China Glaze Metal Crackle Glaze Polish: Swatches, Review

Late 2010-2011 in nail polish land can be summed up in one word- crackle! I don’t think I have ever seen a trend in polishes become so incredibly prominent through almost every major brand, it’s crazy!

China Glaze has brought something a little different to the table- Metal crackle polishes! Mainly we have seen black, white, silver, and a few colors here and there for this type of polish, but this is the first group of all different colored ones that have a shimmery finish.

 

Latticed Lilac

Latticed Lilac over Zoya Kieko

 

Oxidized Aqua

Oxidized Aqua over OPI Grape..Set..Match

 

Haute Metal

Haute Metal over ORLY Galaxy Girl

 

Platinum Pieces

Platinum Pieces over OPI DS Magic

Tarnished Gold

Tarnished Gold over China Glaze Grape Juice

Cracked Medallion

Cracked Medallion over China Glaze Little Drummer Boy

It’s important to mention that with these shades, your base color is key to how well the crackle will show up, unlike previous ones like white and black where you could make the crackle design show up fairly well without thinking about it. There were at least 3 times where I thought a color combo would look good, and had to take it off and start over because you couldn’t see the crackle polish well (example- lighter colors don’t work well with these!) Darker polish is definitely the way to go, and texture is important also. I noticed that creams worked well (made the metal from the crackle stick out more) but super shimmery polishes like Zoya makes made the crackle less prominent- especially when a top coat was factored in.

Another thing to be aware of is that just like the shimmery shatters from OPI, you need to wait until the crackle polish is completely dry before adding a top coat, or the polish will start to sort of shrivel up and get bumpy looking.

Out of the six, I think the pink, Haute Metal, had the least crackle ability, though I’m sure you could make it work better if you applied the polish super thin and in different directions (these were all applied traditionally) My favorites are Oxidized Aqua, Cracked Medallion, and Latticed Lilac.

These will be available from China Glaze Retailers this Summer!