Solution for Yellow Nails

Remedy for Yellow Nails

Let me start by saying I love nailpolish. Of course I’ve heard of all its evils; how it makes your nails yellow, and starved of oxygen, and brittle, and blah and blah and blah. But I love it nonetheless. Keeping nailpolish on my fingernails has always been too much of a task for me to do it on a regular basis since even the teeniest tiniest chip annoys me; but I’ve always worn it on my toes. Like all the time, ALL THE TIME! So of course I landed up with beautifully yellow and discoloured toenails (not that they were so wonderful to start with, but anyway). When I found this simple recipe to restore them, it became an absolutely must try.

The Ingredients

The recipe is very simple, using equal quantities of only two ingredients (I used 1/2 tsp of each), both easily available

Hydrogen Peroxide – Hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent and has whitening properties that work well for nails that have been stained yellow by the repeated application of nail polish. However, it also dries out the nails, and should its application should be followed by the application of moisturiser.

Baking Soda – Baking soda in addition to having whitening properties is also an excellent exfoliator. When used in conjunction with hydrogen peroxide it is supposed to work wonders on yellowed nails.

So off I went to the market to get my ingredients, rubbing my hands in ill-concealed glee, in anticipation of wonderfully restored toenails.

The Trial

So let’s get to it. As loathe as I am to put this picture up, here’s a picture of what my toenails looked like before the treatment

Awful, aren’t they?

As I said, I have used nail polish on them constantly for the last 15 years or so. Living in India, it’s almost always sandal weather, and if I’m wearing sandals I like my feet looking their best, which is to say all dressed up with my favourite nail polish. So the discolouration was in many ways quite inevitable.

So I mixed up my ingredients in a little bowl, here it is.

They form quite a nice paste, thick and gritty.

Then came the task of applying it; not the easiest thing to do, quite messy in fact. Although the mixture is in no way runny, it can be a task to keep iton your toenails when you first start applying it. I put great lavish lumps of it and finally achieved this.

I look like I’m about to shave my toes!

Then of course I realized that I should have taken the precaution of keeping a towel handy to clean my hands off. Once the mixture is on the toes it sets nicely but flake a bit when you try to walk, so be sure and keep a towel and a basin of water nearby to help clean it off without getting baking soda all over your house.

Another thing that I discovered is that the hydrogen peroxide quickly dries leaving my hands covered in baking soda powder, and consequently (because I didn’t prepare) the rest of me covered with powder too.

After waiting for ten minutes, I rinsed off the paste, and here’s the result

Some improvement, but not as much as I’d hoped

There is a lessening in the yellowness of the nails, however, the solution appears to have made my nails somewhat dry and less lustrous than they were before. Using this solution on a regular basis (it is suggested that this shouldn’t be used more than once in six weeks) might yield better results, and I will update this article after repeated use of this remedy

Before

After

Conclusions

Pros

• The ingredients are easily available and inexpensive.
• The recipe is easy to put together and use (for the most part)
• The paste is thick and relatively easy to keep on the nails
• The nails show some amount of immediate improvement

Cons

• The remedy is not the miracle cure that it is touted to be
• The mixture leaves the nails dry and lacklustre
• The skin around the nails feels tingly and dry as well
• The mixture tends to flake and fall off, making a bit of a mess if you try and walk about

My Recommendation

• Prep well before applying the mix. Keep a towel, basin of water and tissues within arms reach
• Be sure and apply moisturizer to the nails after rinsing off the paste. I prefer coconut or almond oil rubbed into the nails and the surrounding skin.
• The remedy should probably be used in conjunction with other methods, which can be repeated more often than once in six weeks

In short, although this is one of the most recommended methods and whilst I will try the effect of repeated applications, I will also continue to search for other remedies which might conceivably be used either instead of or even in conjunction with this one