Crackle & Dupe

This week it's all about the crackle polish, and I stumbled over a fun dupe as well! Many thanks to Born Pretty for providing me with the black "Crack Polish" used this week. They sent me some other goodies for review that I'll be using over the next few weeks too.

Apologies for the yellow tone on this photo - it gets better. ;-) When I decided to play with the crackle polish, I decided something really bright underneath would work best. I went digging in the fridge for a nice bright pink, and came up with these two - Urban Decay's "Big Bang", and Avon's new "Pink Radiance".

They looked so close in the bottle, I just had to see them side-by-side on my nails. So I used Big Bang on my index finger below, and Pink Radiance on my middle finger. Can you see the difference? Me either - they really are an exact match, in my opinion. Fun, yes?

After my little dupe discovery, it was time to get down to business. I used the Avon polish for the rest, because the bottle is easier to deal with than the tiny (and cute) Urban Decay bottle. Undersides first...

And then two coats each to lay down a nice base for the crackle polish.

Then it was time to crackle! I used one very thin coat, then watched it crack as it dried. Super fun to watch the cracks form like magic.

On my right index finger, I did just the tip, but I got the polish on very thick, so it didn't crack as nicely as I'd have liked. As you can see though, it cracked nicely on the other nails.

On my left hand, I did a thinner coat on the tip of my ring finger, which worked a bit better.

I coated the whole thing with two coats of Seche Vite top coat - be careful with this, it will smear if you slide the brush on the crackle polish. Use a lot of top coat, and just float it on top the polish for the first coat to avoid smearing. Then cleaned up my cuticles, and voila - a very cool, leathery look.

I *need* some green crackle polish now, so I can do a reptile look over yellow polish. :-) Next time I will make sure the crackle polish is closer to the edges of my nails - it looks a bit messy even after cleanup just because it tends to break/chip a the crack lines if you aren't careful. It's really fun though - I love it...very hip, in my opinion.

Next week, I'll start the Christmas manicures...better dig out my red, white and greens! Until then, happy polishing...