Why are the tops of peoples nail white?

is it because of the air?Why are the tops of peoples nail white?
Nope, it's not the air.





Your fingernails are made of a hardened protein called keratin (this is also the same protein found in skin and hair - hair isn't ';dead protein'; as a lot of people think it is, it's this keratin that makes up your nails as well). Your nails themselves are made up of nine parts:





1) Nail Plate 鈥?this is the part you see when you look at your fingernails, the most visible part of the nail; hard and translucent, composed of keratin.


2) Nail Folds 鈥?the skin that frames and supports the nails on three sides, the base of the nail and the sides that aren't the tip.


3) Nail Bed 鈥?the adherent connective tissue found beneath the nail plate (often referred to as ';the quick';).


4) Cuticle (eponychium) 鈥?the tissue that overlaps the nail plate at the base of the nail (proximal end of the nail).


5) Surrounding Skin (paronychium) - these are the folds of skin on the sides of the nails - they surround the base and sides of the nail.


6) Lunula 鈥?the whitish half-moon shape found at the base of the nail bed.


7) Matrix 鈥?the part of the nail hidden under the cuticle, where the nail actually grows from.


8) Hyponychium - the attachment between the skin of the finger and the tip of the nail (the distal end of the nail).


9) Free-Edge - this is actually the part of the nail (the tip, if you will) that grows beyond the ends of your fingers.





The nails grow from the matrix, and what you鈥檙e actually seeing when you look at your fingernails are the older cells. In the course of growth, new cells are produced in the matrix. The older cells are pushed out toward your fingertips to make room for the new cells. In this process, the old cells become hardened and compacted, and flatten out to form the standard fingernail shape. The nail itself (the nail plate - which is what is more often than not being referred to when people talk about just their nails in general) is a white-translucent color, but while the nail is growing and hasn't grown past the Hyponychium yet, the nail will appear pink (as are the color of your nail beds), but once the nail grows past the Hyponychium and extends into Free-Edge land (lol, don't mind me), the keratin in the nail hardens even more (it's a chemical reaction to the lack of blood supply plus the extra oxygen surrounding the nail tip once it surpasses the edge of your finger) and that same translucent semi-whitish nail that was completely pink on your nail bed will harden and darken once it becomes Free-Edge.





And that, my friend, is why the tips of people's nails are white :)Why are the tops of peoples nail white?
Its the way the cuticles are pact together. There pack so tight it turn to top of your nail white.
No, it's the part of the nail that is dead.
because there not black! (: