As a nail-biter, I’ve tried out many different methods to try and break the habit. Some seemed to help (if only for a few weeks), but many flopped. I’ve doused my fingers in jalapeño pepper juice every morning, covered them in band-aids, and cringed at microscopic images of what I’ve been putting in my mouth, but nothing seemed to work.

However, after nine years of being a chronic nail-biter, I was finally able to quit my sophomore year of high school. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my three best methods on how to stop biting your nails, as well as some stories about my experience with each one:

Table of Contents

1. Press-On Nails

Product Information: Snowflakes — Etsy, Stripes — Etsy, American Flag — Urban Outfitters

This was one of the methods I constantly loved to try: if I couldn’t have long nails, I could at least glue on long nails.

The only downfall of this was the difficulty I had performing daily tasks – you’d be surprised how hard it can be to open a soda can or zip your jeans with super long nails. And, naturally, my fake nails seemed to always pop off at the most unfortunate times – especially at times when I didn’t notice. I would typically walk around at school with only eight nails intact.

However, this was, without doubt, one of the more painless habit-breaking methods I put myself through. The only issues I had to deal with were biting into plastic and the complexities of going about my day with extremely long nails. (Although, filing them down a bit would have definitely helped!) This was, overall, a successful method for me.

2. Nail Polish

Product Information: Left to Right — Essie, Essie, Deborah Lippman, OPI, and Nordstrom

Nail polish was a great preventative method to use (why would you want to ruin something so pretty?), but it can be taken to the next level by opting for a bad-tasting polish formulated especially for nail-biters.