Review and swatches: China Glaze Crackle Glaze

I finally managed to make swatches of China Glaze Crackle Glaze collection.

Let’s take a look at all 6 crackle beauties in this collection:

I’ve been playing around with Crackle Glaze polishes for 2 days, so I managed to prepare “a few” suggestions for you. :D

For the beginning I applied China Glaze Crackle Glaze shades over Anchors Away polishes. Application was easy and all the polishes cracked nicely.

I conveniently already had Essence I Love Berlin TE polishes on nail wheel so I applied China Glaze Crackle Glaze polishes over them too. I love combo with Lightning Bolt.

Then came the hardest part – which polishes should I use as base for individual swatches. Trust me – bigger collection can sometimes present even bigger obstacle than smaller ones. I had a few “ups” moments (I do not recommend you use Crackle Glaze polishes over suede base), made over half of the swatches before figuring out the crackle polishes crack best over dry (my mistake, should have read the instructions more thoroughly) polish with top coat … …

Lightning Bolt was the only one I was hesitating about. I mean – snowy white crackle polish … sounds kind of boring. Well – in the end I fell in love with it.  :D Since I loved it over I’m A Berliner I decided to make another fresh combo. This time I used Orange Marmalade + Lightning Bolt. Since you can not see the pretty sparkle of Orange Marmalade, I added detail that shows the real beauty of this combination.

Next polish I used as a base was Nfu-Oh 66. Crushed Candy didn’t crack nicely over this shade, so I did quick test and applied top coat over the holographic shade and then added crackle polish. The result looked much better (detail). Color? Crushed Candy is interesting mix of pastel green shade with strong blue undertone.

Fault Line was applied over Bipa Nail Quickie Petrol shade. This is one of my favorite combinations.

Alessandro Cheeky Devil had a smaller accident before I added layer of Broken Hearted, so the manicure has slightly “wrinkled” look. One thing that bothered me with Broken Hearted polish, was that it can discolor slightly into violet shade (combination with Berlin Story).

Cracked Concrete‘s companion is p2 Being In Heaven.

Black Mesh was the one shade I was the least excited about, since I already have Alessandro Crash Coat. Base: Magnetic Radiant Red holographic polish.

One thing bothered me with all the Crackle Glaze polishes – I had to use really, really thin layer to achieve nice cracks. And if I messed up and used too thick layer – that was it, nothing more to be done. I admit I’m little bit spoiled by Alessando Crash Coat  – if I use to thin layer (you’ll have a hard time applying thick one with this polish), I add another one and voila -larger cracks are here.

Can you imagine that I thought at the beginning that nail wheels will be the problematic ones… loooong nails etc. But polish was completely dry on nail wheels + I used top coat so the cracks turned out great.

Price for 14ml/.5 Fl Oz. polish is 8 EUR/11 USD in Slovenia.

Do you like any of the combinations I prepared for you?