Studio M - Sophisticated Lad

I've been really blog lazy.  Which should not be confused with lazy in real life.  Work has been beating me halfway to Sunday this last week, and I'm still in the process of overhauling my living space in a big cleaning venture.  Oy vey.  There's always good and bad that come with cleaning, so I'm trying to stick with the positive aspects.  At least until I can see my floor again.  Haha!

I've still been taking pictures, but my camera is buried somewhere in this mess.  So unfortunate...  So you get a slight oldie.  Don't worry, though.  It's still fresh.  I sniffed it.

Urgh, why do you do this to me, pointer and middle fingers?  I need a good ridge filler.  This peeling business is ridiculous.

This was two easy coats of Studio M's Sophisticated Lad.  This is the first Studio M cream I've worn in a long, long while.  I was pretty impressed with it!  Sophisticated Lad turned out to be more of a greige than a beige, in my opinion.  There are slight cool undertones that lean purple, but don't make the polish itself look purple.

Very simple, but much more simply pretty than I expected.  As far as I know, though, Studio M polishes are only available at Meijer stores, which are only located in parts of the Midwest.  Indiana, Michigan, and parts of Illinois, if I'm not mistaken.


I found a fun book when I was cleaning.  It's called "The Conversation Piece Collection" by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie.  My parents got it for me when I was pretty young so that we would have things to talk about when we were out on trips.  It's a hefty little book filled with open ended questions. :)

If you could fly in a hot-air balloon over any city in the world, what city would you choose?
I'm not into heights.  I probably wouldn't even get into the balloon in the first place.  If I had to choose, though, I'd probably pick a tiny little town in Nepal, so that I could see the Himalayas.  Or some little touristy niche in Arizona so that I could fly over the Grand Canyon.


How about you?  Where would your hot balloon fly?

Ready for a triple play?

Instead of beating myself up over not posting every single day, I'd rather be happy that I can post two nails every other day.  I originally wanted to paint and post in a way that would let my pictures be posted a day after I wore the polish.  In the case that I royally mess up my polish at work (which is not at all unheard of), I wanted to have a slight cushion of time to put up my next pictures, instead of feeling pressured to repaint my nails to make my daily post.

And part of even wanting to post daily is to show that I can stick with something and be consistent.

Would you like to laugh with me? :D  HA HA HA HA!!

Well, I feel much better now. :)  Onto the polish?  Today has some good ones!!

Parlez-vous OPI? by OPI

Don't mind the little bubbles.  I'm still working out the tiff I've been having with top coats.

This was two coats to opaque.

Looking at it in the bottle, I expected a boring taupe.  It was rather un-boring, though.  Though it was still somewhat taupe-y, it leaned more toward a lavender greige.  If it were slightly more taupe and slightly less lavender, it would remind me of the frilly underside of a mushroom cap.

Parlez-vous OPI? is ultimately rather pretty.  Very workplace friendly as well.  It's not my personal cup of tea, but a) lots of bloggers rave about it, and b) it was on sale.  And let's not forget c), everyone needs a "grown up" color or two in their collection.  This is one of mine.

I still have some problems with OPI's wide brush.  Not all of my nails are wide, so it does pose a problem sometimes.  The polish's formula is pristine, though, which completely makes up for the big ol' brush.

Next up is Orly's Wild Wisteria!  Honestly, sometimes I just buy a polish because I love the name.  Once I put on Wild Wisteria, I adored the color.  I originally bought it, though, because I spent a lot of time writing for an online group with a character I created that I named (any guesses?) Wisteria.  Even though I don't have the opportunity to write with her in that forum setting anymore, I still can't help it that I really enjoy a persona I created.

This is the most recent picture I would have used for her. :)

(I do not own the pictured character.  Don't sue me. :P  She just looks so much like the Wisteria in my head for me to pass her by.)

So, without further ado, Orly Wild Wisteria

Hardest time ever capturing the deep, beautiful purple as anything other than blue.  The pictures I'm posting are the best I did. :(

This one would have been perfect in one coat, but I did two to ease my mind. :)

Also, I'm not wearing topcoat in these pictures!  Look how shiny it is!! <3

The polish in the bottle isn't far from the actual color.  My nails are just being stubborn.

I really liked this polish.  I have yet to try an Orly that I don't like, but for some reason, it's rarely my first polish brand choice.  Maybe it's because most of the colors I see are safe?  Not sure.  The ones I have are lovely, though, and the application is perfect.

Collectively with my now!:  "Oooooooooooo...!!"

I couldn't stop staring at them!

This is a Cosmo polish called "Lords of the Bling."  The name is ridiculous, I know.

BUT JUST LOOK AT IT!!! :D

You can see several of the different flashes in this picture.  Brilliant greens, teal, royal blue, shimmery purple.

Even when it's not shimmering other colors, it's pretty!

The only visual thing I didn't like about this combination was that it turned Wild Wisteria's deep purple into a navy blue color.  It was still lovely.  Just much less purple.

Orly Wild Wisteria and Cosmo Lords of the Bling

Until I started hitting up salons, I'd never seen Cosmo polishes.  I've only bought two so far (Lord of the Blings and I Found Nemo), which are both shimmery topcoat polishes, so I'm curious to see how the rest of the polishes look when applied.  I had some issues with this one, though.  First off, it smells like chemical death.  Secondly, the dry time on this is very, very long.  If I remember right, I got impatient and just put a speed dry top coat on it.  This didn't keep me from having to wait for the first coat to dry, though.  (This is two coats of Lords of the Bling, by the way.)

Critical application flaws aside, I really adored this look.  I kept them like this for at least two days (which is forever for nail polish, in my world) and was still flicking them around in the sun to see that glimmer.

What do you guys think?  Any Parlez-vous OPI? fans out there?  Any ladies ready to stalk their salons for Cosmo polishes?

-E