Grace-full Polish - Summer Nights Collection

Apologies for my absence, dear readers! I suffered some catastrophic nail breaks right after I started swatching this collection, and have been frankly far too self conscious about my nubby stubs to show them anywhere. But at last my nails are back in a condition where they're fit to be seen, if not quite at their former glory, so I have a TON of fresh swatches for you!

Grace-full are yet another newcomer to the Australian indie polish scene, but they have swept in on a wave of glitter, colour, and fun! Summer Nights is a collection inspired by the founders friends, and it's a doozy for anyone who loves glittery, gooey colour.

The formula on all of these was great, especially considering how new Grace-full is as a brand. Pretty much every polish only needed two coats for full coverage, and while a couple could probably benefit from an colour underneath, none of them really NEED it. The micro glitter polishes are especially dense - glitter fiends should definitely pick these up at the very least.

First up we have Erin, a luscious navy blue jelly filled with big holo dots, and a delightful assortment of various sized hexagonal glitters. Excitingly, this is a deep blue that doesn't stain(!!), so feel free to skip the undercoat with this one to take full advantage of the squishy jelly base.

Next up is Katie, a rich burgundy microglitter. While the base is quite dark, it's so choc full of holographic glitter it ends up looking a little bit lighter overall due to the ambient refraction.

This was two thin coats, and while you could put a burgundy under it if you're really fussy about crisp edges, it covers nicely alone.

This delightful flakie packed blue is Mandy, and I think it's possibly my favourite out of the whole collection. I know, I know, usually I'm all about the eye burning amounts of glitter, but there's a dense complexity to this one I really like.

One note on Mandy - I did need three coats of this, because the base is a teeny bit transparent. You could either do three thin coats to capture the full effect of the flakies, or one coat over a base colour if you're short of time.

This one is Nicki, and is a perfect example of the eyeball burning microglitter I'm normally all about. And don't get me wrong, I still really like this polish. The colour reminds me a lot of Powder Perfect's Delight, but with a slightly larger size of glitter so the holo effect really jumps right out.

 This next polish is Ali, and it's the only one out of the whole collection I was a little disappointed with. The colour scheme is a bit like confetti, which I'm sure would appeal to some people, but I thought it looked a little disjointed.

As you can see from the swatches, the base is also a little too transparent to wear alone. I used two coats here, and could have gone for three, but I don't think it would have really addressed the problem. Having said that, over a deep fuschia base colour this would look pretty rocking.

Speaking of fuschia, check Billie out! This is possibly the pinkest polish I've ever had on my nails, and I'm a little shocked by how much I didn't hate it.

Unfortunately they didn't really pop in my photos, but there is a rich vein of blue micro flakies through this polish, that give it a delightful complexity in person.

And finally, we have Eboni, a stunningly sparkly purple jelly filled with stars, hexes, squares, and holo microglitter as well.

 

If you're in a hurry, there's more than enough glitter in this to use is as one coat over an inky purple base coat. I used two coats for these swatches, so you can see the awesomely glittery effect of all the spangles floating in the jelly base.

One final note on this collection - it's actually on sale until Monday at the Grace-full Polish Etsy store! Just use the discount code SUMMER25 for 25% off - but only for the weekend, so get moving!

Graceful Griffons - Powder Perfect review

Second in my ongoing series about the Powder Perfect Mysterium Magnum series is this burgundy beauty, Griffon.

This polish features a deep, metallic burgundy base that reminds me a bit of OCC Black Dahlia metallic lip tar. The base is filled with a generous dose of holographic dust, as well some beautiful green flakies that are sadly a bit camera shy.

Two easy coats are all you need of this for total coverage, and I had no issues with the glitter leaving a gritty texture, as sometimes happens. You'd think the green would perhaps clash with the burgundy, but these unlikely elements actually come together really nicely.

The inspiration for this polish, the Griffon, is also a combination of unlikely elements. There have been depiction of griffons (or griffins, or gryphons) in art as far back as 3000BC, but they're most prominent in Ancient Greek mythology. Because they're used by so many different groups across history, there are lots of different visual interpretations, but generally a griffin is made up of a lion's hindquarters, an eagle's talons, wings, and head, and sometimes a horse or a lion's ears.

