Nail Care and Manicuring/Pedicuring
Anatomy and growth
Nail plate, nail bed, matrix, lunula, eponychium, cuticle, hyponychium, free edge, sidewalls, mantle. The matrix produces the plate - damage there shows as a groove or ridge. Average growth is about an eighth of an inch per month, faster in warm weather and on the dominant hand.
Disorders to recognize, not treat
Paronychia (bacterial infection of the nail fold), onychia (matrix inflammation), onychomycosis or tinea unguium (fungal), onychorrhexis (brittle splitting), onychauxis (thickening), leukonychia (white spots), Beau's lines (depressions after illness or injury), pterygium (living skin attached to the plate), hangnails, and ingrown nails. Redness, swelling, pain, or pus means stop and refer.
Service standards
Sanitize your hands and the client's, examine the nails, then shape with a fine file using light one-direction strokes. Soak, then push back the eponychium gently - cut only dead cuticle, never living tissue, and never use credo blades or sharp rasps on living skin. Massage, then base coat, two thin color coats, and top coat. Pedicure footbaths must be drained and disinfected between clients; single-use files, buffers, wooden sticks, and toe separators are discarded or given to the client. Metal implements are cleaned and disinfected.
Enhancements require ventilation, skin protection from monomer and primer, and awareness of allergic reaction (itching, lifting, redness at the sidewalls).
Traps
- Cutting the cuticle instead of pushing it back.
- Reusing a porous file - the classic sanitation question.
- Giving a standard pedicure to a client with diabetes or circulatory problems without medical clearance.
Rule of thumb
If it cannot be disinfected, it is not reused; if it is red, swollen, or draining, it is not serviced.