Hair & nail comparison thread

[cmg]

Hi everyone!

Is there any correlation between the hair quality and your finger nails?

I have very babyfine, frizz prone hair that breaks sometimes. Very soft and tangly. My finger nails on the other hand are stone rock hard and I can typewrite or play the piano with them and grow them as long as I whish. No correlation at all :eyebrows:

[Yozhik]

I've always been frustrated with how weak my nails are. In the past year or so, I'd say they've gotten better. Either that, or I've learned to take better care of them. :p

I know biotin promotes both nail and hair growth, but honestly, I wouldn't say my hair is particularly prone to breaking or being weak. I did do quite a bit of mechanical damage from rough brushing before I knew better, but now I'd say it's pretty resilient. I don't know, though, because I've never had anyone else's hair. :shrug:

[RedDevil]

Hi everyone!

Is there any correlation between the hair quality and your finger nails?

I have very babyfine, frizz prone hair that breaks sometimes. Very soft and tangly. My finger nails on the other hand are stone rock hard and I can typewrite or play the piano with them and grow them as long as I whish. No correlation at all :eyebrows:
I am exactly the same way. And my hair grows slowly but nails grow so fast. Go figure.

[Rocket22]

I have good nails and crappy hair too. My nails grow pretty fast but hair is average and fine

[vatikagirl]

for me both are equal... but sometimes i do feel my hair to be more crappier than nail... my nails are like rock star... never break, grows fast... i can get them into whatever shape i want... but my hair... they have a mind of their own... lol...

[kidari]

My hair and nails grow fast, but my hair is pretty strong and can hold up to damage fairly well. However, my nails are atrocious. They are so weak I cannot ever grow them. They split and peel no matter what. I almost never see split ends in my hair but my nails split all the time while they are short.

[Juneii]

I have relatively thick hair that has normal amounts of tangle and damage. My finger nails are thicker and stronger than others I know and grows rather quickly (a pain if I paint my nails!).

[misspurdy06]

I have great hair and crappy nails.

My sis has great nails and crappy hair.

My mom has great nails and crappy hair.

My aunt has great hair and crappy nails.

My grandmother has great hair and crappy nails.

My friend Sonjia has great hair and crappy nails.

My friend Daniel has great nails and crappy hair.

I see a correlation. I have done hair and nails for all of the people I've mentioned and it is something that has crossed my mind a time or two.

[Alix]

My nails are strong and I can grow them really long, they also grow fast.

Same with my hair, I don't think I've ever seen a split end on my scalp.

[Yame]

My hair and nails both grow at what I think is a slow rate, but of course my nail growth is much more noticeable.

My hair is very coarse and on the thick end of average thickness. My nails are fairly thin, but they have been getting better ever since I started taking better care of them and eating a bit more healthy. I'd say now they are a bit harder, but not quite thick.

They don't seem to be able to grow very long before breaking, whereas my hair is longer than average and still growing. My hair doesn't break very easily, but it does shed a lot.

[Yame]

Same with my hair, I don't think I've ever seen a split end on my scalp.

Humor me, how does one find a split end *on their scalp*? Wouldn't the split ends be, well... on your ends (or somewhere along the length, at least)? :D :p ;) :cheese:

[vanity_acefake]

My nails grow quickly but are soft and easily broken.
My hair grows quickly and is fine, strong and I have lots of it.

[KwaveT]

My hair is fairly thick and strong. I have abused the heck out of my hair before I knew better and it has held up well. My hair grows fairly fast. My nails are super strong and rock hard. I can grow them as long as I want to. They are at half an inch now. With all the supplements I take both are growing super fast now.

[amberpotamus]

I have super thick hair and average (I think--I guess I've never really compared) nails naturally, but on 5 mg of biotin a day, my nails are super thick. I would rather imagine that there is fairly little correlation between what you've genetically been given in terms of hair and nails, but obviously vitamins that (supposedly at least) thicken hair are certainly going to thicken nails--thus I imagine a great many of the people on this forum, regardless of what kind of nails they have when they aren't eating/supplementing specifically to get healthier hair, do have thick nails--just because so many go out of their way to eat healthily and/or supplement.
...At least that makes sense to me.

