My Favourite Undies - Red, Green and Purple

Welcome back to the second installment of my series all about undies! In my first installment I had a little rant about why I use undies with my indie polishes, that basically boils down to me being clumsy and (relatively) poor.

There was some feedback on the last post that made me want to add a little caveat before we begin - while I myself am a big fan of using undies for indie polish, it is a somewhat divisive subject. Some people think that using undies ruins the jelly effect you so often get with indie polish, and I can totally appreciate it's largely a matter of taste. Personally, I don't get as excited by the jelly look as I do being able to do a manicure more quickly and easily, but that's a personal preference, not any sort of hard and fast rule. If you have the time, patience, and skill to make the most of indie polishes without any undie polishes, then you get down with your bad self.

Lab Muffin, for example, hardly ever uses undies and her indies still look
glorious. One day I will steal her secret. And her crazy long nail beds.

For the rest of us, I thought I would pass on my recommendations (again, not rules just suggestions) of the undie polishes I reach for most frequently. I have a couple of requirements for polishes I intend to use primarily as undies; first, they MUST cover in one or two coats. Two is the absolute maximum. If I have to do three coats of an undie, then by the time I put my glitter on the polish is five or six layers deep and ridiculously difficult to manage. Secondly, a polish I intend to use mainly for undies must be under $10 for a mainstream polish. Indies I make an exception for, because I don't mind paying 10 or over for something someone has designed specially. But for a mainstream, vat grown plain colour, even $5 will make me think twice. So all the polishes I am going to be recommending here will be $10 at most, and all will give you good smooth coverage in two coats.

From The Depths - Pretty Serious Crystal Lake Review

I haven't gotten as many Halloween posts in this month as I would like, so let's see how many I can pump out in the next week shall we?

Pretty Serious Cosmetics is run by die-hard horror fans, so I was pretty darn excited to see their Halloween collection this year. As it turns out, they actually went pretty crazy with the Halloween themed polishes this year - there are actually two collections! Till Death Do Us Party is monster/zombie wedding themed, and I'll be showing you one of them later. The other collection is called The Killer Fangirls, inspired by classic slasher film villains, and that's what today's post is all about.

The clever cookies at Pretty Serious chose three images out of a series by artist Leigh Young, created polishes inspired by these awesome images, and have released them with a signed trading card of each image. Leigh drew the logo and all the incidental art for Pretty Serious, and I'm a such a fan of her work I seriously considered buying the whole collection just for the cards.

Image courtesy of Pretty Serious

Antipodean Beauties - Avant Garde

This is actually last Monday's theme, but I like to think I made up for my lateness in quality of effort. I was pretty damn excited by the theme for this week - I love avant garde art, and I was determined to try and do something out of my comfort zone, beyond what I would normally assume I am capable of. Avant garde is all about pushing boundaries after all!

I was a little torn as to what exactly to do for this challenge, until I was lucky enough to see Dave McKean's very avant garde performance Nine Lives at the Opera House as part of the Graphic festival. I've been a fan of Dave McKean's artworks since I first saw them on the cover of The Sandman, probably my favourite graphic novel series of all time. I find his obsession with tactile textures, uneven surfaces, shapes that aren't quite right, and images that aren't quite there endlessly fascinating, and in a lot of ways I wish my paintings were more like his.

Are You Scared of the Dark? Pretty Serious Poltergeist Puddle Review

Getting back to my overall Halloween type theme I've got going this month, I wanted to show you a polish from Pretty Serious's last Halloween collection. They do have a new one out this year, and I do have a review coming up, but I wanted to take a little trip back in time and cast some much deserved light on this older collection that is still available, and still well worth getting your mitts on.

Poltergeist Puddle is a really gorgeous purple, with hints of a slight pink duochrome shimmer. It reminds me of a purple version of Galaxy Invader - a colour that seems relatively plain on the surface, but that actually has a lot of depth and a bit of a foily shimmer to it as well.

Pool Party!! Pretty Serious Party by The Pool Review

Here in my Australian corner of the world Summer has arrived with a great big bang! Most years we get a nice, slow transition from a cold, damp winter to the scorching humidity of summer, but this year it's gone straight from coat weather to t-shirt weather. I'm trying not to sulk about this too hard - I love winter and LOATHE summer - by brightening up my wardrobe and trying to put on a happy face beneath the sweat. While pawing through my untried polish pile (it's under control, I swear) I noticed this beautiful peacock blue jelly polish from Pretty Serious called Party by The Pool, and decided that this was where my Summerfication should begin.

Image courtesy of the Pretty Serious website

While not as uber-sparkly as more recent releases like Cybernetic, there is still a lot of sparkle swimming around in the squishy jelly base. As with every single Pretty Serious polish I've tried so far, I have nothing but effusive praise for the formula. Perfect consistency, perfect coverage -  the almost unbelievable consistency of this brand is one of my favourite things about it. Because it's a jelly base, it will remain a teeny bit transparent unless you layer it, so I put two coats over a base of Ulta 3 Get Teal.

In the glorious sunshine! One good thing about summer, plenty of sun for swatch photos.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today - Pretty Serious Grimm Demise review

It's time for another Polish+ Post! Today I have the stunning teal glitter Grimm Demise from Pretty Serious to show you, and some neat Scandinavian fairytales to tell you, so grab a cup of tea and get comfy.