Check this dude out! Regal as all get out.

Herodotus describes a group of griffins that guarded vast hoards of gold, that apparently the Scythians would raid regularly. You should remember when thinking about this that Herodotus is also considered a serious primary source for a lot of Greek and Roman history - but I guess you take what you can get when there are so few sources around.

"Minneteppich KGM" by Anonymous - Own work User:FA2010 2009. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

As well as being very popular subjects in medieval art like the tapestry above, griffons were also a huge deal in the art of medieval heraldry. I'm sure you've all seen a coat of arms before, but you might not know every aspect of a coat of arms created under the classical European rules of heraldry has a very specific, official terminology, placement, and meaning.

Diagram from EnchantedCastles.net

The choice of what "supporter" (the figure that held up the shield in your coat of arms) was an important part of medieval family marketing - very often people wanted something that symbolised strength, bravery, skill in battle, all that good stuff. Because a griffon is part eagle and part lion, it was thought to symbolise boldness and courage, and the eagle head denoted intelligence and military acumen.

This is a heraldic griffin passant
(passant means walking toward dexter (the viewer's left), with the right forepaw
raised and all others on the ground. I told you heraldry was srs bsns.)

This beautiful polish is available from Powder Perfect now, and more pretty pictures of griffons, griffins, and gryphons are available all over the internet. 

Frightening Faeries - Powder Perfect Review

Just before Christmas, Powder Perfect released a collection of indie polish just about tailor made to appeal to me - glittery, heavy on the purple, and all inspired by folktales!

Mysterium Magnum  is a gorgeous collection, even if you don't care about the folktales that inspired it. There's something here for just about everyone, from muted flakies to balls out glitterbombs.

From left to right we have - Lycanthrope, Melusina, Griffon, Leviathan, Faerie, and Lorelei.

I couldn't possibly pass up such a perfect opportunity to ramble about folklore as well as show you pretty things, so I'll be doing a separate post for just about all these polishes. Today I'm going to get the ball rolling with the spectacular Faerie.

Faerie is a real glitterfest, right on the edge of pink and purple. It leans a bit more purple under artificial light, but under natural light it shines almost alarmingly pink.

There's a veritable cornucopia of glitter in this one - pinks and purples and silvers, with a smattering of holo glitter just to take it right over the top. You won't need anything under this to get full coverage in two coats, but you will want to use a nice gooey topcoat to smooth it out.

When you think of faeries, you probably get an image in your head of kind, sweet, flitting creatures in metres of organza.

But personally, I've never really liked those kinds of faeries. They're too...well, nice. If you know where to look, there are just as many stories in folklore where faeries are cruel, spiteful, and sometimes downright dangerous. What I love about this polish is that it's glittery and pink, but almost aggressively so. It's SO FUCKING shiny, and SO PINK, that it's got a bit of ferocity to it, which is the kind of faerie I like best.

These are the kind of faeries that drive the story of Tamlane, an English fairytale I recently read in Fearless Girls, a collection edited by Kathleen Ragan.

If you're looking for a collection of women-centred folktales, I highly recommend this. Just skip the woo-woo heavy commentary at the end of each story, it's a bit painful.

The story starts out pretty simple – Tamlane is a fearless knight, promised to a beautiful maid named Janet. According to the story, they were deeply in love, which seems kind of unlikely given that romantic love in a marital setting is actually quite a modern concept, but hey, that's how the story goes. But one day, Tamlane rides out to hunt and doesn't come back. BUMMER. After some time, Janet is out in a field doing some sort of maidenly duties probably tending the field) and Tamlane rocks up, all decked out in fancy armour and riding a fantastic white horse. Janet asks where the fuck he's been, which seems pretty reasonable. Tamlane says he was kidnapped by the Queen of the Fae, to be her most beloved escort – although he's also pretty sure she's planning on sacrificing him to the Devil, because he's so handsome. Suuuuuuure, you might say. Queen of the Fae, riiiiight. But Janet believes him, and asks what she can do to help him come home, because she's a way more trusting and kind person than I am.

