Snow Day! Glittering Elements Glacier and Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen

Glittering Elements are yet another new Australian indie polish maker I've stumbled across, and despite not knowing they existed three weeks ago, I now currently have four of their polishes with three more on the way. Needless to say, I'm a fan.
Today I wanted to go with a sort of ice theme, and show you Glacier from Glittering Elements, as well as a retelling of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. For the short of attention span, I'll start with the pretty pictures!

Glacier is a remarkably sparkly clear based polish, that works best as a topcoat over another colour. Theoretically you could probably make it opaque with four coats or so, but I think you'd lose a lot of the twinkliness, and that's what I dig about it. These swatches are two thin coats over a navy base, out in the sunshine to catch all the sparkle.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls: Not So Fun Actually

Just a note before we begin - it's been pointed out to me that not everyone inhales pop culture commentary like I do, and many of you haven't actually heard of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope before. It's an old stereotype, but the name is relatively recent, so if you want to read more about what I mean when I use it there are good introductions on both Wikipedia and TV Tropes.

The stereotype of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is one that annoys the fuck out of me. This single trope has completely ruined Before Sunrise, and countless other films like it for me. My boyfriend watches Before Sunrise, and all he sees is an incredibly romantic movie. I watch it, and all I can see is a magical girl who shows up with no history and no future, and helps the male protagonist realise what’s truly important to him in life over the course of a night, only to conveniently disappear the next day. And then I start ranting, and things go kind of red tinted, and then I wake up and my boyfriend is suggesting we never watch Before Sunrise again.

"Tell me your problems scruffy man, and I shall solve them in a sultry French accent!"

I’m sure it comes as no surprise then that  I was very interested to read Laurie Penny’s essay I Was A Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She brilliantly summarises one of the things that bothers me about this stereotype the most; the prevailing assumption that all Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s only exist in order to help a poor, lost man discover something wonderful about life and love, without any goals or ambitions of their own. I absolutely agree with Penny that this trope encourages women to put their male partner’s dreams and ambitions before theirs, and I know that I’ve done this myself. To be honest though, it’s not what really gets under my skin and fires up my fury at this stereotype. I’ve never felt particularly compelled to be a hero, of anyone’s story. I like to help – it’s what I like to do, and what I do best, but I’m not a leader. There are women that could be leaders though, and SHOULD be leaders, that are being held back by this idea that quirky, interesting women only exist to make men more interesting, and I think THAT is fucking bullshit.

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

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013 - Celebrating the Year Of The Blogger

I'm pretty darn excited to be a part of the piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013! If you haven't heard of it before, the Blog Fest is where Australian polish makers piCture pOlish collaborate with a whole load of bloggers to create a big day of celebration of all things piCture pOlish. Sometimes they launch new shades during this Fest, but this year they've decided to get bloggers to use their mad manicure skills to celebrate their already impressive lineup.

As a participant in the Blog Fest, piCture pOlish sent me three shades of polish, with the request that I let my imagination run wild in creating a manicure that would show off all three colours.

Ulta3 Ultrapost!

There is a little known secret hiding in great, sparkling piles in chemists all over Australia - these little bottles are usually sold for between two and three dollars, and since they're so cheap they're hardly ever presented well or organised, or paid any attention at all by staff. But they wait, in their cluttered bins, waiting for someone who knows their worth to haul them out into the light...

Ulta3 in their natural habitat

That's right, I'm talking about Ulta3 polishes!

Meditations on Manicures

I mentioned to a friend the other day that I painted, and almost immediately felt the need to qualify that statement - like my relationship to my love of things femme, I've always had an uneasy relationship with the idea of myself as any kind of artist. I've been sculpting and painting for years - probably as long as I've been writing, when I really think about it, and I've finally conceded that I could possibly be called a writer. But an artist? The idea makes me squirm. Art is certainly a thing that I do - but I've never considered myself an artist. Not really. Nowadays the vast majority of my artistic efforts go into my nail art, and I haven't actually thought about my discomfort at being called an "artist" for a while because of this. See, nail art isn't "real" art. When I painted, I always felt like I SHOULD be calling myself an artist, or at least a painter. But now it's not even a question - even though I'm utilising exactly the same skills creating nail art as I did every painting I ever made. I'm just into nail art - it's a much less challenging, much more comfortable title.

This might sound like a massive leap, but thinking about my paintings and my nail art and my motivations for both these hobbies has really crystallised a lot of things about how my brain works now compared to how it used to work, and my relationship to art in general.

( I'm going somewhere with this, I promise)

I Want Candy - Sweet Sugar Polish review

Today will be a total change in tone from last post - I have only pretty things to show you, and happy things to say.

I'm a little bit exhausted from various things in the last week or so, which means the tone around here will probably be a lot lighter for at least the next couple of posts. Apologies if you started following this blog expecting activism all the time - I'd love to write about Big Important Stuff all the time, but I just can't keep it up. And on the same note, thank you to the people who followed me expecting All Pretty Stuff and get slammed in the face with activism every now and then - I really love that you guys deal with me careening back and forth so well. You, my readers, rock my fucking socks, you really do.

ANYWAY, let's get to the pretty things!

I have yet another new Australian indie polish brand to introduce to you today - Sweet Sugar Polish, based in Sydney. As you might have guessed from the name, all their polishes are candy themed and suitably sweetly coloured. I don't even really wear pastel colors very much, but they were just so cute I couldn't resist!