When Nail Picking Became Compulsive
It’s easy to dismiss nail damage as something that’ll go away on its own.
Somewhere in the depths of your mind though, you know: that it’s not temporary, that it won’t go away on its own, and that you need help.
And where will you find help?
This case study is a story about an Atelier Anaiis client, the courage to ask for help, and how she finally restored her nails.
Nail picking recovery progress over thirteen months.
She couldn’t remember where she picked up the habit, just that she knew that it was more recent than childhood. But she remembered very well the first time she did it; at work, trying to distract herself from the mounting pressures of feeling lost and rudderless, her left thumbs had naturally reached over her index finger for the peeling gel layer on her middle finger, her eyes following intently as they lifted the product and flicked it off. It wasn’t so much that picking felt good since she now had an imperfect nail, but it was the strangely satisfying sensation of focus that was like a magnet to her, no matter how short-lived – something that she hadn’t felt through work in some time. It was as if time stopped and she felt soothed in that void, allowing her to somehow catch her breath and straggle to the end of the work day like an exhausted marathon runner.
By day four of her new habit though, her freshly manicured nails were a mess. She’d picked off most of the product on her left hand, except for the thumbs, which were guilty of doing all of the picking. Later in the day when she’d been washing her hands in the bathroom, she’d seen a woman next to her notice the state of her nails, eyes wide. She’d flown out of the bathroom after that, embarrassed and ashamed. There was a voice in her head that was trying to comfort her, “You’ll probably never see that person again, so who cares?” But she couldn’t shake the feeling: she cared. Her nails had always been beautiful, and now that the prospect of regular compliments were fading, she realized that her nails were so much more a part of who she was than she’d ever realized.
Grasping at Straws
The rest of the day she spent looking at the big white clock on the office wall. 5:00 PM couldn’t come fast enough, and every time she noticed herself bouncing her legs restlessly, she became irritated by how slowly time seemed to crawl. Her work bag was packed and ready to go an hour before 5:00!
She bolted out of her chair as soon as it was time. She walked quickly and with purpose out of the office building, bee-lining to her spot, the nail salon she’d found around the office that she’d been going to for the last couple of months.
She walked in, was shown to the manicure table with a nail tech who was new to her, and breathed a sigh of relief. Her nails were going to look good again in half an hour, and none would be the wiser, not even that woman from the bathroom earlier. Maybe she’d even start to doubt what she’d seen, and think she was remembering wrong. It’d been a long day, somehow more stressful than usual even though most of it was spent thinking about her nails. She closed her eyes and drifted off as the familiar whine of the electric nail drill surrounded her.
She suddenly awoke to a shocking sharp pain from her left hand. She couldn’t have been asleep for that long because the nail tech was still drilling her nails, filing off whatever remained of the previous manicure. Every time the tech went across her ring finger nail, it stung, and for the first time, she saw what her natural nails looked like without polish: thin, with a purple hue as if swollen underneath, with the electric nail drill leaving marks on her nail, like skid marks on the road.
Before Protective Gel Care at Atelier Anaiis
Nonetheless she felt better about her nails leaving the nail salon. How her natural nails had looked without the polish had shocked her to be sure, but she tried her best to forget about it. It was probably temporary, and maybe the lighting in the place had made them look worse than they really were. She’d been getting e-file manicures for as long as she could remember, and it always seemed to give her good results, sometimes lasting her a week and a half without chipping.
She thought about this for three straight days, circling and circling around it as if she were a whirlpool, prodded to rethink by the dull pain that accompanied her now constantly. And on the third day, she noticed the nail chip on the left ring finger, the same finger that she’d been shocked by at the appointment. She’d tried hard not to pick on her nails ever since she’d gotten her nails done so she was confused. Sure, manicures not lasting a week were fairly normal but three days? This was abnormal.
Forcing herself not to pick on the chipped nail, her thumbs sought alternatives. Instead of picking on the nail itself, what if she picked on some of the hangnails she had or patches of rough skin? While hangnails were sometimes painful, that pain was also like a homing beacon, and the more she picked on them, the more satisfying it became. The patches of rough skin were even better, since they were tough and she could keep at it for longer at work, allowing her an escape from feeling lost.
So the rest of her week went, and by the end of the week, her nails were in even worse shape than they were before the most recent manicure. It wasn’t only her nails now: she had bloody hangnails and several rough edges that she continued to make rougher. She barely recognized her own hands.