Tamlane tells her that it so happens the Fae Court will be travelling through the forest that night, and if she sneaks up on them she might be able to literally snatch him away from the faeries. He tells her once she snatches him, she'll have to hold him tight no matter what spells the faeries try, then throw him in a lake to cast off the spells. Why he can't just run away and jump in a lake on his own is never addressed – instead Janet agrees to meet him that night, and help him escape.

Later that night, Janet hides in the woods and watches the whole eldritch court march past her. Turns out Tamlane was right and the Queen was absolutely going to sacrifice him, so she'd gotten everyone out to witness her deliciously handsome tithe. When Janet sees her beloved Tamlane go past, she leaps out of the woods and knocks him to the ground. As Tamlane had predicted, the faeries get pretty fucking pissed that she's just snatched their prize sacrifice, and start throwing spells to turn him into something Janet couldn't hold on to. First they turned him into a chunk of ice, then a searing pillar of flame, then a snake, then a dove and a swan. I'm not really clear how the dove and the swan were supposed to be hard to hold on to, but I guess the faeries were just trying anything they thought of. Finally they turned Tamlane into a white hot sword, at which point Janet decided it was time to throw this sucker in the lake already. He emerged, manly as ever, and the faeries were thwarted. When the faerie Queen rode away though, she tossed off this charming verse by way of goodbye;

“Had I but known Tamlane, Tamlane,

a lady would borrow thee,

I'd ha ta'en out they two grey eyes,

and put in two eyes of tree”

How delightfully gory is that image? “I wish I'd cut your eyes out and shoved bits of wood in there instead.” AWESOME. The Queen of the Fey is so badass. 

Okay, so this is technically supposed to be Wrath, but it also fits pretty perfectly how I imagine the Queen of the Fae looking after Janet snatched Tamerlane back. This is by the enormously talented Dahlig over at Deviantart.

It wasn't just the Queen of the Fae that was badass though - on the Isle of Man there are stories of the Leanhaum-Shee, a breed of literally maneating vampire faeries*. They would apparently attempt to seduce young men wandering in the woods alone, and if they failed they'd straight up tear you to pieces. If they succeeded, they'd suck your blood while boning your brains out, and store your stolen blood in a big cauldron.

The Leanhaum-Shee would use the stolen blood to keep themselves young and beautiful, but also feed a little bit of it back to their victims every now and then to inspire the young men to write them love poetry. Of course, eventually the young man in question would run out of both blood and satisfactory poetry, at which point he'd wither and die and the Leanhaum-Shee would go find another toy.

While this story (and many, MANY others) are a pretty obvious misogynistic metaphor for how women allegedly suck the life out of you, from a modern viewpoint the life of a Leanhaum-Shee doesn't sound so bad. Seducing young men and discarding them when they no longer amuse you? Isn't that the overarching storyline of Sex in the City?

Those are my two favourite gory, scary, bad faerie stories - do you know any? Do you prefer the kind, fluttery kind of faerie?

*I got my information on the Leanhaum-Shee from Encyclopedia of Fairies, by Theresa Bane. You can see the Ebook here on Google Books.

Moonstone Polish Review

You might remember Moonstone Polish from an introductory review I did many moons ago, but unfortunately given the exponentially increasing indie polish market in Australia and my slowly shrinking polish budget I haven't had much of a chance to explore their range since then.

I was delighted to hear they were having a big sale for the creator's birthday, since this gave me the perfect opportunity to go back and scout out just what I'd been missing!

Another reason I couldn't resist the Moonstone birthday sale is because the creator added a special limited edition polish to the tempting array of goods. This stunning purple flakey is called Birthday Girl, and surprising no one, I'm absolutely in love with it.

While this was a limited edition for the sale, I'm pretty sure there are still a few bottles available if you get in quick. If you're a purple lover, you'd be a fool to let this one get away!

