Greetings from the warm, fuzzy heights of attempted open-mindedness, fellow rogues!
First up, I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the caption contest! The results are being considered carefully by a panel of experienced (if a bit sniggery) kobolds, and the winner will be announced soon! 😀
Right! So: a couple of days ago, the fabulous adventuress Kelly From VampyVarnish had an important post on her blog: it was part of a #StopTheHate campaign, and was a great piece on the mysteries and evils of ‘hate’ online, and cyber bullying. You should go and have a read, if you haven’t seen it already! Go ahead, I’ll wait ^_^.
Done? Great 🙂 Now, her post got me thinking about hating on stuff, and how it often has to do with a lack of open-mindedness. From there, this rogue’s brain leapt to thinking about situations in which I myself am a little less than open minded when it comes to beauty. I hope I do OK when it comes to accepting peoples’ differing tastes and choices (wouldn’t be a very effective adventuring party if everyone was identical, would it?), but I do have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to certain shades and styles on myself. This dislike is totally irrational, and I decided to have a go at breaking through a couple of my pet ‘hates’: grey nail polish, and french manicures!
The result:
A grey and pink french manicure with the polishes responsible: OPI My Pointe Exactly and Hello Kitty Pop Fizz.
So, obviously, due to my dislike of the idea of grey polish on me, I only actually had one in my stash – and that was one I got ‘collaterally’ in the OPI NYC Ballet Soft Shades Collection mini set. It’s My Pointe Exactly, and it’s a cool grey jelly polish. I was casting around for something that would look cool with grey for the french manicure part, and came across a mini bottle of Hello Kitty polish that I bought in Hobart (of all places) for a dollar once. It’s Hello Kitty Pop Fizz, a neon pink base with pink and iridescent hex glitter in it.
This is how it looks if you overexpose your photos slightly (or you put neon polish in bright diffused daylight and your camera packs a sad :-D)
In terms of the polishes themselves: the OPI grey jelly is marvellous – it flows onto the nail smoothly, self-levels any streaks, dries to a gorgeous squishy shiny jelly finish, and is reasonably opaque in three coats. BUTITSGREYSHUTUPSYL!. Pop Fizz is, er… a little more difficult. It’s incredibly thick, and dries practically on the brush. The upside of this is that you get really dense, opaque coverage. The (other) downside is that it’s lumpy and gritty and incredibly hard to freehand french manicure lines with… 😛
Grey and pink manucured nails clutching an invisibility potion. What does it mean? No-one knows…
So you might be wondering, at this point, what my problem with grey polishes and french manicures is. After all, this manicure actually looks pretty snazzy, right? Well, the grey part has to do with the fact that I’m a cool-toned vampire, and tend to assume that anything in the grey/taupe spectrum will make me look even deader than usual. Like ‘will-get-confused-for-one-of-the-undead-by-the-cleric-and-friendly fire-shall-result’ kind of confused. The french manicure part probably has to do with the fact that I think it looks better on longer nails, and my nails are never very long (makes scaling rooftops and disarming traps much harder, you see).
A little thumbnail diversion….
My thumb nail, in fact, is so short at the moment that I couldn’t even bring myself to give it the thin french manicure line that the other nails had! I decided to go with a chevron instead, as I figured including an element that just looks ‘objectively’ strange and contrived wouldn’t really help the goal of this little quest of beauty-related self discovery…
Never let go of your invisibility potions, guys. Once you drop one, you will never find it again, trust me…
Incidentally, if you’re wondering why the very tips of some of my nails aren’t pink, it was an unfortunate result of the rather thick pink lines catching in the topcoat as it dried and being pulled back a touch. Obviously, I didn’t penalise the grey/french issue at hand for this 😉
Cuddly sweater shot! 😀
So, the big question: what did I get out of all this in terms of my little enlightenment quest? Well, for starters, since most enlightenment quests involve schlepping to the top of some precipitous spire to have a singularly obtuse conversation with a wizened old sage, I’d say the cost/benefit ratio for this one was pretty great! No mountains to climb, no sour yak butter tea to sip politely, etc, just a bit of faffing about with a rather sticky pink polish. As for my opinions on french manicures, I still think the traditional colour scheme on my shorter nails is beyond me, but two unconventional tones are actually growing on me. And the grey polish issue? Well, even though I probably started at the shallow end with a soft, cool, sheer grey, I’m still not sure I would reach for it over, say, my beloved purples. I will own, however, that it has opened my eyes to some of the possibilities with grey polishes, and even made me curious about…
…taupe…
*ducks*
…
Hm, no lightning. Anyway, there you have it! a couple of assumptions challenged, a mind wedged slightly further open, and a spiffy manicure accomplished. Would you give this combo a go? Do you have any little pet beauty ‘hates’ that you would be open to trying (again)?
Until next time, fellow adventurers, don’t forget to check for traps!
Syl
I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images and text on this blog are the property of The Painted Rogue unless otherwise stated. These may not be reproduced without permission, unless you want a fleet of gelatinous cubes after you. The ones with rotting corpses inside and dicky digestive systems. I’d run, personally.
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