Cute Nail Studio's Cuticle Oil Pen Is Saving My Nails From Isolation Stress
If you ask anyone in my life to describe their mental picture of me, they'll probably tell you right off the bat that I've got my hands in my mouth and am chewing away. Yeah, it's gross, but for some reason biting my nails and chewing my cuticles has always been my natural response to stress, boredom, and just about every other unpleasant emotion that exists. And when I'm not doing that, I'm reflexively picking away at my nail polish, leaving my nails a weak and brittle mess.
Before stay-at-home-orders went into effect earlier this year, I had mostly weaned off of this nasty habit by channeling my stress with other stuff like exercise. My nails were longer and healthier than ever, but the global pandemic brought all those negative emotions back to the forefront and, admittedly, I went back to my perpetual biting and picking pretty quickly. It's not a habit I want to linger, because it could end in some seriously gross side effects. "Long-term effects [of nail-biting] can actually include scarring, permanent discoloration, and chronic yeast infections in the skin," board-certified dermatologist Mona Gohara previously told Allure.
A few weeks ago, my nails were chomped down to the bit and were lined with fresh red marks left from a particularly gnarly biting session. But with the help of Cute Nail Studio's Cuticle Oil Pen, I nursed them back to health quicker than ever.
This cuticle oil formula, produced in small batches and made locally in Austin, Texas, is not a magical cure-all for nail-biting. In fact, as the packaging states, it's a rather simple cocktail of grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, squalane oil, and a little bit of glitter just for fun. It will absolutely leave your cuticles feeling soft and hydrated after use, but that's not why I'm about to start buying this stuff in bulk. It's the packaging.
Here's my thing about traditional cuticle oils: almost all of them come in a bottle like a nail polish that comes with a dropper or a brush — either way, the oil trickles down my fingers and hands and winds up making my entire existence oily. That's why I've always avoided using them. Cute's cuticle oil, however, never does that thanks to its pen-like delivery system. With the twisting mechanism at the bottom, you can control just how much oil you want to come out, and the small, dense brush tip only applies the oil where you want it. And then it stays there.
Thanks to this blissfully mess-free application, I don't have to avoid using cuticle oil anymore. I can use it all day, actually — as part of an at-home manicure, while I'm working, or even right when I'm about to leave the house. And it's such a small and slim package that I can keep it on hand basically wherever I go. Any time I have the urge to bite or pick at my hands, I start brushing on this cuticle oil instead.
It's basically become a sensory replacement of sorts for my nail-biting, which is one of the best ways to defeat these types of repetitive behaviors, as psychiatrist Rebecca Berry previously told Allure. When she provides therapy for a patient with a severe habit like mine, she works with them to identify the feelings that trigger said habit. "Next, work is done to establish sensory substitutes to be used at the site of pulling to help the individual meet the body's needs in a different way and therefore not engage in the behavior."
So when I get bored or stressed, I know it's time to reach for the pen before the desire to bite or pick even arises, and that is how this pen is curing my nail-biting all over again. So while my nails aren't glamorously long like I wish they were, they're getting there and they're healthy. And in these stressful times, that's more than I can ask for.
Cute Nail Studio Cuticle Oil, $10, is available from cutenailstudio.com.
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Originally Appeared on Allure
