The formula on the whole was quite nice to work with. It wasn't thick as you would assume most glitter formulas to be like. I found I needed to make sure I don't wipe too much glitter off my brush before applying onto my nail though, or the glitter wouldn't look like it hadn't cracked, just more like a glitter layered over a base colour (see photos below). The crackle glitters do dry matte like all crackle polishes, so my photos show them with top coat over it.
In hindsight, I should have probably layered these over a black base (see it layered over black in Part 2), but I wanted to play with different coloured bases and hey, they're much more interesting than black :P I tried my best to find a good base colour but I think one (or two) may not have been such good choices, especially at showing off the beautiful glitter. I'll probably go back and swatch this again over a black base to see it come to life :)
Gleam me up is an aqua-blue crackle glitter. I applied this over two coats of OPI Pompeii purple. As you can see on my index and middle finger, the glitter simply looks like it was layered on since I didn't have enough polish on the brush. A great difference to the outcome on my pinky and ring finger!
Glam-more is a fuchsia crackle glitter. I totally failed with this one, the crackle look only turned up on my pinky! Definitely need to work on having more polish on the brush. This is layered over two coats of Ulta3 spring shower.
Whilst I would proclaim loud and clear to the world that I'm sick of crackle polishes, this collection definitely surprised me! I quite like the subtle crackle effect the glitter gives. The China Glaze Crackle Glitter collection will be available in the US May 2012, retailing at $9.
What do you think of the first half of the collection. Is this a yay for a different form of crackle or a huge 'get over it!!' to nail polish companies?
Thanks for reading!
~Sharon
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