Essie Bikini So Teeny + Pure Pearlfection and Garlic as Peel Off Base Coat

Essie - Bikini So Teeny (3 coats)

Essie - Pure Pearlfection from luxeffects collection (1 coat)

I love Pure Pearlfection... especially over a light color like Bikini So Teeny. It looks so lovely when the light hits it and it's not in your face like glitter. It's understated and subtle and plain beautiful. It has a pretty good formula. It is very thick and its consistency reminds me more of hair gel. It is very easy to smooth out and control though and dries quickly. I also found that it makes my manis really last which is an added bonus in addition to being so pretty!

Bikini So Teeny is a pretty slightly dusty light blue creme. It somehow manages to be both bright yet soft at the same time. It is slightly purple toned next to my other blues. There is some subtle silver shimmer in it. The shimmer is visible in the bottle in the first shot. It wasn't really visible on the nail but added nice shine and depth.

It had a decent formula. Good consistency, self leveled but a bit sheer. I've found that colors this light are usually problematic because they aren't as pigmented, so considering it against similar colors it isn't bad. Shown below is 3 coats on it's own, no top coat.

Below: one coat

Below: two coats

As you can see, after two coats, my ring finger and pinky are almost completely opaque. With extremely careful application or with thicker coats you could maybe get away with 2 coats (if you aren't going to be taking macros of it anyway).

Unfortunately this mani only stayed on for 1 day before it came off. Why? Well I read that garlic is good for strengthening your nails... I tried the third method she mentions... Cutting a clove of garlic in half and wiping the juice from the cut edge onto your bare nail and letting it sit there until it dries. After that she says to wash it off.. Well when I searched for more information about garlic as a nail strengthening treatment I found a bunch of YouTube videos showing you how to mix garlic into your base coat to help strengthen your nails. So I figured why not just paint over the dried garlic juice on my nails instead? I was worried that I would accidentally get bits of garlic in my base coat and end up with weird lumpy nails. So I did this mani over dried garlic juice (1 coat OPI Nail Envy, 3 coats Essie Bikini So Teeny, 1 coat Essie Pure Pearlfection, 1 coat Color Club top coat).

This happened the next day. One popped off while I was packing up and leaving work. The rest I popped off at home, using the angled end of an orange stick to lift off from the sides. They came off super easily. 

I think this could be a good alternative to the PVA glue peel off base coat thing which didn't really work for me. My thumbs came off within a few hours which I didn't want. And then I was stuck at work with one weirdly nekkid nail. I don't even know how it came off. I don't remember rubbing it on anything... I just looked at it and all of sudden it was blank lol. And the rest of my nails I couldn't lift off. I ended up hacking at it and chipping a few bits off before just using remover. The garlic is also better for your nails in my opinion. Not that PVA glue is bad for your nails. It is non-toxic so I doubt it would do any damage. But it isn't doing anything to help your nails either. The garlic made my nails feel much stronger. After a day with the garlic "mask" on my nails they were soo stiff and strong. I tried bending the free edge gently and they didn't bend at all! They usually bend a bit so I was pleasantly surprised.