When you start to play guitar, is the skin on your fingertips supposed to 'crack'?? REPOSTED?

Question

Hi again, I've started playing steel stringed acoustic guitar a while ago and I get that you need to develop callouses etc. but are your fingers supposed to crack? Because the tips of mine where I press the strings down onto the frets are quite literally cracked. Not like indents where the strings touched your fingers but yeah I don't know how erlse to put it - the skin on my fingertips is cracked :S What can I do to like.. heal it, and does every guitar players' fingers' crack????

Answer 1

I think you should try looking into some kind of hand covering !! If not some certain kind of glove that might be special made for just such  a thing or task !?!  

Answer 2

I'll tell you what I did and you may think me crazy, but my fingers hurt so bad and I wanted to continue playing, so I put clear fingernail polish on the ends of my fingers and let it dry before playing. Sometimes I'd use 2-3 coats to get it thick enough to help and It did help some.  

Answer 3

I've been playing and teaching for 30+ years.  Your fingertips should not crack.  When you are not playing, put some lotion on them.  Don't get lotion all over your guitar, but grease them up at other times.  It will not effect the build up of callus on the tips.

Do you have normally dry skin, or do you live in a dry environment?  If you are in a dry area, please remember to take steps to keep your guitar from drying out.