My budget doesn’t stretch to some of the higher end brands, such as Deborah Lippmann and RBL, so I’m always on the lookout for dupes of their polishes that I love.  I covet my tiny bottles of Essence Blue Addicted because I can’t afford DL Across The Universe for instance.  I absolutely loved the swatches of RBL Aqua Lily from the recent Fan Collection, but again, far too expensive for me – especially as I would have to spend $200 to get free international shipping plus it was extremely hard to buy in the first place.  So I turned to layering instead to try to recreate the look.

I used two coats of American Apparel The Office for a base colour, then a coat of CND Raspberry Sparkle over the top.  It’s not quite the same as Raspberry Sparkle is a coarser finish but it was good enough to settle the lemming for me.

I really liked this in the shade because Raspberry Sparkle has a duochrome finish – moving between pink and a champagne gold which looked gorgeous against the blue as well.  So OK, no dupe here that’s for sure, but it is a nice combo none the less.  I don’t play with my CND effects enough, I definitely have to get them out more often.