because i promised this by monday and i was gone, i'll post it now.

This post will probably end up being much longer than most of my other posts, just go with it.

so, a few months ago, i had finally stopped biting my nails, this was a tough habit to break, i've done it pretty much my whole life, and even though i had finally stopped biting them (which has been nearly a year since then now, yay!) they still sucked. As soon as they started to go out, they would be thin, or just weak, or they would peel and spilt and i would have to cut them down and let them grow out and try again, and well, after a while this was getting old, I stopped bitting them to have longer, prettier nails, and I still had short stubby little nails all the time. I finally started looking for ways to make them stronger, and realizing you're usual nail polish treatments to strenghten nails either had chemicals in them that made you're nails worse if you stop using them, or they were was too expensive and so not worth it for me to buy them if i didn't know if it worked, i started looking for cheaper more natural ways. 
of course, this is when i discovered garlic was suppose to be good for making your nails harder. all you need is any clear polish and a clove of fresh garlic. And of course a knife to cut it with. and if the nail polish is a new bottle, you'll want to pour a little bit out to make room for the garlic. 
It actually did work, not quite the way everything i read said it would, it wasn't a major difference, but it did help my nails grow more and stop splitting and peeling, and my nails are much healthier looking now. Yay me! I'm going to add links about the garlic nail polish at the end of this post so if any of you want to know more about it, and try it yourselves, or if you have questions, feel free to comment this post. But, strengthening your nails wasn't exactly the point of this post, so let me get to it. 
i mentioned a week or so ago that i might have found a cheap alternative to a base coat, remember that? well, this is it. I'd been using it as a base under my nail colors for a bit, and well, i hadn't really noticed it had been helping with keeping my polish from chipping for longer periods of time than if i didn't use it, until i stopped using it. 
I had bought a 'mega grow' treatment that i started using as a base to see if it would help my nails grow faster like it said, which, i do think it helped a little bit, and about the same time i got my seche vite top coat i wanted to try. the first time i used mega grow as a base coat with seche vite as the top coat, the polish just peeled right off, didn't even tear, stayed in the shape of the nail and everything. (which i've heard other people complain about as well, so i know it wasn't just me) I assumed it was the seche vite, decided i hated it, and bought out the door top coat. it was much better as in there was lack of peeling, but it would start to chip after a few days after the first time i used it. and i thought i might need a basecoat then. 
so, i ordered cnd stickey basecoat which, well, the seller cancelled the order without any reason too and it never came, so i was a little annoyed at that. so, i got out my garlic polish, my nails could probably use it a little bit again anyways, and used that as my base coat for my next mani. i didn't think anything of it until about 5 days later, my polish was still on my nails and completely chip free. crazy right? so, i tried it with my next mani, after adding a couple drops of white polish to my clear garlic polish to give it a bit of a milky color and help make colors pop better, and worked like a charm! 5 days later, no chips! 
then when i took off that mani, my nails looking even less stained, they were more white than the yellow tint they usually have (plus it was worse after having an orange polish on my nails), so the white and the garlic together much have somehow whitened my nails and prevented staining! 
the polish i used for my garlic polish was a nail hardener and strengthener from LA colors that i only paid a dollar for, and garlic for just one piece of fresh garlic is less than a dollar. so for about $2 you get a good base coat, rather than paying $5+ for a store bought base coat. but of course you can buy any clearish polish you want to to use with it, and if you cant find la colors near you may need to use a little bit more expensive clear polish for it, but still much cheaper than your usual base coat. 
i'm going to post links below where i got info from if you'd like to check them out. 
Links:  http://thecultureninja.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/garlic-nail-strengthener/ http://www.pantryspa.com/health-remedies/body-remedies/dr-oz-garlic-nail-strengthening-home-remedy-from-dominican-republic/ http://skinverse.com/garlic-for-strong-hard-nails.html http://www.ehow.com/how_12148175_put-garlic-nail-polish-stronger-nails.html

both of those picture are about 5 days of wear. and as you can see, no chips. theres a tiny on on the ring finger in the second pic, but that was do to damage on the nail and not the polish itself. 

It may not work for you, especially if you're harder on your hands than i am, but for less than $2-3, it could definitely be worth a try.