How to Trim Your Cuticles at Home for Neat, Healthy-Looking Nails

Hey guys. So, in the midst of all of my pedicure articles , I've gotten a few questions on how to actually remove your cuticle. And although I have a article on how to remove your cuticles without bleeding, I don't actually have a article on how to cut them. Now, I know that cutting can be pretty controversial and that most people would just like to go see a professional. But, as you guys know, I like to DIY everything, which is exactly why I Pin to Skillshare because with any good DIY, you need a solid foundation and actually know what you're doing. So, in case you guys don't

Skillshare

know, basically Skillshare is an online platform where you can go to learn new skills. Kind of like how you guys are Reading this article on how to do something. Well, you can go to Skillshare and learn how to do anything. It's a resource that I use and I do personally pay for myself because I like to educate myself and pick up skills that I wasn't necessarily taught in school, but still need to advance it. So, it's a great resource for whether you just want to do it for personal use or if you are running a business and are trying to wear a couple of different hats. Lately, I've been taking a lot of classes on just learning like digital stuff because I'm always trying to produce better articles  for you guys because um it keeps it fun for me and hopefully makes it enjoyable for you. And if you guys do want to try it yourself, then I have a twomonth free trial which will be linked in the description box. And after that, the monthly subscription is pretty

ORG Mineral Peel

affordable at less than 10 bucks a month. It's a pretty good deal for unlimited classes. So, in case you guys haven't seen any of my other articles , which I'm hope that you have at this point, but in case you haven't, you guys know that my holy grail cuticle softener that isn't actually a cuticle softener is the OG mineral peel. And this is actually like a liquid exfoliant. So, what you do is just spray this on and then you rub it into the skin and it starts to break down or loosen the glue that makes your dead skin cells stick together. So, as you can imagine, that makes it perfect for cuticles because the cuticle does exactly that. They act as kind of a double-sided tape between your proximal nail fold and your natural nail plate. Now, I'm going to stop you guys here because in case anything that I am saying right now doesn't make any sense to you, you really should read my previous article, which is how to remove the cuticles without bleeding because it talks about the anatomy of the nail. It's really going to help you understand the structure of your nail, which is needless to say really important if you plan on sticking a blade in this area. So, please go do that and then come back here. You can get to the article by checking it in the description box or it is also on the playlist if you click on the eye in the righthand corner of the screen. I don't always do this step.

Cuticle Definition

Sometimes I just go straight in for a dry manicure. But as you can imagine, it makes the cutting part a lot faster because you obviously have less skin to remove. But if you don't have it, water works just fine. So if you don't have this product or anything similar to it, just soak your hands in water for like 3 to 5 minutes. After I used the mineral peel as a cuticle softener, I've gotten rid of a lot of skin. But as you can still see, I do have some left over. And the skin over in this area right here is the true definition of cuticle. Because you will be tempted to remove skin that is not actually cuticle, which is okay, but it's just important that you know what it actually is. The cuticle is only the skin that comes from underneath of the proximal nail fold and attaches itself to your natural nail. And so when that skin gets dry and dehydrated, it detaches from the nail and just kind of hangs there. But it doesn't stop there because people usually also have dead skin surrounding their nail on the lateral nail folds or somewhere on their finger that causes hang nails. So unlike

How to Use

the name implies, they're actually just dry skin. So the basic rule of thumb when using cuticle nippers is that you want to hold the blade parallel to your skin. So most of your movements are really going to be in your wrist because that is how you're going to correct the angle of the blade so that you're holding it level with the surface of your skin. And this will be the most effective way for you to get those little hangails and little pieces of skin without actually cutting into the skin more than is necessary and causing a jagged edge that also peels after you remove this one. Now, another thing that you'll notice about your cuticle nippers is that they are perfectly engineered to sit into that space where your cuticle lives. So, if you were to close the nippers and then sit them into the groove underneath the proximal nail fold, you would see that it really glides very easily around that curve. And I do recommend that you kind of play with this motion because then it's going to make gliding around the cuticle line while your scissors are actually opening and closing a lot more comfortable and also dwindle the probability that you cut yourself because your hand and wrist will start to develop a muscle memory.

Cutting Technique

The first thing you'll notice that I do is that I take my free finger and I pull the skin tight just so that I can really reveal what's going on in that little crevice underneath of the proximal nail fold. Because the more visible the skin is, the easier it's going to be to cut away. Then once I expose the skin fully with my nippers slightly open, I line it with the skin that I need to cut. I very gently close them. Don't go in and immediately pinch really hard. That way once they make contact with the skin, if you feel any pain, you can kind of back off before you commit to fully cutting it and possibly cutting living skin.

Identifying Skin to Cut

Now, when it comes to actually knowing what skin is appropriate for you to cut, this is the closest thing that I can pretty much relate it to. If you've ever gone to pour a drink into a glass without looking at the room, you could probably tell just by looking through it how thick the glass actually was. That is how I know how much skin I can actually cut because I can see a little bit of a shadow through the translucent skin that is ready to come off. So, as I mentioned, people do often use their cuticle nippers not just to remove the cuticle, but also to remove dead keratinized or dry callous skin around the nail or on the finger. And if you've seen any of my pedicures, which hopefully you have, then you know that soaking your feet and or soaking your hands would be really helpful in identifying what skin is dead and what skin is living. Because when dead skin is full of water, it does often become very translucent or it turns white. So you can use that same rule or principle when it comes to doing your manicure as well.

Checking the Results

So then when I'm done, just to kind of check my work, I will either use a um water soaked gauze or cotton just to kind of wipe down the area. As I mentioned before, if you guys are still not feeling very skilled at this and just want to make sure that you have a smooth surface, maybe you feel like you have some jagged edges from cutting with the scissors, what I recommend doing is taking a file or two files more specifically and kind of just running that along the skin. And this will literally prevent you from getting hangails in the future. And you may not be able to see them now, but you will see them later, especially if you don't keep your skin moisturized.

Filing and Moisturizing

So you can take a 180 grit file, just very gently go around your finger, and then take a finer grit, something like a 240, and then go over it again. So this is actually all of the dead skin that I took off just my thumb. And I want to say that this is probably like a month or maybe 5 weeks of growth. And then always, always, always rehydrate your skin. So after this, I would go and wash my hands, leave them slightly damp, and then make sure that I put on an oil or a lotion. So that's it guys. I hope you like this article . If you did, please do give it a thumbs up. Leave me a comment on what you guys would like to see next. And I'll see you in the next article . Bye.