Nailing down good skin care habits can be right at your fingertips

Proper skin care extends to the hair and nails and a good shielding lotion can heal and protect brittle, cracked nails and dry skin around the nail beds.
Article:
When most people think of skin care, they tend to focus on the exposed areas of the skin – the face and neck, hands, arms, legs and body. But in fact, proper skin care extends to the hair and nails. The cause of brittle and cracked nails and dry skin around the nail beds is usually a lack of moisture.

Nails serve many important functions. With nails, we are able to pick up and manipulate objects. Additionally, nails help support the tissues of the fingers and toes. Most importantly, nails often reflect our general state of health. Doctors frequently look to the nails for more chronic medical conditions like liver disease, kidney disease, indications of poisons, and more. Nails, like hair, grow from the matrix just under the cuticle. As older cells grow out, they are replaced by newer cells, become compacted, and take on a hardened form.

Nails are produced by living skin cells in the fingers and toes and are primarily composed of keratin, a hardened protein also found in skin and hair. The nail itself consists of several different parts, including:

Nail Plate: The visible part of the nail on fingers and toes.

Nail Bed: The skin beneath the nail plate.

: The area under the cuticle, the hidden part of the nail unit where growth takes place.

Lunula: This is part of the matrix and is the whitish, half-moon shape at the base of the nail, usually most pronounced on the thumb.

Cuticle: Tissue that overlaps the plate and rims the base of the nail.

Nail Folds: The folds of skin that frame and support the nail on three sides.

Nails take a lot of abuse and nail disorders comprise about 10 percent of all skin conditions. The most common of these include trauma, white spots, splinter hemorrhages, ingrown nails, fungal infections, bacterial infections, tumors and warts, psoriasis and eczema, and even nail biting. Most minor nail injuries, such as fingers slammed in doors, ingrown toenails, and minor nail infections, usually heal on their own. More serious injuries or disorders may require professional treatment.

Because nail disorders respond very slowly to therapy due to the slow growth rate of the nail and its inability to absorb medications very well, prevention is often the best medicine. Treating nails with shielding lotions that provide barriers to evaporation can prevent water loss in the nail. Because nails are a nonliving structure, water loss from the nail is permanent.

By keeping the nails and hands moisturized with a quality shielding lotion, which protects them, promotes healing, hands and nails will experience less frequent dry cracked skin and be less a target for external irritants or infections.

Shielding lotions were able to help Rhoda Cores find relief from dry cracked skin.

"I use a shielding lotion to protect my hands from the severe cold weather here in central Illinois," says Rhoda Cores of Morton, Ill. "I use it every morning and have had very few cracks on my fingers and around my nails this winter."

Good nail care begins with proper hydration using a quality shielding lotion and can prevent many common nail afflictions, but should not be a substitute for more serious nail conditions. Contact your dermatologist for treatment options if your nail condition doesn't improve on its own.
---
Author, Len Simpson contributes articles on skin care for the National Skin Care Institute. For more information, visit www.skincarenet.org.