What is Nail Care? A Comprehensive Guide to Our Deep Clean Manicure
This post is a companion piece to “Why Nail Care?”
Table of Contents
The Deep Clean Manicure at Atelier Anaiis is the detailed restoration of the nail bed and the skin around it, which falls into disarray through daily living.
Through this restoration service—or nail care at Atelier Anaiis—we bring natural nails back to a clean slate, treating the various parts of the nail area to set up a long-lasting and healthful gel manicure from our nail salon in Old City.
When you have painful nail damage that’s taken a toll on you psychologically, our Philadelphia nail salon’s solution begins with nail care through our Deep Clean Manicure.
Lots of things happen every day to our nails and fingers that routinely lead to short term and long term nail damage.
Cuts, bumps, and bruises in the nail area distort and tear our skin barriers, compromising their integrity.
The manicures we receive from nail salons that use regular polish and acrylic powders cause stress to our natural nails and the skin around the nail bed, causing nail damage like white spots on nails, paper thin nails, peeling nails, and discolored nails.
Frequent exposure to heat, soap, and water through cooking, hand washing, dishwashing, and showers can lead to dry nail areas, peeling nail polish, and painful hangnails becoming an all-too-common occurrence.
Through direct communication with our clients and time-honed skills with manual nail tools, the nail technicians at our Old City nail salon restore your natural nails and the skin around them through the Deep Clean Manicure.
Nail care through the Deep Clean Manicure happens at every single appointment for every client at our nail salon in Old City.
The repetition of the Deep Clean Manicure at every gel manicure appointment with us directly results in the easing and eventual eradication of the physical pain and distracting thoughts that have plagued you since you started dealing with nail damage and hangnails.
As you will see, it’s the foundation of all gel manicure services at our nail salon in Old City—the heart from which everything flows.
The Deep Clean Manicure is so integral to what we offer that we provide it as a standalone service, without gel nail polish—a rarity for nail salons in Philadelphia—and in the other three gel manicure services, it’s built in from the start.
Through our Deep Clean Manicure, we guide the rehabilitation of your natural nails from struggling with nail damage to becoming healthy, strong, and beautiful over time.
Why Deep Clean Manicure?
Beautiful nails aren’t just about applying nail polish—at our nail salon in Old City, we believe that perfect nail beds and healthy nail walls go hand in hand.
We’ve chosen to include the Deep Clean Manicure in every manicure service that we provide, making it the table-setter for our nail salon in Old City because it directly affects both the longevity and the aesthetic beauty of our gel manicures.
Combined with our staunch refusal to use e-files, the Deep Clean Manicure is the primary reason why our single color Signature Foundation Manicure lasts three to four weeks without chipping or peeling, double the industry average of ten days to two weeks.
The Deep Clean Manicure allows us to gather critical information about your nails, integral to the planning of every client’s customized nail health plan.
When you, as a new client, walk into our nail salon in Old City for your very first manicure appointment, we have no idea of the condition of your natural nails.
We conduct an initial walk-through online through our intake form for first-time clients, which requires photos of your current natural nails, but until we have you in front of us, we can never fully assess the severity of the situation.
You can imagine our nail technicians as airline pilots flying through a thunderstorm, only relying on gauges because visibility is so poor with the harsh rain making it impossible to see—“flying blind” is scary for pilots, and downright terrifying for the passengers, in this case you as the client.
The Deep Clean Manicure—nail care—is that ray of sunshine that cuts through the dark clouds, clearing our visibility.
Because of our specialty in nail health, the majority of clients come to our nail salon in Old City with nail damage that they wish to heal.
By fulfilling each step of the Deep Clean Manicure diligently and having a conversation with you about your previous manicure experiences, we’re able to come to an understanding about the current state of your nails and why the nail damage occurred in the first place.
This provides our nail techs with crucial information to make real-time adjustments to the manicure so that the techniques best suit your nails, regardless of whether we apply or don’t apply gel nail polish.
Nail care gives us—both client and nail tech, as a team—the optimal path towards strong, beautiful natural nails healed of nail damage.
Throughout the whole process of healing your natural nails with Atelier Anaiis, doing the Deep Clean Manicure at each appointment allows us to keep track of the progress that we’re making.
Bringing your natural nails back to a clean slate every time you step foot in our Old City nail salon means that we can actually show the restoration and improvement happening step by step before your very own eyes, an encouragement like no other as it usually takes six months to three years for natural nails to heal from nail damage.
Growing strong, healthy nails requires patience—being able to point to visible improvements that are happening appointment after appointment gives us feedback as a team that we’re on the right track.
Nail care also allows us to gain valuable insight from you about how your nails felt throughout the weeks with the manicure and to make adjustments based on that feedback, if needed.
At the end of the day, motivated clients who are excited by the progress that they’re making through each appointment heal their nails with the least amount of setbacks.
Last but certainly not least, the Deep Clean Manicure plays an important role in the aesthetic beauty of our manicures.
In our previous blog post, The Ultimate Guide to French Nails, we discussed how important symmetry is to the nail design, one of the key factors separating good French nails from bad and ugly ones.
Symmetrical French nails match the shape of the cuticles of each finger to the “free edge” or the tips of the nail.
At Atelier Anaiis, this symmetry is achieved through the Deep Clean Manicure, when we carefully detach and remove cuticles and shape the eponychium so that they match the free edge perfectly.
What's Included in Nail Care?
