Oh no, a broken nail! Can a teabag come to the rescue?

The hack

Teabags are being touted as a solution to one of the most unsolvable beauty woes: the broken nail.

The promise

That you can use teabag fabric as a “plaster” to repair and strengthen a broken nail. Is there anything a cuppa can’t fix?

The test

There will always be one nail that breaks and ruins it for everyone else. Such is life. This week, that nail was my pinkie. While retrieving a lipstick from underneath the sofa, I broke a freshly manicured nail, hours before a party. To fix it, I removed the polish, emptied a teabag and cut off two small pieces of fabric – each roughly 5mm square – to cover the break. I then filed the nail down to ensure the tear didn’t worsen and, using tweezers, placed the fabric over the break before covering it with Nailkale Superfood base coat (€15 from Nails Inc) to seal it. After I had repeated the process again, the offending nail – although looking a little lumpy – blended in and lasted a week before I gave in and cut them all short.

The verdict

This works. Hurrah! But you could also use nail-polish stickers (Maniko has nice shades) to save faff. If your nails break often, though, find a more long-term solution. A protein-rich nail-repair cream (such as Rescue Rxx from pharmacy, from €3.99) works for me.