Nail Anatomy

Your fingernails and toenails are made up of layers of keratin. Keratin is a protein which is also found in your skin and hair. Fingernails act as a protective plate and increase the sensation in your fingertips. 

Please take a look at your nails, you can see five different parts:

  1. Nail plate - is your actual fingernail and it is made of keratin. Although keratin is translucent, nails look pink because of the blood vessels below. 
  2. Cuticle - also called eponychium fuses your nail plate to the skin of finger nail, it also prowides waterproof barrier.
  3.  Nail fold - is the skin that frames your nails.
  4. Nail matrix - tissue beneath the fingernail and skin extending into finger. Nail matrix actually produces the fingernail and nail bed.
  5. Nail bed - the skin under the finger nail.