This delicious red jelly glitter is Bacon/Strawberry Jam, part of a Berties Every Flavour Beans collaboration with Shades of Phoenix. Both labels released polishes that each had two names, and which one you get is entirely up to chance. As with the Beans, one "flavour" is theoretically good and one is bad, but in this case, I was pretty delighted to get a bottle labelled Bacon.

Everything should be bacon.

This next polish is from a set of five - a rainbow of microglitter and holo dust called the Unintended Collection. This blue beauty is called Starlight, and I love it almost as much as I love Birthday Girl.

It doesn't have as much complexity as Birthday Girl, but oh man, SO MUCH SHINY.

And finally, we have Malachite - I spotted this one a while ago twinkling away on the Aussie Indie Polish Appreciation Society Facebook page, and have been lusting after it ever since.

This one wasn't quite as jewel toned as I was hoping for, but it's still a wonderfully unique colour. The formula is also superb - actually, the formula for all of these was great. I didn't need to use a base colour for any of them, and two coats was plenty for full, glittery coverage.

All of these and plenty more are available currently from the Moonstone Polish site. If you want to make sure you don't miss out on the next Moonstone sale, be sure to swing past their Facebook page for regular updates!

Shades of Phoenix Blogger Collection - featuring me!

That's right, I've been lucky enough to have another polish shade named after me! Well, specifically "inspired by" and named by me, but still absolutely thrilling. There are polishes for a bunch of other really talented and lovely bloggers as well, so we best get started!'

This black and teal bombshell is Bats in a Blender, inspired by the original black and teal haired bombshell herself, Kierra from Look What the Bats Dragged In.

I used two thick coats alone to get maximum sparkle, but if you're not especially patient I would recommend using this one over a base colour so you don't have to fiddle with getting it to sit evenly.

This deep red, star filled jelly is Impossible Planet, inspired by Bettina from Bettina Nails. The inspiration for this one is pretty obviously the fantastic Doctor Who episode of the same name.

This swatch is three coats alone, just so I could get a sense of how squishy the jelly base is, but I would probably wear it over a base colour next time.

You'll be shocked to hear this iridescent purple beauty is my second favourite of the collection. This one is called Iridescent Adolescent, and is inspired by Caitlin over at Muggle Manicures, who also runs the delightful indie polish brand Moonstone Polish.

The formula for this one is as delightful as the colour - the base leans more crelly than jelly, which means you won't need a base colour. These swatches are three coats alone.

I wasn't sure about this polish, because putting gold glitter in a grey base isn't a choice I would have thought of right away. But it comes together surprisingly well! The mixture of gold, bronze, and black glitters mesh well with the grey base and makes for a really lovely, unique polish. It's called Medusa in the Morning, and is inspired by Relle from Lazy Lacquerista - who is allegedly a lot like Medusa before her morning coffee.

As with Iridescent Adolescent, the formula for this one is A+. Shades of Phoenix seem to do really good crellies, and Medusa in the Morning is no exception.

Next up we have the contribution from Kaz, the unbelievably stylish blogger from Pretty Random and founder of indie polish label Pretty Serious. This dark, vampy delight is called Secret of the Ooze.

This polish is a bit of a chameleon - in the bottle and in sunlight it shines quite olive, which makes it probably the only olive polish I own. In artificial or dimmer light though, it appears as an inky black, full of shimmering iridescent flakies in a rainbow of colours. I swatched this as three coats alone, and you can see taking the time to build it up lets the flakies really shine.

And finally, drumroll please, for MY POLISH!

Obviously I went for something sparkly, because when given the choice, as if I wouldn't. Mine is called Paint Me Blue, and is a light blue crelly packed full of as many holo glitters as would fit.

I know some people have been wondering why I chose to call this Paint Me Blue, and it's actually pretty simple. I've been listening to a band called Something Corporate a lot lately, and their song "She Paints Me Blue" really speaks to me for a lot of reasons - I can really relate to the kind of love described in it.

The Bloggers Who Inspire collection is open for presale right now, and should be open for regular orders shortly, from the Shades of Phoenix website.