[Grillz]

I have great nails (thick, strong, grow fast) and pretty good hair. I've dyed and highlighted many many times and it's held up pretty well. I don't really have breakage or splits... just a funny shade while I try and grow out my natural color. I haven't tracked my hair growth yet so I'm not really sure how quickly it grows just yet.

[roundforest]

My nails are pretty strong and get long even though I treat them badly - in and out of hot water many times a day, use them as tools to scrape and pry things, and only rarely use handcream.
My hair is ok now I'm not torturing it, though it has a tendency to split ends. For the many years I bleached, my hair was very badly damaged and broke off constantly.

[pepperminttea]

My hair's very tangle-prone, and needs care in order to get longer without being a broken rat's nest.

My fingernails tend to peel at the ends, and have never been able to reach properly long talon-type lengths. Nail varnish makes it worse; even with base coats, it discolours the nails and seems to make them peel even more easily, so I haven't worn any for years. Without the varnish, they're definitely healthier, but still won't grow particularly long. (I define long as when I can't see the fingertip.) My thumb nails are much, much stronger, and only very rarely peel - I wish I had them on every finger.

[ssjhotau2]

I take tons of vitamins including biotin.

My hair is very soft and fine, and rather thick for a person with very fine hair- but it is fragile and prone to breakage and splits even with all the pampering. It grows slowly- about 1/2 to 3/4 an inch per month and sometimes it seems to stall all together.

My nails are very fragile and thin. They bend and sometimes they split into layers and flake. When they do manage to grow beyond my fingers they crack or get nicks in them and I pick at or bite them all back down to the quick. They grow exceptionally fast and getting fake nails filled is an every other week must for me- which makes them too expensive to afford. :(

ETA


My fingernails tend to peel at the ends, and have never been able to reach properly long talon-type lengths. Nail varnish makes it worse; even with base coats, it discolours the nails and seems to make them peel even more easily, so I haven't worn any for years. Without the varnish, they're definitely healthier, but still won't grow particularly long. (I define long as when I can't see the fingertip.) My thumb nails are much, much stronger, and only very rarely peel - I wish I had them on every finger.
That is my nails to a T

[Lize]

Bad nails and good hair here. Nails are soft and prone to breaking if they are long. But I have no interest in growing my nails. I always keep them as short as possible. I have long fingers so long nails only make the fingers look ever longer.

The hair on the other hand. Well, the strands are fine and soft but my hair is rather thick anyway. And it can take a lot of crap without getting too damaged. It's slippery and pretty shiny if left natural.

[MyKing'sQueen]

Both my hair and nails are very fragile. My hair has been split prone since I was a kid, and my nails like to peel and break all the time. My nails were the strogest and the longest when I was taking prenatal vitamins. I don't know about the hair since I wasn't paying much attention to it at that time. I think I'll go back to prenatals whenever I'm out of my current multivitamins and see what it does for my hair.

[Corylina]

Both my hair and nails grow very fast: my hair has grown 14,8" since I started to let it grow two years ago and as I don't like long nails I must cut mine every week.

[LadyCelestina]

My hair is definitely stronger,less break-prone and faster growing than my nails...

[Yozhik]

[snip] My hair is very soft and fine, and rather thick for a person with very fine hair- but it is fragile and prone to breakage and splits even with all the pampering. It grows slowly- about 1/2 to 3/4 an inch per month and sometimes it seems to stall all together.

Average hair growth is .5 inches per month, so your growth rate of 1/2-3/4 is, if anything above average, not slow. :flower:

ETA: maybe the stalls make it seem to grow slower than usual?

I'm also one of those people who have hard, good thumbnails, but weaker, split-prone fingernails on the rest of my hands.

[joflakes]

My hair is fairly thick and strong. I have abused the heck out of my hair before I knew better and it has held up well. My hair grows fairly fast. My nails are super strong and rock hard. I can grow them as long as I want to. They are at half an inch now. With all the supplements I take both are growing super fast now.

