Mid-Week Manicure: OPI Black Shatter + China Glaze Crackle Glaze Collection

Posted by Amber in Featured, Headline, Nails | 13 comments

Unless  you’ve been sleeping under a rock lately, you’ve noticed that the beauty world is currently obsessed with crackle nail polish, particularly OPI’s Black Shatter nail polish. Recently released with OPI’s Katy Perry and Serena Williams collections, Black Shatter has been flying off of store shelves. How does Black Shatter work? Well, when the polish’s incompatible substances are combined, it dries unevenly on the nail, creating a cracked finish.

Now, despite the recent “crackle” polish craze, crackle polish isn’t new. I remember having crackle polish as a little girl back in the 1980s, and Cover Girl released a crackle polish back in the early 2000s. Well, I got my hands on a bottle of OPI Black Shatter several weeks ago and had yet to play around with it, so I thought I’d give it a spin for today’s “Mid-Week Manicure”!



At first, I planned to pair Black Shatter with a bold, bright gold. But as I was perusing my polish collection I kept coming across lots of nudes and neutrals and began to like the idea of using one of them as a base for Black Shatter. I thought the bold contrast between black and a light shade would be striking, so I went with it! I decided on MAC Nail Laquer in Brown Bag from 2010′s Pret a Papier collection (I reviewed the polish here). This particular shade is no longer available (typical MAC), but you can still score a bottle on eBay, or use a similar shade, such as OPI’s San-Tan-Tonio from the new Texas Collection.

After applying a base coat, I applied 2 coats of MAC Brown Bag to my nails and let it dry completely. In order for the crackle effect to take place, your base polish must be completely dry and without top coat. After Brown Bag was totally dry I applied one coat of Black Shatter. The thinner the coat you apply, the thinner and smaller the black shards, and the thicker the coat, the chunkier the shards. Black Shatter looked like streaky polish going on, but began to shrink and crack as it dried. Because it dries super-matte, I added my long-time favorite top coat, Poshe Super-Fast Drying Top Coat, to give my nails a glossy shine.

Here are the finished results!

I didn’t think I’d like it all that much, but I actually love it! I don’t think I would have liked it as much if I’d gone with a bright base color as I’d originally planned. This nude shade lends a certain chic and “grown-up” look to something that could easily look like a cheesy trend.

OPI Black Shatter retails for around $8.50 in the Katy Perry Collection and is also available in the Serena Williams Grand Slam 2 pc. set for about $15. Black Shatter is available at salons and beauty supply stores that carry OPI products, but if you’re having trouble locating a bottle check your local JCPenney or Dillard’s salon, as they seem to be selling out less quickly than other retail outlets.

While I do like OPI Black Shatter, I can see the black getting very old, very quick. Just as I was wondering if anyone would release a crackle polish in colors, the lovely Brittany of Clumps of Mascara, tweeted that China Glaze would soon be releasing an entire collection of crackle nail polishes. The Crackle Glaze collection will include six crackle polishes, in shades perfect for the warm-weather months:

• Lightning Bolt – White Crackle
• Black Mesh – Black Crackle
• Broken Hearted – Pink Crackle
• Cracked Concrete – Grey Crackle
• Fault Line – Purple Crackle
• Crushed Candy – Teal Crackle

I think Lightening Bolt will look great on top of summer brights like orange, hot pink or teal! The polishes will retail for about $6 each, and should be available soon at Sally Beauty Supply.

So that’s the latest scoop on crackle polishes! What did you think of my Black Shatter/Brown Bag mani? Will you give OPI or China Glaze’s crackle polishes a try? Share in the comments!