Melancholia: A Powder Perfect swatchathon

I know there's been an absolute ton of Powder Perfect around here lately, but they just keep making so many pretty things, and keep being kind enough to send them to me, which means you guys get bombarded with pretty pictures! I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not really.

Melacholia is a sequel of sorts to the Euphoria collection from Powder Perfect earlier this year, and it's a DOOZY. It's kind of odd having so many awful, personal memories attached to words like "Foreboding" and "Despair", and still being so excited by how freaking gorgeous the polishes attached to these words are. Lot of cognitive disconnect, and being me, I'm sure there will be a pseudo intellectual analysis of that soon enough. But for now, PICTURE TIME!

Powder Perfect Lady Is A Vamp Collection Review

Just a quick little post today, in preparation for a MASSIVE picture post tomorrow! I was lucky enough to be asked to swatch a few of the most recent collection from Australian indie label Powder Perfect, Lady is A Vamp. This collection is a celebration of all things femme and fabulous, and the statement for this collection is something I can really get behind!

"Lady Is A Vamp collection is about celebrating what makes us feel good!!

Does getting dressed up to the nines make you feel good? Fantastic!

Does wearing your favourite old faded jeans and a t-shirt make you feel sexy? Great!

Just bought a pair of bright red stilettos that you plan on wearing out tonight? Rock ‘em!

These colours are inspired by those things that make us feel our most vibrant and alive."

The three polishes I got my hands on are With My High Heels On, a stunning classic red creme, Jealousy, an incredibly bright raspberry holo, and Boudoir, a really interesting cobalt blue creme with gold glitters.

Aussie Indies Presented by Femme Fatale Cosmetics

I'm starting to think I should really just hand over a chunk of my paycheque directly to Femme Fatale Cosmetics every time I get paid, to save myself the silly game of pretending that I'm not going to give it to them anyway. Every time I wander past their site "just for a look", I find more and more gorgeous things that I really absolutely must have. As well as their ever growing range of stunning eyeshadows (which are incidently on sale right now), Femme Fatale polish remains one of the most consistently amazing indie labels in the country. In case you have any cash left over once you've finished perusing the Femme Fatale goods, they also stock a wide range of other Aussie indie labels, like Love Thy Polish, Alanna Renee, Emily de Molly and Lilypad Lacquer. If you've STILL got money left after browsing all those (how!?) Femme Fatale Cosmetics also stock a huge array of hard to find international indies, like Takko Lacquer, HARE Polish, and Rainbow Honey.

The variety is kind of overwhelming, but lucky for you Femme Fatale Cosmetics were kind enough to send me a little sample pack to review this month, to help you narrow your choices at least a tiny bit. 

From left to right, we have; Love Thy Polish - Space Ghost Reloaded, Femme Fatale Cosmetics - Apothecary, Lilypad Lacquer - Seasong, and Rainbow Honey - Hellfire

Indie Feminism

Last Sunday, an amazing hashtag sprung up on Twitter, in the wake of the horrific killings in Santa Barbara (allegedly) committed by loud and proud misogynist Elliot Rogers. One brave woman (who's now predictably had to go into hiding) started an online conversation talking about how widespread male violence and harassment of women really is, using the hastag #YesAllWomen. Stories poured in, much faster than anyone could possibly read them all. @RahRah wrote a deeply moving piece that I think captures the sheer overwhelming volume of this outpouring, and naturally, I got good and involved.

At first it was thrilling to be a part of a conversation so huge, to know that there were so many other women out there with experiences just like mine. But then the trolls arrived, and it quickly turned from exciting to frustrating, to stressful, to distressing. By Friday I was just DONE. I couldn't handle one more man telling me how I should do feminism better, one more asshole calling Mr.Reluctant Femme names for defending feminism, one more cowardly deadshit telling my friends who've been assaulted that they deserved it. I usually put a great deal of effort into remaining reasonable when I talk about feminism. I don't actually think saying things like "Kill All Men" is all that helpful. But I was burned out, angry, hurt, and just DONE. I was really starting to feel like killing all men. So I made this, because it made me laugh and I needed a laugh.

In case you can't read it, the little label says "Male Tears"