Only if you are short of biotin, which is rare on a normal diet. The trials that showed a benefit were in people with a deficiency or with brittle nail syndrome, and the effect took months. It is not the first thing to try, and oil is.

Should I stop wearing polish?

Not necessarily -- polish itself slows water exchange, so nails often peel less while it is on. Oil and polish do not go on in the same order, though: cuticle oil belongs after the polish has dried, because oil on a bare nail stops the base coat bonding and is a cause of chipping in its own right. What does damage is the removal: acetone every week, and picking polish off, which takes the top layer of nail with it. If you wear it, take it off properly and leave a few days between.

Are gel and acrylic making it worse?

The soak-off is, and so is filing the surface before application. A peeling nail is a poor candidate for either, and the honest answer is to let it grow out first rather than to cover it -- covering is what turns a season of peeling into a year of it.

The answer

Why do my nails peel in layers?

A fingernail is not solid. It is sheets of keratin stacked and glued, and the glue is weakened by water: every time the nail takes water on and gives it back it swells and shrinks slightly, and the layers work apart at the free edge where they are thinnest. That is why peeling shows at the tip first, why it is worse in winter and worse in anybody whose hands are in water, and why it is not a sign of a vitamin deficiency in most people. Acetone accelerates it by stripping the oil that slows the exchange. So the answer is oil, less acetone, and patience -- a nail that has already split cannot be glued back, it has to grow out, and that is three to six months from base to tip.

What answers it

EssieApricot nail and cuticle oilThe one product that addresses the actual cause. Oil slows water moving in and out of the nail plate, which is the exchange that separates the layers. Nothing to time and nothing to rinse, which matters more than the formula -- the treatment people keep using is the one that asks nothing of them. One rule, and it is the house's own: it goes on AFTER polish has dried, never before. Oil on a bare nail stops the base coat bonding, and that is a cause of chipping in its own right.Buy on Amazon
OPINail Envy strengthener, clearFor nails thin enough to bend before they are long enough to shape. It is a base coat and the treatment in one bottle, so it gets used; a strengthener in a separate bottle is a strengthener nobody applies. The change comes over weeks rather than over a manicure.Buy on Amazon
OPINail Lacquer base coatIf you wear polish, the base coat is doing two jobs here: it grips the colour so the whole manicure does not lift as a sheet, and while it is on, the nail is not exchanging water with the room. Bare nails peel more than polished ones for that reason.Buy on Amazon

Prices live on Amazon, where they change hourly — so we never quote one. Every product here is a brand we would name out loud.

Water is the cause, and acetone is the accelerant

Long washing-up, swimming, a bath, even a hot shower -- the nail takes on water, swells, and gives it back as it dries. Do that daily and the layers at the tip work apart. Acetone removers make it faster by stripping the oil in and around the nail that would otherwise slow the exchange. Neither is avoidable entirely, which is why the fix is to put oil back rather than to stop washing your hands.

Gloves are the unglamorous half of this

Rubber gloves for washing up and for cleaning products do more for peeling nails than any bottle, because they remove the single biggest daily exposure. It is advice nobody wants and it is the reason hairdressers and nurses have this problem far more than office workers.

What a peeling nail is telling you about the past, not the present

Nail grows from the matrix under the cuticle at roughly three millimetres a month, so what is peeling at your tip today was formed three to six months ago. That cuts both ways: damage you have already done is still on its way out, and improvement you start today will not be visible for a season. Judge whether something is working by what grows in at the base, not by what is splitting at the end.

Filing, and the direction argument

File in one direction rather than sawing back and forth -- sawing works the layers apart at exactly the place they are already weakest. Use the finer side of the file on a nail that is already peeling, and do not use a metal file on it at all. Clip nothing that is splitting; cut back to below the split or leave it.

When it is not this

Peeling that arrives suddenly on every nail, or comes with pitting, thickening, colour change or nails lifting from the bed, is not the water story and is worth a doctor rather than a bottle. Iron deficiency and thyroid problems both show in nails, and so does psoriasis. This page is about the ordinary version, which is most of it.

Questions

Will biotin fix it?: Only if you are short of biotin, which is rare on a normal diet. The trials that showed a benefit were in people with a deficiency or with brittle nail syndrome, and the effect took months. It is not the first thing to try, and oil is.
Should I stop wearing polish?: Not necessarily -- polish itself slows water exchange, so nails often peel less while it is on. Oil and polish do not go on in the same order, though: cuticle oil belongs after the polish has dried, because oil on a bare nail stops the base coat bonding and is a cause of chipping in its own right. What does damage is the removal: acetone every week, and picking polish off, which takes the top layer of nail with it. If you wear it, take it off properly and leave a few days between.
Are gel and acrylic making it worse?: The soak-off is, and so is filing the surface before application. A peeling nail is a poor candidate for either, and the honest answer is to let it grow out first rather than to cover it -- covering is what turns a season of peeling into a year of it.

Your turn

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