Turquoise Gemstones

I am so unbelievably in love with this mani, you guys. I love turquoise - the color, yes, but also the gemstone. I saw this mani on the Tumblr Fuck Yeah Nail Art, and I fell in love. It looks just like turquoise! I had already been wearing two coats of L'Oreal Gorgeous Gold, an AMAZING (seriously amazing, guys, I should've taken a picture of it just by itself) gold metallic with medium gold hex glitters, for a day or two, and I thought it would be the perfect base to try this turquoise mani with.

I did a little variation on the technique used by Topcoat It. Here's what I did: I painted one coat of China Glaze For Audrey over Gorgeous Gold. Working one nail at a time, before For Audrey dried, I pressed a crumpled piece of plastic wrap over my nails to create some texture, like I thought a turquoise gemstone should have. Then I let all my nails dry. I then took some q-tips and filled my nail polish remover cap with some acetone-based remover. I dipped it very quickly so it didn't soak up too much remover, then I rubbed it gently over my nails. I rubbed harder on certain spots to get the gold to peek through just where I wanted it. After doing this on all my nails I finished with a glossy topcoat!

I absolutely love how this looks, although I think it would look even more like a real turquoise gemstone if I used a grayer base. Something like OPI Number One Nemesis (the Chanel Graphite dupe) would look awesome. I also think that using a glitter or metallic base makes it easier to rub away your top color without accidentally removing your base color because they are harder to remove. I think with any other color combination this might end up looking like crackle polish, so if you like that look but don't want to spend the money on a crackle polish or are frustrated that you can't get it to crack the way you want, you might try this. What do you think?