A Man's Guide to Nail Care

Well, we've been talking about women and nails and women and nail art and how we as women can take care of our nails but what about the men??? They have fingernails and I think it's only right if I dedicate a blog orthe heavy two to the men who use their hands to take care of us and do the heavy lifting. Shall we begin??

A simple task done well is its own reward. Not just proverbially — literally! There's a rush of happy brain feelings that accompanies even little ones. For most men, that firmly satisfied feeling is never going to accompany the act of trimming his nails.

The default modern tool (cheap drugstore clippers) and the routine associated with them (snipping off angled sections of the guaranteed toenail after a shower) are hard to use, bad for fingernails, and all-around guaranteed to make finger and toenail grooming an unpleasant chore rather than a satisfyingly simple achievement.

Take heart — there is a better way. Upgrade your grooming routine to get healthier nails, a cleaner look, and a much more satisfying experience every time you trim.

Now I know fingernails aren't a particularly glamorous subject to read or write about. That doesn't mean you should neglect them, though.

Typically the last thing you think when you hear “fingernail clipping” is “sexy.” But don't be fooled. Well-groomed nails, on both men and women, are part of a sexy look.

Women's nails are obviously beauty symbols; ask anyone who's strolled through the nails section of productbeauty products or drugstore. (In fact, the effect is so pronounced that medical and artistic references require their nude female models to have plain fingernails — if they wore polish, some governing boards would deem the images pornographic!)

Men's nails may not be as dramatically highlighted most of the time, but flip through any paperback romance novel and you'll probably find a reference to the hero's hands. They're almost always described as strong, sometimes as elegant — and frequently as having “clean, neatly trimmed nails” or some very similar phrasing.

At the very least you should believe in the potential negative effect of badly-trimmed how quickly nails. If it's really too much to believe that nicely squared-off fingernails are sexy on a man, you can still accept that long, snaggly, uneven nails look creepy and a little terrifying. That's not going to add to your sex appeal.

Don't discount the practical side to all this beauty talk, either — no one wants a loving caress from sharp or torn fingernails that are going to scratch the skin!

Anyone who's torn a nail or suffered an infected hangnail knows how quickly small injuries around the fingertip can ruin a day — or a week, or a month.

For a worst-case scenario, you can even consider the cautionary tale of going to a British man whose nail-biting left tiny open wounds that turned septic and killed him — or the oft-told story that Jack Daniels, of whiskey fame, kicked his safe in frustration one day, tore his toenail, and died later of blood poisoning from the wound.

Most nails, no matter how ill-kept, won't ever get that bad, of course. But you can still put yourself through a lot of needless pain and suffering if you're letting them tear, biting them, or trimming them with dull clippers.

TThe actual nail is like hair itself so cutting it won't hurt (uness you cut to low down). But, just like hair, it connects to the skin, and damage there can be just as painful as ingrown hairs, or as having your hairs pulled out. Trimming regularly and properly can head off a lot of painful accidents down the road