OPI

The initials are a fossil. They stand for Odontorium Products Incorporated, a Los Angeles dental supply business, which is how one of the world's largest nail companies spent its first years operating under a name derived from teeth.

George Schaeffer bought that dental supplier in 1981 and noticed something strange in the order book: nail technicians kept buying acrylic monomers and polymers intended for dentures, because the chemistry that builds a temporary crown also builds an artificial nail. He turned the company toward the salon trade, brought in Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, a Hungarian-born emigre who would become artistic director and, eventually, the person who names every shade, and worked with a biochemist on an acrylic system he sold door to door.

Colour came later and changed the trajectory. A nail lacquer line launched in 1989 with thirty densely pigmented shades, and the professional-grade formula found an audience far beyond the salons it was built for. The naming convention became a signature in its own right, with shades christened as puns tied to a city or country and released in geographic collections until the names were as collectable as the colours. The brand sold to Coty in 2010 in a deal reported near a billion dollars and now sits within Wella Company, with Weiss-Fischmann still naming the colours.

What you are buying is pigment load and wear. This is a colour house with real salon-grade formulation behind it: the lacquers apply densely, level smoothly and hold under a topcoat in a way cheaper polishes do not, and the professional gel systems are salon standards for good reason. What it is not is a nail-health brand. Treatment products exist in the range, but the evidence behind cosmetic nail strengtheners is thin across the entire category, and a nail that keeps splitting is usually reporting on how it is being filed, soaked and stripped rather than on what is painted over the top. Buy it for the colour and the wear, and treat the care claims as secondary.

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