It was clear to her that something needed to change. But what was that something? She spent the weekend searching for ways to improve her nails online, going through articles on nail picking, Reddit forums with nail pickers, and places that specialized in helping damaged nails. That’s when she landed on the website of Atelier Anaiis, a nail care studio in Old City.
The Restorative Nail Care Process
To become a client at Atelier Anaiis, the website had guided her to fill out the intake form, upload a photo of her current nails, and answer questions about her nail concerns. After she’d submitted in the morning, she received a quote with the recommended nail care plan within a few hours. The estimated quote was more than she’d ever paid for her nails before, but it made sense to her since she needed help and she decided to move forward, booking an appointment in two weeks.
On the day of her appointment, she arrived at the nail care studio in Old City slightly nervous, being ushered into the space filled with greenery, and invited to sit at the only table. No one else was there and the quiet sereneness while the sun softly filtered through the windows made her realize this wasn’t a nail salon at all. This was something altogether different. The owner introduced herself and made sure she was comfortable, then took her hands and examined them.
“I’m going to explain to you what I see and talk about how we can help heal your nails.”
She pointed to a thin layer of skin at the base of the nail on her index finger.
“What I first noticed is the distorted eponychium here. The eponychium is a layer of living skin that keeps bacteria and debris out of the nail matrix. If you look closely, you’ll see that on some of your nails, the eponychium is overgrown, and on some it’s not a smooth line. We see this variance often from quick manicure appointments that use electric nail drills.
Now, why is this so important? The nail matrix is the origin of your nails, and is one of the major factors in deciding the quality of the nails produced. In your intake form, you mentioned that you’ve been struggling with thin nails for a while, and this distorted eponychium is continuing to send messages to the nail matrix to produce uneven, brittle growth. One of the things we’ll be doing today is reshaping the eponychium on every nail to encourage healthier growth.
The other big thing I notice is, I see that you’ve picked on your nail walls. The nail walls are the skin that immediately surrounds the nail plate, but you’ve also picked on the skin on the finger tip. This has caused the hyponychium to detach.”
She turned her hands over gently, guiding her eyes to look at her nail tips from underneath.
“The hyponychium is another living skin under the nail that acts as a barrier against dirt and bacteria. This being broken leads to instability of the nails, and can lead to nail damage. We won’t directly touch the hyponychium to repair it – when your nails are doing better and they’re healthier, they’ll repair themselves by reattaching to the nail plate. The hyponychium reattaching to the nail plate will be further evidence down the road that your nails are in a better place.
All of this takes time. You have to understand that we don’t provide the illusion of healthy nails – actually having healthy nails means we need to train the nail unit and regrow your nails. On average, most people’s nails grow less than three millimeters a month. That’s why it often takes clients six months to three years to completely recover from nail damage.
Our job is to retrain your nail walls and protect the nail plate through the gel layer, which typically lasts our clients three to four weeks. During this time, the idea is that your nails will be able to reshape and regrow without being disturbed. Which means it’s really important that you don’t pick on them. This is your main job as a client here. Because if you continue picking them, the damage will continue to get worse and that’s not a battle we’re willing to engage in nor we can win.
Through consistent appointments and proper aftercare – we’ll send an aftercare guide at the end of your appointment today – your nails will become stronger and healthier.”
This was more learning than she’d ever had for her nails. Usually at the nail salons she’d been going to, there was little chit chat or if she talked, it wouldn’t be about her nail health.
The appointment lasted two hours, four times longer than her usual thirty minute manicures. But the immediate results were impeccable: her damaged skin had been carefully trimmed to be smooth, she saw that all of her eponychium were reshaped and now uniform, and the whole service was done without electric nail drills.
She left feeling, for the first time ever, confident that her nails were well cared for.
One Year Later
The various protective gel layers over one year of nail picking recovery.
One year later, thirteen months to be exact, her nails were unrecognizable, much like a wilted rose bush being cared for, rising and flowering once again at season’s change. She’d committed to nail care appointments every four weeks and even though she’d had a few slips back to the old picking habit, by and large she’d left nail picking in the past. This wasn’t just magic of course: she’d left her previous job for a new one that suited her much better.
She was in a better place in life, and so were her nails. Or maybe her nails were the catalyst for these life changes.
