So is the biotin helping or not?

As part of the general drying up process involved in getting older, my fingernails have been deteriorating for some years now. I used to have fairly nice looking nails, despite a very minimalist approach to maintenance. But in the past 10 years they have started splitting into layers at the end, peeling, and breaking. The technical name for this phenomenon is onychoschisis.

I tried obsessively rubbing hand lotion into the nail bed, tea tree oil, and of course nail hardener. It just got worse. I finally decided to try taking biotin, a B-vitamin that seems to be particularly important to nail health. The annoying thing about this approach is that because it takes 4 months for a nail to grow out, it's a long time before you can see if it's working. And of course I didn't write down anywhere exactly when I started with the biotin, but I think it was in late March or early April. In any case, more than 4 months ago.

So has it helped? Well... I THINK so. On the plus side, I have managed to grow all 10 nails long enough that there is a little white showing at the end of every nail. When I started this regimen, about half my fingernails looked like I had bitten them to the quick (and I have NEVER bitten my nails!). So that's an improvement. I think they are not so brittle. On the other hand, several nails still show split layers under the coats of clear nail hardener. They just aren't breaking off as easily.

There could be other reasons for that besides the biotin. For one thing, it is summer. Skin and nails dry out terribly in the winter, and rehydrate in the humid days of summer. Secondly, I recently switched to a different brand of nail hardener. Maybe NutraNail just works better than Sally Hansen? So in the spirit of the retired System Tester, I just cleaned off my nails and applied two coats of Sally Hansen. We'll see how that works. I do want to know the truth, but if all the pretty little new white tips on my nails break off again, I'll cry.

Well NOW what?

It took me quite a while, but I finally slogged through Season 3 of Orange is the New Black. Most of it WAS kind of a slog, as this season was a pretty big step down from Seasons 1 and 2. Mostly just the same old unresolved story lines swirling around with no forward movement at all except for the occasional sudden traumatic disappearance of a major character or two (or maybe three). But the actresses are just too compelling to walk away from, and at least one of the unexpected new character pairings this season was pure gold, so I stuck with it. And then, surprisingly, there was a dynamite season finale that left me feeling bereft. You never know how long you'll have to wait for the next season of something on Netflix. So what now?