OPI Shatter lives up to the hype

The days here in New York have been oh-so-gloomy lately (snow, sleet and freezing rain -- oh my!), and I needed something to brighten my spirits. A good beauty product will do just that -- and I found that OPI Shatter is not just good, but also fun and innovative.

This nail polish has been featured and advertised in magazines for a couple months now, and I couldn't wait to get my mitts on it. Part of the new Katy Perry for OPI collection, Shatter is "a deep asphalt black with a 'shattered' texture." OPI recommends that you wear it over one of the other polishes from the Katy Perry collection, but the polish works as advertised on other colors of OPI nail polish, too.

I wanted to go for a feminine yet slightly punky look, so I painted my nails the color of Betsey Johnson shopping bags. As recommended by OPI in the little tag that was attached to the bottle of Shatter, I waited for that pink polish to dry before applying Shatter.

All you need for Shatter to work properly is one coat of it. The thicker a coat you apply, the more shatter action seems to happen. The first nail I used Shatter on was my left pinky nail, and I timidly applied a thinnish coat of Shatter to the nail. The effect was almost like a vertical zebra print -- more lines than a shatter effect. That didn't look bad at all, but I wanted more of a shattered effect, so I put more of the black polish on the next few nails. Glopping it on's not a good idea, but making sure you have a reasonably thick coat of it on the nail is a good idea (you may need to experiment a bit to figure out exactly the right amount of polish to slick onto your nails).

You don't even notice the Shatter polish sort of separating itself on your nails -- it just kinda happens. It dries fairly quickly, too, so there's not a lot of occasion to bump your nails on something and mess them up. 

The Shatter polish looks great with a bright color peeking out from underneath. You could put white underneath for a mod look (although your nails might resemble those old black-and-white marbled composition notebooks!), or put a sparkly Katy Perry polish underneath for a glammier look.

This polish gives the effect of nail art, but for a fraction of the time and cost of going to a nail salon to get nail art done. The one odd thing about it is that Shatter feels lumpy when you run your fingertips over your nails. If you look at your nails, it's not easy to tell that the Shatter is a different layer of polish than the base color, but when you touch the nails, it's immediately obvious.

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy Shatter was to use and how well it worked. My nails didn't look too far off from the nails in the magazine ads for the Katy Perry nail polish collection. Here's hoping OPI comes out with more Shatter polishes in more colors!

Rating: 5 out of 5 well-manicured nails

Where to buy: In-store at Ulta. Click here to locate your closest NY store.