- Oh, oh yuck.
(cough)
It really stays with you.
(smacking)
(sound effect)
(quirky music)
- I'm Sam and I am a nail-biter.
I'm Max and I'm pretty much a lifetime nail-biter.
- I started biting my nails because
my brother bit his nails when I was a kid
and I thought it was really cool.
And then I just couldn't stop.
- I've been biting my nails forever.
I am a musician so the thing I'm always trying to avoid
is biting my finger nails so that they hurt
when I press down on things like a keyboard or guitar.
- Things have gotten pretty desperate.
And that's why we turned to you,
the Buzzfeed community, to tell us how to stop.
- So I guess I'm definitely not the worst at this.
That's good.
Malvas?
- [Sam] It's probably one of those things
that tastes really bad.
I've just bitten through that.
- Exercise.
- I exercise.
Ish.
Okay, putting band-aids on my nails helped over the summer.
- Yes, that's clever.
- Snow and white?
Snowanwhite17: Honestly, I play with Silly Putty
while I'm nervous and it really helps.
I would play with silly putty.
- We read all of your responses
and we're going to try five ways to stop biting your nails.
Fidget spinners or fidget toys,
Silly Putty,
We're going to try the Band-aids,
Malva nail?
- Whatever makes your nails taste bad.
- And then lastly,
- Well I'm gonna get an acrylic manicure.
- I will not.
- We're gonna do five days of this
during the work week when you're stressed
so if we start to see some improvement
that'll at least be an indication that there is hope.
- Let the games begin now.
- Prove me wrong.
I wanna be wrong.
I wanna succeed.
(swoosh)
Day one of the stop biting your nails challenge.
Today I have to put band-aids on my fingers,
and I'm on my way to a trivia night,
so that's gonna be socially acceptable.
(quirky music)
- The band-aids so far are not the worst,
but as much as I liked them when I put them on,
I cannot use a cell phone.
Typing is not very easy either.
So the band-aid has been inconvenient,
but I have not bit my nails yet.
(swoosh)
- I'm here watching Sam put this nail polish on over her
- [Sam] Over my dry, brittle disgusting fingers.
- (laughs) Probably, I don't know how this works.
- Now what I'm dreading is the fact that
in order to see whether this is working,
I'm gonna have to taste it.
- (smacks) Okay, that's disgusting.
- Yeah I've tasted so many bad herbal teas in my life,
this could be one of them.
- I'm still not recovered.
This Malva stuff has ruined my afternoon
because there's this really nice bit of fruit here,
and I literally can't touch a piece of it.
I'm about to go bobbing for apples into this thing
and just eat it with my face.
- It's been six hours since I put it on,
and it actually stopped me from biting, so there's hope.
(swoosh)
This is day three of my attempt to stop biting my nails.
The Malava stop, Mavala stop?
I don't know how to pronounce it.
(ding)
It is still working.
I licked my finger right now, yeah, still gross.
- This morning I'm glad that my tool is a fidget cube,
cause I forgot my headphones
and already this is my new favorite toy,
and my favorite way of distracting myself.
- Today I'm trying this fidget ring.
You can see it spins.
We're gonna see how that works.
- I'm having an excellent time with this toy.
I think I'm still picking at my nails,
but I am going to play with this forever.
- I didn't really use it, but I'll tell you what I did do.
I did accidentally lick my fingers near my mouth,
even when I was like eating things with my hands,
and the Mavala stop is still on.
Honestly the bad tasting nail polish might work.
(swoosh)
- Right now we're on our way to get my second manicure ever,
and your?
- I've had a bunch but I've never had a gel manicure before.
- If I kinda have nice nails that have been treated well,
maybe I will continue to treat them well.
- I always get mocked by the manicurist
cause my nails are so short.
- [Ben] (laughs)
- So, I'm expecting more of the same.
- On the way out the nail salon.
How'd that go for you?
- It went so well.
Well I still have my fidget ring on
just in case the nail polish doesn't work,
but I'm hoping it does.
- Hopefully, I can keep the manicure on
for more than two weeks,
and make a long term lifestyle change cause,
let me tell you how good it feels to see your nails.
(swoosh)
- An alternative today, I have Silly Putty.
I have not seen this in about 20 years.
- Kate, is that what you're playing with back there?
- Yup, silly putty.
- You bit your nails too, right?
- Yes, constantly.
- You think it would stop you from biting your nails though?
- No.
- I'm optimistic because, so far the thing that helped most
was the distracting bandaid.
So I don't know,
maybe having a little fidget toy will be of use.
- This is going well.
I don't think I'm getting the urge to bite my nails because
they still have nail polish on them, but we'll see.
- On a positive note, the silly putty can bounce
which is pretty fun.
(multiple thuds)
If I could catch it.
- We're finished with our five day experiment
to stop biting our nails.
- I feel like I have been a little bit tormented.
- I'm not gonna lie,
I kinda relapsed in a meeting yesterday.
- Yeah I mean I clearly haven't stopped.
I'm not looking too good right now.
- It was a good experiment to see
just how much I've been tempted.
- My most successful day was the first day.
(ding)
I'm gonna try the band-aid again.
It was helpful because it was the only thing
where you literally couldn't do anything about it.
So that was really good.
- I think my most successful day
would've had to have been the gel manicure.
(ding)
As hellish as the experience actually was
because manicurists are bullies.
It is really a deterrent
to have this really strong shellacked nail
that you can't just gnaw into.
- Thanks so much to the aesthetic pepper
for the suggestion for the band-aids.
I'm gonna think of you every time I wear them.
- And thank you to Katlady with a series of numbers after it
for recommending the gel manicure.
I really hope this is the long lasting solution.
If anyone knows a manicurist nice enough
to not shame me for my tiny nails,
hit a girl up.
- Don't forget to bookmark this video and check back in.
In five years, we'll do a follow up.
- We're gonna do the reunion tour.
- [Ben] (laughs)
- [Sam] And we'll have no fingers left
because we bit them off.
(quirky music)
(swoosh)
(door creak)