What is this powder under my nails?

Question

i grow my nails really long and they are past my skin but they seem to have this white sort of powder under them. they also start to curl on the 2 edges. what is the powder and why do they curl? how can i stop this?

Answer 1

It's possible the white powder might be skin cells which stuck to the bottom of the nail as it grew out and are now flaking off.

As for the curving, I've seen photos of people who grew VERY long nails, like for Guinness book of records, and they are ALL very distorted, even corkscrew shaped.  This appears to be natural and is probably hard to avoid.  These people had nails like 6" to 20" long.

For normal lengths, I've noticed that things like how one holds a pen and lays their hand on the paper as they write can distort the nails gradually, over many years.  This has not gone away for me when I stopped writing as much.

Answer 2

2 points?