Nail Body of Toenail

[Continued from above] . . . pink because of the blood vessels located under the nail, although there are no blood vessels located in the nail plate. It is porous to water and the amount of water it holds is connected to how brittle and hard it is. The nail plate’s calcium content is less than 0.5%.

At the junction of the nail body proper and the distal edge of the nail is the hyponychium, a protective layer of epithelial cells that seals the end of the nail bed and epidermis to the nail at the onychodermal band. While the nail is constantly growing, the nail body is nevertheless firmly attached to the skin of the nail bed beneath it. The layered cells of the nail body are keratin cells, like those of the hair, flattened into a thin plate with longitudinal grooves that may be barely visible. By the time they are exposed to the air beyond the cuticle, these cells are dead. The growing and dividing cells of the nail matrix and nail root continually push the dead keratinized epithelial cells of the nail body forward.