In the U.S., there were nearly 54,000 nail salons in 2014, 5,000 more salons than in 2013. Total revenues reached a whopping $8.54 billion in 2014. And revenues are expected to keep growing. With such an economic importance placed on manicures and pedicures, someone has to be admiring those daintily customized nails. But should women and men be paying more attention to their unadorned nail health? Nails often reveal undetected health problems before other symptoms appear.
How are nails constructed?
Nails are made of keratin, a hard protein also found in skin and hair. The whole nail structure is broken down into parts: nail plate – the visible part of the nail; nail bed – the skin under the nail plate; cuticle – the skin tissue that rims the base of the nail; nail folds – skin that frames the nail on three sides; lunula – the whitish half-moon at the nail base, and the matrix – new cells are created here.
As new cells are formed, older cells get pushed out and compacted to make the familiar shape of the nail. This is nail growth, which by the way, averages about a centimeter every 100 days. Other fun facts to amaze your friends: nails grow faster in younger people, males and in the summer. Also, it has been found that right-handed people have nails that grow discernibly faster than the left hand. And vice-versa. Did you know the purpose of nails is to protect our fingertips?