Fissures Fail Mani

I promise there are some non-stereotypically fall colored manicures coming soon, but not this time!
 

Left hand

The base color for this mani is China Glaze Papaya Punch, a very bright, but not neon, orange creme. The color is great. It's slightly more toward the yellow side of orange, but still has cool undertones, which makes it a good fit for my skin tone. This polish came out as part of their summer collection, but I got it late on clearance, which might account for the atrocious texture. It was extremely thick, even after I added thinner, and it was very hard to get it to spread evenly. I've read other reviews that say it was great, so maybe it's just my bottle, but ugh.

Right hand

Next, I added KleanColor Brown Crackle. I'm normally quite impressed with the quality of KleanColor polishes, given their bargain price, but this is absolutely the exception. I'd already been told that, unlike most of the recent crackles, this should be applied over wet polish. So, I worked one nail at a time, adding my second coat of Papaya Punch followed immediately by Brown Crackle. As you can see, it still didn't crack very well. As usual, I did my right hand first, and learned that thick coats don't work well at all, so the left's a little better. Furthermore, the crackle started chipping off after only about 24 hours, despite the Out the Door topcoat over it. Boo!

I'm really disappointed, because I can think of lots of lovely uses for a nice brown crackle. I think Papaya Punch may still be salvageable with the addition of much more thinner, but overall, this was a really frustrating manicure. Have you tried Papaya Punch? What was your experience with it?