Knowing your Nose

I've got something a little bit different for you today - my very first ever guest post! The author of today's post is Sam, a fascinating lady who's been globe trotting as long as I've known her, and really should write more often than she does. I've been prodding her to write something for me for a little while, and after having surgery on her nose for sinus issues, she's very kindly put some thoughts together on what her new nose means to her.


Two weeks ago I had surgery on my sinuses and my nose.  As a result I was adorably helpless, and this made me miserable. 

I have never aspired to be a quirky supporting character in the story of a man's life, but rather a walking, breathing person of my own.  But I happen to have been a long-term relationship with a 'real-adult' so while I resent the idea, the quirky supporting character descriptor  may not actually be that far off.  I often feel as if I am not a 'real adult' and that I am faking it.   It's hard to feel fiercely independent when you lived with someone who is so ridiculously capable.  I sometimes think that if I was going to write about my experiences in our relationship I would call it 'Being Lois Lane'. This fear of being a supporting character is something I carry with me most of the time in my everyday life.

Fly Me To The Moon - Introducing Moonstone Polish!

The Australian indie polish scene is absolutely EXPLODING right now, which on the one hand is awesome, but on the other hand is turning out to be really rather unfortunate for my wallet. Happily, the lovely lady behind newcomer Moonstone Polish was kind enough to send me some of her lovely goodies to try!

Moonstone Polish is the brainchild of a very enterprising young lady from the Central Coast, Caitlin Vine. The name of the company is apparently a reference to a commonly used ingredient in potions in the Harry Potter universe, since mixing polish is pretty similar to mixing potions. Caitlin sent me three potions polishes to try, and I'm really very impressed by the quality she's producing right from her very first collection.

Radioactive was the one I pulled out of the package to try first, because I'm always going to be a sucker for a good purple. And this is a VERY good purple. It's described by the creator as a "soft" violet, but to be honest there's nothing soft about this polish to my eyes - and I LOVE it. This is going straight in my "makes me feel like Molly from Neuromancer" pile along with my Color Club holographics.

Three coats alone, in my trusty lightbox

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

It's Time To Squash The Bug

(Because a lot of outside material I've used for this post will be triggering in terms of trans phobia, hate speech, and violent threats, I've linked them instead of putting in screenshots. Please don't click through if you feel these links might be harmful to you)

I'm going to get into some pretty heavy feminist politics today, so while I know some of you are tempted to flick past this entry, I'd ask that you stay and hear me out, at least for a little while. This is super important stuff, and the whole point of this post is to try and spread information about some of the heinous shit going on out there in the name of feminism to people who might not be aware.

A lot of my readers will already know a lot of what I'll be writing out here, so consider this a primer that you can link to people who ask what the hell you're on about when you talk about TERF's. But if you're one of those people who tries to stay out of politics, to stay out of "Capital F" Feminism, I'd ask that just this once, you listen for a minute. I promise there will be more pretty pictures later - but today I want to get 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.

Space Oddity

I've been reading The Beheld again, which means inevitably, I have far too many thoughts running around in response to Autumn's most recent post to fit in a comment field - which means you guys get them all, you lucky things!

(Incidentally, if you're not reading The Beheld, you really should. It doesn't update as often as it used to because the author is in the middle of writing a book, but it's always worth a look. I don't always agree with Autumn's point of view, but she has the most delicious brains and over thinks everything in the most delightful way)

Autumn's most recent post was about her experiences moving in with a partner; how that's effected her perception of public and private space, and how that in turn has effected her beauty regime. You can read all her thoughts over at the blog, but my thoughts and experiences are so different I felt like they really deserved their own post. I totally agree with her observations that the amount of primping and "beauty work" women do in various spaces is very closely connected to how public or private we consider that space to be. If you're headed somewhere you consider to be public, you're much more likely to, for example, stop and put your hair up or change your shirt. If you're somewhere you consider private, you're less likely to be concerned about how what you're wearing looks, and just go with what's most comfortable.

Of course all women look this cute just bumming around at home.

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.