How to File Underneath Fingernail Tips
- 1). Wash your hands and fingernails with warm, soapy water for at least 30 seconds. Focus on removing all dirt from underneath your fingernails. Nails should be clean before you file them.
- 2). Wait about 30 minutes for your fingernails to dry. Nails that are wet or damp do not take a fingernail file properly and have a tendency to split if filed.
- 3). Hold a fingernail file at about a 45-degree angle to the underside of one nail's tip. The underside of the file should almost touch the fingertip. Hold the file at this angle for the entire filing process.
- 4). Move the file gently in a back-and-forth motion from one corner of your fingernail to the center of your fingernail. Continue filing that portion of your fingernail until it has a smooth, evenly rounded shape.
- 5). Move the file gently in a back-and-forth motion from the opposite corner of your fingernail to the center of your fingernail. File that part of your fingernail until it has a smooth, evenly rounded shape.
- 6). Moving the file gently back and forth under the middle of the fingernail. Because filing from the corners toward the middle of the fingernail sometimes produces a pointed fingernail, smooth the middle of the nail. Doing so makes it evenly rounded with the corners of the nail.
- 7). Repeat the filing procedure for the rest of your fingernails.
