This teenager hasn’t cut her nails in 3 years

Simone Taylor hasn’t cut her nails in almost three years. The 16-year-old now has six inch-long talons - and has to try very hard not to break them.

Taylor has to take extra care showing and dressing, and she’s had to relearn how to type – using her knuckles.

She told PA:

Even if my nails don’t break, it hurts a lot when they get caught on clothing so I take things really slow. Buttoning up a shirt can take ages

And Taylor has difficulty writing.

My nails are too long to hold a pen properly now.

I have exams at the moment and it’s hard to write, after one hour of writing my hands really hurt.

Her nails, which take her three hours to paint, prevent her from doing sports at school.

She said:

My PE teachers are always trying to convince me to cut my nails.

They’ll never succeed in convincing me – but that makes my grades in PE really bad.

Taylor said she first decided to grow her nails when she was watching some tutorials to learn how to paint her nails, and saw how some people had really long nails. Now they measure 11.8cm, and her thumb nails are 18.4cm long.

It wasn’t my intention to grow them so long, but as they grew, so did the amount of compliments and they became more and more a part of me. 

During my first year, I always thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna cut them tomorrow,’ but I never did.

Last year, Taylor broke a nail in a metal gate, and said she cried and screamed, but fixed it with the nail glue she was carrying.

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