Continuing with my recent love of Essie, I suddenly decided that I needed Lapis of Luxury, which is from Essie’s 2010 Resort Collection.  Since I prefer the retail Essie packaging if a color is sold on the retail side, I went to many WalGreens before finally bringing it home.

This is a tricky color, because it’s what I would call a “peripheral” retail color-it only shows up in the largest of the retail displays, so in a smaller display there’s no space for it at all.  I did notice that it’s on the WalMart website if you’re really desperate.  It took a little digging to find it, but I can now report that it is available even in some (or one) WalGreens in the heart of New York City.

Since the weather is now turning so hot and summery, it seemed a perfect time to revisit a few shades from the Resort 2010 Collection that are more readily available now that Essie is sold outside of salons.  When originally released, this polish was called ‘Lapis of Luxury’, which makes sense.   It’s blue (like lapis, a semi-precious stone) and there’s that normal English saying about the ‘lap of luxury’, you know?  Well, this name highlights the weird process that went into re-naming the retail Essies-someone decided that adding a “z” was required.  Now it’s Lapiz of Luxury if you buy it at WalGreens.  Lapiz isn’t anything; it seems to follow the common advertising method of replacing normal letters in a word with a “z” to make the word more…icky.  Like, “E-Z Cheese”.  Or “E-Z Bake Oven”.  I kind of love how poorly named this polish is, it’s like having a little train wreck right on the top of the bottle.

But, this polish is beautiful!  It’s a slightly dusty blue that leans light and a tiny bit purple.  It took three coats but went on well for me with the smallish Essie brush.  I’m not normally a blue polish fan, but this is a color that I really like for summer, it’s so calming and just pretty.  It has a nice vibrant and clean tone, especially in the sun.

I also decided to try out an older OPI polish that I picked up recently.  OPI Sugarplum Yum is an old black label (not 3-free) polish that was released a while ago (maybe 2004?)  as part of an OPI holiday collection.  It’s a pinkish shimmer with gold duochrome tendencies, but a grey-blue undertone that made me think it would be a nice match for Lapiz of Luxury.  I liked this combination, but Sugarplum Yum was not as spectacular as I was hoping.  On the nail it’s mostly pink shimmer, but there is a nice, shadowy blue tone where the light doesn’t directly hit the nail, which makes it worthwhile.  You can see this even more in the second picture below.

So Lapiz of Luxury is a total win in my book, such a nice summer color.  I’d pick it up if you find a retail bottle!