it more prone to breakage. If it causes layers of the nail to actually separate it can lead to long term peeling problems.
OIL Content - The Good:
Oil is a natural substance that is produced by the sebaceous glands in the skin and the nail fold. Oil helps lubricate and protect the nail plate from water loss and environmental factors. Oil also helps fill up the spaces within the nail plate and prevent water from entering and causing damage in these areas. Most oil is not easily able to penetrate into the nail plate.
OIL Content - The Bad:
Too much oil can make the nail greasy and dull, while too little oil can make the nail dehydrated and fragile. Natural oils in the nail can also be easily removed through the chemicals in our daily lives (soap, sanitizer etc.) so supplementing these oils is often required.
Why Haven't Other Nails Products Worked?
The nail plate is extremely difficult for anything (except water) to penetrate easily. Proof of this is how your nails respond after a long bath or how hard it is for a topical fungus product to actually penetrate the nail and work. Ingredient composition and complicated chemistry and biology allow a small amount of FlexiNail to penetrate the nail plate with each application. On its own, a single application does very little. Over time, with repeated daily applications the level in the nail increases. This level is unfortunately lessened every time we wash our hands, do dishes or use hand sanitizer or polish remover. The process takes initial time to establish the correct moisture and oil balance in the nail. After a couple of weeks your nails may even seem worse off as they react and adjust to the applications. A couple of weeks further and this adjustment passes. Once a balanced oil and moisture level is achieved, then the nail condition is easily maintained.
Other Issues than Regulating Water and Oil Content in the Nail
There are of course other causes of weak or brittle nails such as medical issues, nutrient deficiencies, excessive use of harsh nail products like acetone, frequent manicures or even aggressive nail filing. In most cases though, beautiful natural nails can be achieved by lessening the exposure use to harsh nail products and instead applying a conditioning product designed to penetrate the nail. This helps the nail achieve the correct oil and moisture content that promotes nail strength and resilience.
FlexiNail's range of natural nail care products is impressive, but its primary conditioner is truly unique. Unlike chemical nail hardeners containing formaldehyde and toluene or other harsh alcohols or chemicals, FlexiNail breaks the cycle of long term nail damage. It is incredibly easy to initially use and then maintain strong, great looking NATURAL nails.
Nail Plate Composition
The nail plate is the hard part of the nail that grows out and is composed of three primary layers (but actually a much larger number of layers) of compacted dead cells (dorsal, intermediate and ventral nail plates). Without getting TOO technical the "toughness" of the nail plate relates to the alignment of the keratin fibers and to disulfide cross-links.
Nails Peeling:
To simplify, nail peeling is when the bonds between the layers of nails break. When these separated nail layers grow to the end of the fingers they are able to peel apart and fray.
Although there can be medical reasons for peeling nails - one significant cause is the result of a repeated series of the nail drying out and then being hydrated.
The stress of this repeated cycle of drying out / hydrating can cause the different layers of the nail to actually separate from each other. You can't apply anything to the nail to cause these separated nail layers to "fuse" back together. If you are starting with peeling nails, breaking the cycle of nail damage starts with stopping these layers from separating and then growing out the already damaged nail while helping to prevent layer separation on newer nail growth.
Nail Brittleness
Damage to the nail's protective coating can cause the nail to "dry out". This causes the nail to become brittle.
- harsh nail products (nail polish / acetone remover)
- gluing / application of fake nails or gel nails etc
- harsh drying climates (hot or cold)
- excessive exposure to water
- other chemicals (alcohol hand sanitizer etc)
- cutting cuticles (they act as a seal - skin to nail plate)
- poor nail care (pulling hang nails, biting nails)
What to do?
Try and avoid as many of the above issues as you can.
These things all strip out the protective elements of the nail plate and lead to the nail plate drying out which leads nail brittleness and possibly also to nail peeling. Environmental factors however can be difficult to change and that is why a simple 25 second daily application of FlexiNail helps. It works to penetrate the nail plate and help maintain the correct "moisture" content for the nail. Remember that too much "moisture" (think of the weak nails after coming out of a bath) is just as bad as not enough (dry, brittle, cracking and splitting).
If you are still reading... then you are REALLY interested in the human nail. Stop reading now if you aren't a chemistry geek.
The main chemical composition of the nail is keratin. There are alpha-keratin (helical) filaments and cystine rich (non-helical) keratins. The nail contains different amino acids and bunch up to form polypeptide chains in the keratin. There are covalent disulfide cross-links and linkages that are said to be responsible for nail hardness. In addition to these disulfide cross links there are also secondary bonds (polar linkages, peptide linkages, hydrogen linkages etc) within the keratin structure. All of this contributing to the unique structure of the nail. Chemistry is the primary determinate of how a product can penetrate (even a little tiny bit each time) into the nail plate. A proper protective nail plate coating will help the the water content of the nail stay in the 15 to 18% range. This is important and plays a role in the flexibility or elasticity of the nail.
The name "FLEX" in FlexiNail comes from the desired flexibility or elasticity in a healthy nail. You can chemically alter a nail to become hard (with formaldehyde for example) but a hard chemically altered nail is not what you want (not to mention you would have to apply formaldehyde!) Achieving and then MAINTAINING the correct balance of "moisture" in the nail plays a critical role in natural nail care.