If external physical habits are a signifier of internal disquiet then I am fucking mad.
I am a picker. And for years I have harassed my cuticles as if all my problems are their fault.
My hands aren’t nice anyway – stumpy, fat fingers, short little nails – and all my conscious life I have sought to make them worse by picking at them. Pick, pick, pick.
My ex-boyfriend Nick used to berate me in public for it. He would hold up my hand, turn my mangled thumbs to the assembled company and say “Look! Look at what she does to herself.” It didn’t help.
I recall clearly the dinner at which my husband realised that I didn’t just occasionally poke at a hangnail, but that the torture of my cuticles was constant, real. He doesn’t like it because he feels like it is an external expression of an internal turmoil. I mean he’s right, but my retort has always been that nobody’s perfect. And I’d rather that I attacked my cuticles than drank all the time. Oh wait, hang on…
In one of my wedding photos I am tearing at a piece of thumbskin with my teeth. Sometimes I have torn at the skin of my righthand thumb so comprehensively – right the way round – that my iPhone no longer recognises my thumbprint. I do hope you aren’t eating while reading this.
But towards the end of last year I was a photoshoot and having my pitiful nails done and I was moaning on about my cuticles to a manicurist – most particularly about how when you trim your cuticles with one of those weeny finger-secateurs, the layers of skin within 48 hours dry and separate and curl up and it’s just hangnail city.
She nodded sympathetically and talked some shit about cuticle oil that I broadly ignored but then she said something that made me pay attention. “If you moisturise your cuticles after a shower just push up the cuticles a bit with your fingers as you’re doing it. That ought to keep them from growing down over the nail – then you won’t need to trim them at all.”
She also added that if your cuticles are in bad shape after years of abuse, applying cuticle oil more like 3 times a day at first – rather than 3 times a week – is what you need to get results.
Chastened, I returned home and dusted off my Sally Hansen cuticle oil and got massaging.
And it works.
Even after 10 days in Gloucestershire, when I spend my days plunging my hands into cleaning fluid and scrabbling around in the dirt trying to locate a non-rotten leek I can use in lieu of payment for a box of six effluent-covered eggs, my hands are okay.
And it’s more than just having nice hands and nails, more than not having to automatically hide my thumbs behind the rest of my fingers whenever I meet anyone who makes me feel a bit self-conscious – (this doesn’t happen often though) – it’s about overcoming the internal mad-machine that ordered me to pick. It’s about regarding anxiety and paranoia with as much contempt as I regard the empty calories of a Krispy Kreme doughnut.
I found my Sally Hansen cuticle oil to be perfectly high-functioning as long as it is applied often enough, but a short consultation with Madeleine Spencer, the beauty editor of InStyle revealed that she also rates Dadi Oil and anything by Margaret Dabbs.
Omg I am so glad I’m not alone! Well, I am now because you’re reformed but my thumbs are RAVAGED wth constant picking and gnawing and I know the pain of the iPhone not recognising my thumbprint. My husband, too, deplores my little goblin hands. Maybe there’s hope.
My thumbs are 70% scar tissue. But I am slowly turning it around. It’s all about the regularity of the application of cuticle oil or even something like Lansinoh – then when you start picking (even unconsciously) there’s nothing to get hold of.
God! I am a finger and thumb picker too. Even my six year old son scolds me for it.
I’m a teacher and my thumbs can tell you EXACTLY where we are in the school year. 6 week summer hols- beautiful thumbs. Exam season-ravaged!
About to embark on massive house renovations that involve living with in-laws. If my fingers aren’t a bleeding ragged mass by the end it will be a miracle,
Off to buy some cuticle oil….NOW!
I could have written this post. My husband has a highly irritating habit of whistling at me when I do it in company which led to a couple of Tourette’s style ‘fuck offs’ over the holiday period. I don’t do New Years resolutions but looks like you’ve made this one easy for me. I’m on it. Thank you x
Dadi Oil is amazing, it can also be used as emergency lip balm or on any dry skin – elbows and heels are a favourite. Good luck with the not picking!
Oh snap! I currently have three actually bleeding fingers plus both thumbs. Maybe an obsessive cuticle oil routine could be my new thing for 2018… There’s an excellent cartoon on Joolee Loren’s insta about finger picking and acheiving Black Swan status with blood. I’ll send it to you.
x Marlz in Sydney
My 5yr old picks her thumb cuticle skin and has done for as long as I can remember. She also hides her thumbs in her clenched hands to hide them. I often worry that it too is because of so e inner turmoil about my hideous parenting skill… But she is slightly Batshit crazy… Hopefully she will see the light… Although I may sneakily rub lansinoh into her hands while she sleeps..
Lorna it’s nothing to do with you. Some of us are just a bit mad – though function perfectly well in life otherwise. Lansinoh at night a good idea x
Picking at skin/cuticles on my digits is my very favourite thing to do. We have a loving exchange nightly in our house, “Stop picking”, “Stop nagging”, “Stop picking then I wouldn’t need to nag”. It’s wearing but not enough to stop me. My mother did it, too. Now wondering if it is some sort of horrible self-harming compulsion? Drawing blood does bring some sort of inner peace. Might give this a whirl, though.
yup. self-harm lite. my mother did it, Kitty has started doing it…
My hands are a MESS. I used to work in retail. I wore false nails continously FOR YEARS as I had to demonstrate products. Got great compliments at the time but downside are utterly ruined fingertips and nails now I’ve stopped. And I’m also a stress gnawer/picker. Any product recommendations are gratefully received X
I went out with a Nick once. Total wanker.
😂😂😂
I could have written this!! I tell myself constantly that at my age I shouldn’t feel ashamed of my hands. I see clients who must spend half their income on shellac while I curl my fingers under my hand! My youngest daughter does it too.
Luckily I do not pick, too much, but do obsessively push them back. Without moisture! Thanks for reminding me about the shower trick & I do like C.N.D solar oil, will have to get back to using. Seriously have man cuticles!
I’m blaming the colder weather for my bad hangnails and have managed to only pick at one cuticle consistantly – so at least this saves the rest of the other 9 digits. I always seems to forget to use cuticle oils , even though I have a collection of it all over the house. But I will give this tip a go
it’s all about regularity… and never giving up
It’s a really common habit; my mum, my sister and I all do it, (drives my dad crazy, poor man) and I have a couple of friends who do as well. For all of us it’s an anxiety thing, or something we do when in a mildly unpleasant or stressful situation (caught in traffic, meetings or presentations at work, that kind of thing). I’ve got it mostly under control in the last year by keeping Burts Bees Lemon cuticle cream on me AT ALL TIMES and dabbing it over the poor old thumbs whenever I feel tempted to pick. iPhone recognition still a problem though due to slightly greasy thumbs pretty much most of the time 😄
A fellow picker! A great tip – when your skin is dry and starting to harden into a picky bit, get an emery board and FILE IT SMOOTH before applying the oil or hand cream.
GAME CHANGER
good and very random tip xxx
Hey Esther – you Have to ALSO try this really cool Pomegranate oil PEN (crazy I know, but wait til you’ve tried it) which WELEDA Do, It Is THE BOMB ! I got sent sent one, along with a load of other Weleda stuff, back in August last year, and I tried it out on my Mum’s 77 yr old hands, and a lovely Australian Aunty too, and it’s BRILLIANT. X
Thanks Leila!!! I will keep an eye out for it. A pen sounds just the ticket actually