In other news

[commodorified]

Rubbing a bit of antibiotic ointment - Polysporin or Neosporin or whatever - into your cuticles at night will give you shockingly healthy and attractive cuticles and nails. Works fast, too.

Comments

[niqaeli]

Hm. I'm using a cuticle oil I blended up myself but this is something I should remember for when the cuticle's gotten nicked.

[staranise]

Okay, but what kind of cuticles is this starting out from? Needs moar information.

[commodorified]

Dreadful - naturally dry skin plus thyroid, you know me.

[doolabug]

Brilliant!

[xinef]

Do you think that the antibiotic nature is what made the difference, the cream base, or just the daily attention?

[commodorified]

It's either the base ir the antibiotic, for sure, because nothing else works so well. I had some nasty hangnails going, so probably both.

[fallconsmate]

now i'm pondering how well that will work when one wears acrylic nails...

(dire necessity. my own nails are so thin and brittle that they literally shatter.)

[commodorified]

assuming that the acrylic doesn't mind the oils, your cuticles should still appreciate the love.

[fallconsmate]

coolness. thank you!

[mmegaera]

Just a bit concerned about this being an overuse of antibiotics and that if you do this regularly longterm you might be compromising the cream's ability to work when you really need it to.

But I'm not a medical person, so I may be completely out in left field here.

[commodorified]

I am pretty cautious about antibiotics as well, so definitely not in left field. It is a potential concern, but in this particular case I'm not worried, because:

1) The OTC stuff is a very low-dose, meant more as a preventative than a cure - I'd never recommend putting a heavy, anaerobic ointment over an actively infected site -

2) I strongly suspect that the reason I always have ratty, sore cuticles when I'm not doing this is that the dryness causes cracks and the cracks seem to pick up small infections easily

So I'm not too concerned. Probably safer than, say, putting tetracycline gel on my face, which I used to do for acne.

[alexbayleaf]

I was going to say... on reflection, I do slightly worry that this will help breed antibiotic-resistant hangnails, and THEN where would we be? But I see you've answered that above. Just don't come crying to me when Canada is struck by a plague that makes everyones fingers drop off :P

[commodorified]

Oh, I'll totally come crying to you. Who else?