Nail care through our Deep Clean Manicure is a collection of different techniques that never involve the use of e-files, including:
A detailed checking of the nail bed for signs of nail damage
Removing damaged skin around the nail bed
Safely detaching and removing cuticles (dead skin cells)
Carefully shaping the eponychium (vital living tissue)
Trimming loose skin from nail grooves
Trimming hangnails that can lead to painful infections
Cutting the free edge to the desired length using clippers
Filing the free edge to the desired nail shape
Buffing the nails in the direction of your nail growth
The eponychium consists of vital living tissue, while the cuticles are dead skin cells that continue being pushed out from your nail matrix as your nails grow.
Understanding this helps you see why a lot of products that are marketed for cuticle “health” is nonsensical, including the ever-popular cuticle oil—these products moisturize dead skin.
Dead skin cells, no matter how much you moisturize them, will never come back and thus have to be removed safely.
This is in contrast to the eponychium—which should never be removed—whose role is to prevent the nail matrix (the unseen origin of our nails) from exposure to bacteria.
What to Expect from Nail Care
At our nail salon in Old City, nail care through our Deep Clean Manicure is provided both as a standalone service and as an integral part of our other gel manicure services.
All first time clients must have nail products from other nail salons removed before the first appointment with us.
As the first part of our single color Signature Foundation Manicure appointment, nail care through the Deep Clean Manicure takes up 75% of the total appointment time, precisely because we refuse to use e-files.
E-files, or nail drills, certainly cut down on appointment times at other nail salons, but the horrific damage and pain that they cause is one of the primary reasons why a nail salon like Atelier Anaiis was created.
The degree to which each part of the Deep Clean Manicure listed in the previous section is performed on every client is where the magic lies at Atelier Anaiis.
Every one of our clients receives just the right amount of nail care for their personal needs because as we repeat the Deep Clean Manicure appointment after appointment, we learn how the particular client responds to each treatment, helping us make adjustments.
We realize that nail care through our Deep Clean Manicure takes more time than most nail salons in Philadelphia take to do an entire manicure.
Our clients, in return for their time invested, receive premium nail care—one that combines unmatched skill with undivided attention to your nails, leading to long lasting gel manicures.
At the beginning of every appointment, the nail technicians at our Old City nail salon assess your natural nails, looking over the nail bed and nail walls in detail.
We look for signs of nail damage, including yellowing, white spots, peeling, and bumps as we gain input from you about the nail damage that you see and feel.
Depending on what we find, we adjust aspects of the later stages of the gel manicure, including the number of gel layers applied and the time spent inside the LED curing lamp.
This is why we insist on first-time clients’ nails being free of any products from other salons—we can’t fully understand the state of your natural nails if you come in with nail polish from somewhere else that hides nail damage.
Amongst nail technicians, we often say that no nail technician likes to fix someone else’s work.
Just as the master contractor who built your house will be the only one with a complete understanding of why something was done a certain way, it’s often hard to understand the reasons that other nail salons execute their manicures in the way that they do.
We’re sure that nail technicians who don’t work with our Old City nail salon will have a hard time understanding why our gel manicures work for nail health.
Once we’ve completed the assessment and had a conversation about the aesthetic you’re looking for during that day’s appointment, we begin to cut, trim, and file your nail tips to the desired length and shape. Then we follow the techniques we listed in the section above, What’s Included in the Deep Clean Manicure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the Deep Clean Manicure at your Old City nail salon?
The Deep Clean Manicure at our Old City nail salon is a restorative nail care service that targets the nail bed and surrounding skin. Using manual tools and thoughtful technique, we clean, treat, and support the entire nail area—helping clients recover from daily damage, hangnails, and weakened nail structure. It's the foundation of every gel manicure we offer and is also available as a standalone treatment focused entirely on nail health.
Q: How does the Deep Clean Manicure support long-term nail health?
Our Deep Clean Manicure supports long-term nail health by gently restoring the skin and structure around the nail using only manual tools—no drills, no shortcuts. With each appointment, our Old City nail salon team focuses on preserving your natural nail integrity and easing chronic issues like peeling, inflammation, and sensitivity. Over time, repeated care leads to stronger, more resilient nails and fewer setbacks between appointments.
Q: Why is nail care important for damaged or sensitive nails?
Everyday activities—like cooking, washing, or previous exposure to acrylics—can cause micro-damage that affects both nail appearance and comfort. At Atelier Anaiis, our nail care philosophy centers on healing, not hiding. Our Deep Clean Manicure addresses the root causes of nail damage and creates a clean, healthy foundation for gel manicures. It’s how we help our clients reclaim both their nail health and their confidence.
Q: Why is the Deep Clean Manicure included in every service at your Old City nail salon?
At our Old City nail salon, we believe nail care is the foundation of both nail health and beautiful results. That’s why every single manicure we offer includes the Deep Clean Manicure. This service not only supports healthy cuticles and nail beds but also directly contributes to the exceptional longevity of our gel manicures—lasting 3 to 4 weeks without chipping, far beyond the industry average. It's the essential first step in every client’s customized nail health plan.
Q: Does nail care affect how good my manicure looks?
Absolutely. Nail care isn’t just about health—it’s also about visual refinement. The Deep Clean Manicure plays a critical role in achieving the polished, symmetrical look that defines our work at Atelier Anaiis. Especially with designs like French nails, our careful shaping of the cuticle area ensures perfect balance between the nail base and the free edge. It’s one of the many ways our Old City nail salon blends nail health with aesthetic excellence.
