Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Cutting your cuticles is bad, mmmkay?

Your cuticles protect you from bacteria and fungus, and they are essential for maintaining healthy nails. Pushing your cuticles back in a harsh way or cutting them may cause damage to your nails and can lead to infections. So instead of cutting them you can use a cuticle remover!

A cuticle remover is a product that is used to soften and gently remove dead skin cells on your cuticles, leaving them soft and looking flawless without using clippers.

To be honest: I have never used one. When I first heard of the existance of this kind of product, it rang a bell. I grabbed my tube of Veet hair removal cream and googled the ingredients of popular brands of cuticle removers, and guess what: they contain the same active ingredients :)

I decided to put it to the test!

Edit: I did a picture tutorial on my cuticle routine now, you can see it here!











WARNING


Since it is not designed for your cuticles, the concentrations of the active ingredients is different and you should be very careful if you decide to try this yourself. Remember that your nails contain keratin too and you don't want to damage them. Don't expect any miracles, you don't want your cuticles to be gone because you need them for having nails, and you need to treat them with some respect if you want pretty nails!

I tried this a few times and think that 1-2 minutes is the maximum amount of time that you should leave this on your cuticles, maybe less. I once let it soak for 5 minutes and could  see a little ridge in my nail plate afterwards, so do this at your own risk. Make sure to use a mild depilatory cream for sensitive skin. Veet suggest that you do a sensitivity test on a small patch of skin.



What I did:


I applied depilatory cream (Veet's for sensitive skin) to my cuticles and let this soak in for about a minute. Then I moved an orange stick along my cuticles and slightly pushed them back without putting  too much pressure. I worked on one finger at a time  and washed my hands with soap after every finished cuticle, in order not too leave on the product for too long.

I am happy with the results: It did leave my cuticles looking cleaner and thinner. The depilatory cream had a greyish colour afterwards, which was probably dead skin cells. If you do this every now and then, I suspect this has the same effect as a cuticle remover, but I do not own one so I couldn't compare the results.

The main reason why I decided to try this is because I didn't feel like ordering some product online when I can buy one with similar results in any supermarket. If I happen to make another nfu-oh order I might try their cuticle remover though, since I'm curious to compare the results myself. I don't use it often, only when I have been neglecting my nails for a long time.


Some background information on how it works:  

  • Potassium thioglycolate is a  salt of Thioglycolic Acid ,an organic acid.
  • Calcium hydroxide  is a chemical depilatory agent found in most hair removal creams (for example Nair, Veet, ...)
  • Calcium thioglycolate is formed when mixing potassium thioglycolate and calcium hydroxide
  • Keratin is the key structural material making up the outer layer of human skin. It is also the key structural component of hair and nails. 

A chemical depilatory is a cosmetic product used to remove the hair from the skin on the human body. A common active ingredient is calcium thioglycolate, which breaks down the disulphide bonds in keratin and weakens the hair so that it is easily scraped off where it emerges from the hair follicle.

Basically: Potassium Thioglycolate + Calcium Hydroxide = calcium thioglycolate: this weakens keratin (hair and upper layer of skin) and allows you to easily remove it.

I hope this was usefull :)
Thanks for reading!

Pearl Squirrel

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