But my thumbnails, they grow in square. And after a while, they just feel bad. So they get cut more often.

Nails are cool until they start to curl then they get creepy. Mine stay short.

They break as they break, I usually don't pay attention. Except my pinkie nails. Those seem to grow and never break. I let them get long enough that someone may think I'm doing bumps of coke in the bathroom and then I bite them off.

Bonus question: Nail trimming in public.

Discuss.

I have to keep them trimmed real short. My Dad had this wild hair up his ass about nails getting too long when I was a kid, so now I feel weird if i've got any nail at all.

On preview: trimming in public is akin to brushing teeth in public - you can do it, but you really shouldn't.

Nail trimming in public. What bmarkey said.

I'd rather see public tooth-brushing than public nail clipping. But I don't know why it bugs me so much. I think it's the noise.

I mean, nail clippings aren't as inherently gross as, say, snot.

The sound of snot being hacked up is gross. But the sound of nails being clipped, and the inevitable curiosity about where the trimming went, is just as bad for me, even though the end product isn't as disgusting. Huh.

On a somewhat related topic: Science Girl and I have both noticed that our nails have been growing much faster over the last few weeks. I have it in my mind that this happens every summer. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?

Yes. Fingernails and leg hair grow faster in the summer.

Well there you go.

I'll have to take your word on the leg hair, though.

I usually get a manicure due to some large event for which I wish to appear properly girly. But then whatever chemicals they use on my nails means that about a week after the polish chips off, my nails begin to chip off. Then they drive me nuts and I bite at them until they are some reasonable length again (that is, short), at which point the nasty chemicals seem to wear off and they start to grow, which triggers me to think, "Oh, now they're long enough that I can get a manicure!" and the cycle starts again.

I kept them shorter when I was dancing regularly, because I always felt bad about clawing my partners during turns. That was probably better.

i let em go and bite them off as need be, often nicking one with a sharp knife or dealing with a tear.
Have been fucking with my thumb cuticles non stop for months now. rrr.

I used to get my nails done with medium-length extensions at a local nail bar, but it eventually ruined them, so now I keep them short (I think anyone who has to use a keyboard for much of their job or leisure needs short nails).

But sometimes when I go on holiday I'll get the extensions done. I had a lovely French manicure set done for Vegas but I got fed up with them very quickly (try putting contacts in when you're not used to wearing nail extensions - my eyes! my eyes!) and on my last day I went to a nail place in Vegas and had them removed.

I cut mine very short, so I let them grow out for a fortnight before I cut them again, unless I'm depressed and not in the mood to take care of my hygiene, in which case it takes me another week to get to them, by which time they're really gross.

I let them grow until they start breaking, usually due to getting them caught in something. I usually have to cut them about every 10 days or so.

I usually cut them in my room, with my door locked, on this thick departmental store plastic bag, and then dispense of them in the toilet.
Does anyone else flush them down the toilet, or do you throw it in the trash can?
I think the one time that I did cut my nails in public, that I can remember, was in front of my sister, and it made me as uncomfortable as hell for some reason.

Just don't leave them at a crime scene.
Not that anyone cares but play it safe, kids.

On my left hand, 1 to 3 mm beyond the quick. On my right hand, 12 to 15 mm beyond the quick.* I generally clip the left hand, and always emery board the right (to prevent splitting). I'll use an emery board in an anonymous public setting, like a waiting room, or a lounge, but I try to be discreet.

*I finger pick guitar.

"Just don't leave them at a crime scene."
"flush them down the toilet"

Amen kids. Amen.

I usually let mine grow for 1-2 weeks then I cut them. It also depends on which season it is. In the summer I tend to keep them short because of yard work & mowing. My nails grow pretty quickly and look good medium longish but they also start to annoy me.

I usually cut mine standing over a waste basket in the privacy of my own house.

I just trim them over the side of the front porch ever week or two so they can go back to the earth from whence they came. Which means I cut them in public all the time, technically, I guess.

The weirdest memory I have of being a small child is sitting in a chair and somehow managing to bend my leg up to my mouth so I could chew my toenails. Kids do some weird shit.

I have had it drilled into me, via years of piano lessons, that nails are meant to be short, with the result that I feel uncomfortable if there are more than 1-2 mm of white showing. My nails are very strong, which I think might be a result of keeping them short.

Now that I type all the time, I can't be doing with long nails. Unglamorous, but there you are.

Like paulsc, I play guitar, so I keep the nails on my left hand as short as possible. I tried growing out the nails on my right hand for finger picking, but I didn't have the discipline.

In my house, clippings go in the compost pile!

A couple of mm above the quick, I guess. Although I chew them when they get too long.

It appears that I'm the only person who doesn't mind the sight or sound of others tending to their nails. I don't do it in public though.

The first house I bought some years back had a small fireplace in the bedroom that the previous owners had covered up with a piece of board that had an opening cut into it, about 3" square. When I took the board off, I discovered that they'd used the opening to dispose of their finger and toenail clippings. There was about 20-years worth of clippings that had accumulated in the fireplace.

Yes, I puked.

I've always clipped my fingernails close for playing violin and guitar. Fretted instruments are at least playable with slightly long fingernails, but playing violin, especially vibrato, is nigh impossible with nails. My right index fingernail (and middle fingernail, to some extent) is thin and slopes on the left side from strumming and picking wound guitar strings.

I noticed, after five days in the Caribbean, that my fingernails had grown about twice as fast as usual, and now that I'm back, they're back to normal (summer) growth.

I clip my toenails along with every other fingernail clipping. I clip nails only after a shower, when they're soft (my toenails can be somewhat thick and stubborn).

I like the clippers that retain the clippings for ease of disposal. I don't mind clipping around others, but I wouldn't do it in public (I'm not into public displays of hygiene, not because they're disgusting, but because they display a selfish lack of regard for others; doing nails is like picking linty hair out of your navel -- it's upkeep, and it has a byproduct nobody else really wants or needs to see). I usually do it while I'm on the phone, since my hands are idle anyway.

On my left hand, 1 to 3 mm beyond the quick. On my right hand, 12 to 15 mm beyond the quick.

I could never do this. I would feel lopsided. Once, while clipping my nails, I inadvertently skipped the ring finger of my left hand. For the rest of the day I felt completely out-of-sorts, as if I'd put my underwear on backwards, or something. First thing I did upon returning home that day was clip that little bugger right off, and then I felt like a whole person again.

Very short. No schedule, cut when they start to bother me. Into toilet, after shower, never in public - ewwww. Right now I have white marks on two of my fingernails and it was starting to wig me out a little (have I been telling more lies than usual? Calcium deficiency? That horrible google result that said it was a sign of cirrhosis?) until I remembered smashing my fingers in the garage door in mid May: they're just trauma reminders.

Oh LORD jan! That story made me feel woozy.

I remember writing a story about how a hospital traced a rash of staff infections back to a nurse with particularly long fingernails. I've kept mine pretty short ever since and get pretty grossed out by exceptionally long ones.

The woman who works the front desk at our eye doctor's office has nails so long they curve. Freakishly long. And she paints them gold. My poor daughter has to be so brave everytime she gets her glasses adjusted. Having big gold talons come at your face is scary.

I trim my fingernails down to about 1 mm every week. I trim them into the bathroom sink and wash them down. And I can't stand people clipping their nails in public. Ick.

Anecdote: my mum's younger sister calls toenails footernails. This is due to me, as a kid, asking her, "since fingernails are called fingernails, why aren't toenails called footernails?".