Same here, even down to the supplements! Although I complain a lot, I know my hair grows super fast...as do my nails. I tend to cut them when they get too long though as it sends shudders down my spine to type with long nails!

[JuliaDancer]

My hair is strong, but my nails are not so great. I have to be careful with them to keep them from peeling. They grow pretty quickly, I think. Last time I measured my grown out nail polish, it was about 2 or 3 mm in a week. People say my hair grows quickly, but I'm impatient, so I think it's slow. But strengthwise, my hair beats my nails for sure.

[Metallia]

Interesting question. My hair is pretty strong, but I do have damage from some abuse (lots of shorter hairs around my head and face from pulling hair out with elastics and stuff). My nails are pretty nice- my mother swears she doesn't know where I got them and is jealous (in a nice mom sort of way? xD). Hers are very flat and thin and don't grow very long or maintain a good shape- mine do so quickly and easily. They tend to go through phases, though, where sometimes they're awesome for 6 months, and sometimes for 6 months they peel and split WAY more. I am convinced they reflect (just like hair would) my diet and stress levels.

[BlazingHeart]

My hair is incredibly tough. I routinely go one to two years with no trims and no s&d and still have fewer splits than most people get in a month. It also grows very fast, over an inch a month.

My nails on the other hand are weak and fragile. They split all the time and if I let them grow more than 1/4" beyond the end of my fingers, they bend all the time. I get about average growth I think,but they break so much that I am not certain of that

My nails are normal for people with the connective tissue disorder I have, though. Really fragile skin, too. I guess I just lucked out when it came to hair!

[uptosomeone]

My nails are strong, but years of nailbiting (only 1.5 years out of the habit) has screwed them up some. My hair is not very nice either...it breaks somewhat easily and grows slowly.

So overall, I'd say not-so-great hair and not-so-great nails.

[teal]

Hmm. My nails are on the weaker side, though I wear them too short to know if they break easily. I know that if I paint my nails properly (with base and top coats) then I can grow them quite long without issue. Another problem is that I pick at my nails with my teeth so I don't really know how strong they are when left alone.

One thing I did notice, though, is that one side of the nail grows stronger than the other. Do anyone else's nails do this??

My hair is probably average leaning towards stronger. Even though the ends have heat damage and tangle easily, I don't see a large amount of split ends when I S&D. (They are dry, though.)

[Mesmerise]

My nails are pretty good, yet they get weaker with chemical damage :D. My sister's friend was training to be a nail technician so I let her put tips and acrylic on them... and the other day I had to soak one off, and the underneath nail has gone all weak and blergh. So I see nails and hair as similar... if I don't do crap to my nails, they're healthier ;). In general though I have pretty strong and non-bendy nails. The disadvantage is that if I whack a long nail on something it's more likely to snap than to bend :p.

My hair, I call horrible, but it's not really. It only ever splits when it's been chemically damaged, and I've been able to go a long time in the past without trimming. I think it looks bad now because of old heat damage, but again, I don't get many splits. It does grow fairly slowly though, while my nails seem to grow comparatively fast (at least I can chop them all the way down short and in a few weeks they're reasonably long again). I really don't need fake nails either... and I won't be getting them again, as they're a right PITA!

[Vanilla]

My nails will break and peel if I get gel nails or acrylics.

My nails have grown stronger and much longer since I've kept a bottle of cuticle oil on my desk at work. I oil my nails a few times a day and get a manicure around once a month.

My hair breaks and frays if I chemically process it, just like my nails. I find that oiling doesn't really help me to grow my hair longer, like it does my nails.

[ArienEllariel]

my nails grow really slowly and are very bendy. They don't split and peel or anything but they're not super strong and thick. My hair also grows really slowly and is fine for the mostpart and prone to splits.

[luciferia]

Right now my hair is pretty thin and dry (I think it's dry mainly due to me still trying to figure out the best way to wash it... commercial shampoos and conditioners just seem to make it worse), but my nails are thick, strong, and grow fast.