Pretty Serious are one of my favourite indie polish brands to recommend when newcomers to indie polish ask me where to start. While the company itself is totally indie (Kaz, the owner, is also the sole full time employee) their polishes are professionally manufactured. This means they can't do quite as big a range of crazy glitters as some of the hand mixed indies, it does mean all their polishes are absolutely consistent, every single time. It also means Pretty Serious are able to keep 99 per cent of their range available at all times, which is a big plus for me. I hate hate HATE getting something amazing and wanting to put it up here to show you all, only to find it's sold out. But because of how Pretty Serious stock their inventory, I know I can pull out any of my (ever growing) stash and write it up, and if you like it you can go and get it too without drama.

Grimm Demise is one of a little mini collection that came out a little while ago called Seriously Random, which unlike their usual themed collections was a sampling of several really pretty polishes. I wore Purple Monkey Dishwasher from the same collection on my nails for my Catwoman cosplay, and absolutely loved it, so I went back and got Grimm Demise because it's basically a teal version of PMD. The formula of Grimm Demise, like all Pretty Serious polishes, is just perfect. Not too thick, not too thin, and it self levels beautifully - not to mention it's sparkly as FUCK.

Three coats alone, full sunlight

I Still Wish It Was Supanova Every Day - Part 2

Hope you all enjoyed the massive block of photos yesterday! Today I've just got a few more for you - my own cosplay pictures! I further tweaked my classic Catwoman outfit from Melbourne, and found the absolute perfect little ankle boots to complete it - unfortunately, and perhaps inevitably, I didn't actually end up getting any photos of the boots, but trust me, they were perfect.

In case you haven't seen it, this is the Catwoman costume I was going for - with slightly less leg, obviously.

Annoyingly, while a couple of people took my photo I've only been able to find one online, at the Costume Box Facebook page.

Actions Versus Advertising

Some people that I know who run small businesses had some interesting feedback on my last post about "friendship" marketing, or as the ever witty Autumn at The Beheld dubbed it, "Slumber Party Marketing", where large companies attempt to market to consumers as if they are really your friends, and try to give you the impression they care more about your happiness than what you buy. The global marketplace is so crowded these days that just having a good product isn't nearly enough to get you the attention of consumers. If you want to sell people things, one of the most effective ways is to get them emotionally invested in your company and your products; and the most effective way to do that for both large and small businesses is to convince consumers you care about them.

We are legion, and we care about you.

Nerds Worst Nightmare - BSOD Pretty Serious Review

I'm not going to lie - when I saw that Pretty Serious had a shade of nail polish called BSOD, named after the infamous Blue Screen of Death, I was ALWAYS going to buy it regardless of how good or bad it actually was. I am an enormous sucker for crossover between my nerd half and my beauty obsessed half - but as it turns out, I would have loved this polish no matter what it was called.
It's a deep blue jelly, crammed full of teeeny tiny blue sparkles, and looks absolutely amazing on. Pretty Serious have a great formula for their polishes, and this went on much more smoothly than I was expecting for something crammed full of sparkle. It also dries gloriously smooth and shiny - so much so you could get away without a topcoat on this if you wanted.

I was completely blown away when I took this baby outside - the sparkles just jump right out, and your nails appear to glow from the inside.

Fancy Friday!

In an attempt to keep things varied around here, I've decided to balance out my Aussie Nails Monday with a plus size fashion challenge some lovely Australian ladies have put together, called Aussie Curves. This week's theme is Black and White, which suits me perfectly!

Last week I decided to make my Casual Friday at work into a Fancy Friday, because I've noticed dressing up often gives me a real burst of motivation, and by Friday I need all the motivation I can possibly get. I did my nails in the most ridiculously over the top holo polishes I could find in my collection, as you can see below.

This manicure is fancy as fuck.

Looks Like Community

I don’t think I can actually adequately express how important it is to me to feel like I’m helping other people, every day, no matter how small the effect. Helping other people do their jobs better is my day job. I started this blog to try and help other people discover they’re not the only one who has no idea what to do with their hair. I am an absolute sucker for Kickstarters and community projects in general. I wasn’t expecting to find much in the nail community to support this compulsion of mine – it’s a hobby built around material acquisition. You just...well, *I* didn’t expect much in the way of community. I expected everyone to be much more interested in external appearances, rather than internal qualities - in other words, superficial. But just as with BPAL, there is so much more to the nail community than pretty stuff to put on your nails. 

The polish I want to show you today is a great example of the way this community helps each other, and contributes to the wider world around them. Normally I wouldn’t show off something I know you can’t get – this polish was limited edition, and it’s all gone now. But the idea was just so lovely, and the polish itself is so gorgeous, I couldn’t help myself. Pretty Serious are an Australian indie polish maker, and they have been producing absolutely spectacular stuff for a while now. Emma Louise was a limited edition polish created by the owner of Pretty Serious for her friend’s 30^th birthday. Emma got to choose the colours, the glitters – her birthday present was a custom made polish, exactly to her specifications. This is an incredibly generous and creative gift to start with – but even better, Pretty Serious made a donation to the Australian Cancer Council for every bottle sold, meaning this polish ended up being a present to society at large as well. Naturally, I couldn’t let this opportunity to take part in such a great idea pass me by.

Image courtesy of the Pretty Serious website

Not only was this polish a great idea, it's just beautiful. You might have noticed by now that I have a huge weakness for glitter, and also dark vampy colours, and this polish brings them together gloriously.