Barry M Croc Nail Effects

Well guys, it seems like I have pretty bad luck with cameras. If any of today's photos look bad, I apologize. I had to use my iPhone because my Nikon Coolpix (yes that's right, the one I just got in November) was stolen from my locker in a London hostel :( I still have my big DSLR, but since I don't have a macro lens for it, I don't use it for blogging. Travel insurance should reimburse my losses (I also had my iPod stolen), and my new camera is on its way from Amazon now. Oh well, lesson learned: Never leave anything valuable in a hostel, even if it's in a locker!

On to the polish. Today, I have some English polish for you! I haven't bought too many new polishes since I arrived in England, but I hadn't seen anything like this one before, so I decided to try it out. It's by Barry M Cosmetics, and it's called Croc Nail Effects. They had another color, but I went for the black. It's basically just like crackle polish, but it produces a different effect.

I started with two coats of China Glaze Purple Panic since I like how neon pops against black. I then applied the Croc Nail Effects to three fingers (the bottle advises to apply a thin coat while polish is still slightly wet). It takes longer for the croc effect to show up than it does for crackle. Like crackle polishes, it has a bit of a learning curve. And like it says, make sure it's a thin coat. I put too much on my thumb on the first go, and it didn't do very much. I wound up doing that finger over with a thinner coat of croc effect.

For some fun accent nails, I used a medium striper brush to freehand some tiger stripes and regular stripes, and I used a dotting tool for the dots.

Here's a close up of the croc effect. Sorry for the messiness; I don't have all of my cleaning tools with me in England (read: I only have nail polish remover instead of acetone)! 

Overall, I think the effect is interesting, but I wish it allowed you to see more of the base color. It's very black. I'm glad I chose to do some accents nails to brighten up this mani.