[ddiana1979]

I have very nice nails that grow extremely quickly and don't break until they get to quite extreme lengths if I decide not to file them down or trim them. I get asked all the time if my nails are acrylics. I've never had acrylic nails! Once I had a silk repair done, because I had a split in my nail below the quick. . . and that was from a martial arts incident. Twice now (once on a toenail, once a fingernail), I've had my nails flip backwards from traumatic stress rather than break.

My hair is only average. It grows 0.5" a month. Average. I am very fortunate though in that I *rarely* get split ends. I usually only trim/cut my hair once a year, and even then, only have a few splits (maybe 20 or so, for my entire head).

[sycamoreboutiqu]

Same here, good hair. Thick and strong, rarely a split but the nails are getting worse with age. Used to be strong but now tending to tear at the edges.

Thing is though - that nail quality can be improved by stress. The reason the thumbnails are stronger is we often use them as tools and the stress on them makes them stronger (same theory as weight bearing increases bone mass).

I have always noticed that my thumbnails are quite strong - especially on the dominant hand when the other nails are so, so. Just tonight I was using my right thumbnail to scrape off a stubborn price tag - and finally got a single edged razor to finish the job. That nail is rock hard.
I read once that if you could just remember to drum all of your nails on the table several times a day it would make a big difference in strength. Hard to remember to do though.

[MaryRose]

My nails grow fast and are strong but my hair is still the same old average growth rate.

[cmg]

Wow, great response to this thread!

Average hair growth is .5 inches per month, so your growth rate of 1/2-3/4 is, if anything above average, not slow. :flower:

What are we comparing really? My growth rate is several inches per month, I can see that on the roots. But this does not mean the lenght increases that much. It can actually shorten if its in a bad condition :( I havent seen any split ends since my twenties though :cheese:

[Yozhik]

Wow, great response to this thread!

What are we comparing really? My growth rate is several inches per month, I can see that on the roots. But this does not mean the lenght increases that much. It can actually shorten if its in a bad condition :( I havent seen any split ends since my twenties though :cheese:

Hm...your growth rate is several inches each month! Wow. I know a lot of people who would kill for that. ;)

I was completely baffled by this, but then I looked at your texture and noticed you're a 3c. Is it possible that the curls are eating up your length and you're not noticing it?

Otherwise the only way I could see how you wouldn't be gaining any length would be through damage, but you say you have no split ends . . . :hmm:

[cmg]

Yozhik, my hair is very damaged. Both from bad treatment for the past couple of decades, but also bad quality from having a tyreoid problem. I can practicly watch my white roots grow, but I dont think the length is gaining secretly within my curls. Wishful thinking :( They actually dont curl much at all currently. There is something going on, between spun sugar and like the straight areas in the pictures here: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=1833263&postcount=5877
Much to my surprise I had no split ends at all, last time I checked. I had them a lot when I was younger. They went from the ends to the roots sometimes. Regardless of how much I cut off, the spliss came back a week later :mad:

I have gained about one inch since joining LHC. One healthy inch, that I will keep and not cut off! :cheese: More coming on :)

[Yozhik]

I'm sorry to hear you hair is so damaged. :(

A lot of pampering and good care will go a long way. It's fortunate that you have such a quick growth rate - your recovery should be much sooner.
Healthy and speedy growth to you! :flower:

[girlcat36]

I have always had terrible nails and bad hair. In the last year I finally got good nails, which I attribute to optimizing my iron and ferritin levels. Optimizing my iron didn't seem to do anything for hair, though. I no longer have a thyroid, and have been having a difficult time regulating my thyroid medication, so I'm pretty sure my hair will always suck.

[Browniegirl]

My hair is thick and strong,In fact, I've only seen about two split ends in my life.My nails,yuck,well,they are also thick and strong,but my problem is that I have trouble trying to stop biting them.
On a side note,Corylinayou and I sound like hair twins!Mine also grows very fast,and our hair types seem similar :)

[Foxy_Booker]

I have crappy hair and crappy nails

my sister has great hair and great nails

no fair!

[cmg]

Thank you Yozhik! I will pamper very much, thanks to all the great ideas here on LHC :)

[Amber_Maiden]

Tangly hair that breaks when I have to detangle.... But grows fast.
Nails are rock hard. No hang nails... Hardly ever break...
I dunno...