How to Strengthen Nails Naturally

Everyone wants strong, healthy-looking nails, but achieving this isn’t easy if you don’t know the right steps to follow. You don’t have to get expensive spa treatments or invest in exotic botanicals in order to get your nails looking the way you want. These natural easy tips will help you do just that.

Proper Diet For Optimal Nutrition

Weak and brittle nails? You’re almost certainly lacking a certain vitamin or mineral.

This might sound like something too simple to be true, but you’d be surprised. A large portion of Americans suffer from multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies, even those who take multivitamins and eat what they consider to be a “healthy” diet. In all likelihood, the problem is you aren’t incorporating enough fresh fruits and veggies into your diet. These natural foods contain the nutrients required to make your nails, and without them, your cells are going to be producing “shoddy workmanship.”

So what specific foods contain nutrients that are beneficial for strong nails?

• Blueberries.
• Apricots.
• Soy, cashew, and almond milk.
• Carrots and other vegetables with a lot of beta-carotene.
• Anything with silica, such as green leafy vegetables, radishes, and oats.
• Squash and sunflower seeds for their vitamin E.
• Peas, quinoa, and lentils for plant-based protein.

It’s not just enough to have some of these foods every once in a while. It’s important to make these foods staples of your diet.

While eating the right foods is crucial to obtaining strong nails naturally, you’re also going to want to cut out foods that sap your body of minerals. This means limiting your intake of animal-based proteins, especially red meats and dairy.

It’s a popular belief that milk is good for “strong bones” and nails, but technically the opposite is true. Because we were never meant to digest cow’s milk (and milk in general) for any great length of time into adulthood, our body’s are forced to neutralize the acidity with minerals like calcium from our own bones. Hence, the countries with the highest rate of osteoporosis are also the highest consumers of milk. If milk actually helped grow strong bones, wouldn’t this figure be the other way around?

As with any part of your body, your nails will thrive the more care you give toward your diet. What you put into your body determines the resources your cells have at their disposal when constructing your body. If you put sub-par fuel in, you’re going to get sub-par health as a result. Brittle nails are a perfect example of basic nutritional deficiencies.

It’s also important to make sure you’re absorbing all of the nutrients you give your body. Before making the leap to a healthy, more plant-based diet, consider a juice fast or very minimalist fruit-based diet for a week or two to help flush your system out.

Oftentimes the digestive system struggles to absorb nutrients properly because of any number of issues in organ function involving the liver, pancreas, small intestine, colon, and even stomach. Drink more water, eat more fruit, and you’ll have better nutrient absorption.

This means strong, beautiful nails!

Other Effective Nail Care Tips

There are other tips and techniques you can follow in order to help your nails remain healthy and even reverse the effects of ageing. One important point to note is to limit your exposure to harsh chemicals and abrasive substances such as dish washing liquid.

This will ensure that the cuticles aren’t damaged and that your nails are protected from bacteria and other foreign substances that could jeopardize the overall health of your hands and nails.

Moisturizing is a Key to Strong Nails

According to Healthy-Wiser.com’s amazing guide to natural nail care,

Organic / Vegan Nail Polish

Did you know that many mainstream nail polishes are not only harmful for your nails, but also are tested on animals, and may even contain animal industry by-products? If your nail polish contains any of the following ingredients, it has animal-derived substances in it:

Guanine: Sometimes referred to as “pearl essence,” it is in reality derived from the scales of fish and certain acids that are inside animal tissues. It is used to produce that “glossy” look in certain nail polishes, yet is a corrosive, animal-based chemical.

Oleic Acid: Another corrosive animal-derived acid that comes from animal fat. It’s often used as a thickening agent.

Carmine: Most mainstream red nail polishes, arguably the most common, contain at least some carmine. This substance is derived by boiling and smashing together certain beetles, which is where the redness comes from, their carapace, or exoskeleton. Millions of women are walking around with a lacquer of beetle-jam on their fingers and they don’t even realize it. Please seek organic alternatives!

Invest in a Nail Self-Care Kit

There are simple, inexpensive tools you can use to maintain your nails and keep them looking healthy without having to resort to using artificial chemical treatments, hardeners, or expensive spas. One such product that we highly recommend is the Healthy-Wiser Three-Step Nail Care System.