A Shatter Mosaic

I know a lot of people seem to have fallen off the shatter/crackle bandwagon because they got so, so overexposed so quickly. But I'm here to say don't give up on your crackle polishes yet, ladies! Since I never really liked the way they looked applied traditionally, I set out from the start to find a better--or at least more interesting--way to use shatter or crackle polishes. This is one of my favorite of the ideas I came up with. It's a shatter mosaic!

Artificial Light

I used a light grey base and six different OPI shatter topcoats, applied in different directions, to create an interesting texture on the nail.

Artificial Light

Application is a little tricky. Make sure your base color is dry, and your shatter/crackle polishes aren't too thick. I've tried doing one nail at a time and painting spots on each nail with one color at a time, and I think doing one nail at a time is a lot easier due to the fact that shatter/crackle polishes (particularly the OPI ones) get quite goopy and weird the longer they are exposed to air without a break. And you need a thick, leveling topcoat to get the best effect, so the colors really shine and you don't notice all of the texture lines.

Natural Light

But overall, it's not that difficult, and if you've amassed a collection of crackle polishes like I have, it can give you an opportunity to use a bunch of them at once. And you can experiment with different combinations and different base colors... Oh, how delightful!

Artificial Light

The supplies:

• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement (side rant--I *hate* this polish. Application is poor, dry time is insufferable, and the wear--or lack of wear--is just inexplicable. Anyway...)
• OPI Silver Shatter
• OPI Pink Shatter
• OPI Turquoise Shatter
• OPI Blue Shatter
• OPI Super Bass Shatter 
• OPI Black Shatter
• NYC Long Wearing top coat (awesome leveling top coat--chips like crazy)

OPI Silver Shatter, OPI Turquoise Shatter, OPI Blue Shatter, OPI Super Bass Shatter, OPI Pink Shatter, OPI Black Shatter

As an aside, my favorites of the shatter polishes are the Silver, Turquoise and Super Bass. They all have a beautiful sparkle to them that is just divoon. The Blue and Pink have a lovely glow, but are a bit more sheer. The black is really hard to work with, and I'm not a fan. But overall I think this is a nice collection of colors. :)

What do you think? Are you totally sick of shatter/crackle polishes, or do you still get excited to hear new ones are coming out?