Crackle polishes... love them or hate them?

the newest "IN" in the nail polish arena is crackle polish. I remember when I was a little girl, there was a nail polish that was launched I think by covergirl. It stuck in my mind cos one of my teachers used it on her nails and I thought it was so cool.

fast forward to today... OPI released a black crackle called Shatter in their Katy Perry collection late last 2010 and China Glaze is releasing a collection of 6 crackle colors too. Needless to say, both of those two companies sell polishes that are big 3 free...

and everyone in the nail polish world seems to be jumping happily onto the crackle train... dang.. that sounds like a crack train or something huh?

there's this store that I've been looking at at Toa Payoh central for ages now. They have crackle polish they say is from USA. They had them even before OPI even had Shatter out. Prices are SGD12 per bottle or SGD20 for two.

CRACKLE COLORS ~ TOP ROW ONLY

~ their color wheel with swatches ~

I spent some time there... finally... Wan Ting was a sweetheart. She answered all my questions and let me try the colors out. My nails were bare when I went and she cheerfully painted base color coats and crackle coats. Here's the result.

yellow crackle on top of light blue

dark purple (blue toned), medium purple (red toned), bright pink and peach

white crackle on the index finger,
the other two nails... experimenting with dotting pens and dotting tools

Note the names of the crackle polishes are my own *grin*

I've done some online research and found that the brand X&D isn't from USA but from China... and so probably not Big 3 free... ah well...

I bought the two purples... hardly surprising right? here's what I came up with...

medium purple... kinda like this look

dark purple

Looks really similar now that I'm looking at them again. Am wondering if I made a mistake buying such similar colors. If you look at the earlier swatches, the dark purple was a lot darker. Turned out rather differently at home. Sigh. Crackle polish dries matte... its the top coat that makes it shiny.

I bought a couple of other polishes while I was there... and qualified for their VIP card. That gives a 10%  discount on regular prices. I'll post pics as and when I use them.

If you're wondering where to find these polishes, the stall I went to is at Toa Payoh HDB Hub, just outside Lee Hwa Jewellery. This is a permanent stall. They have pushcarts at Northpoint (Yishun) and Jurong Point (Boon Lay).

One last thing...  I have 10 different looks on my nails now and I don't have time to take them off. My church friends are either gonna think I'm nuts or I'm super groovy tonight. What do you think?