No H8 Mate.

As an activity, polishing your nails and obsessing over them appears to be a very vain thing. It is something you spend a lot of time on and the thought of damaging a nail can make some women devastated. Let's face it, nail polishing can attract the shallow and the mean, people who place so much importance on how things appear. It took me a long time before I had enough confidence to decorate my nails even though they are not perfect.

I started seeing No H8 posts in my feed when it was no longer the 8th November here. I wanted to add my support to the fact that words across a computer screen can hurt. Text on the screen can not convey the emotion and body language of face to face interactions. This removes our ability to receive and interpret cues for what is being conveyed to us. This barrier also amplifies the distance and impersonality of the other people using the internet.

Most of the time the best course of action is to "walk" away. You do not know if the other person is being a troll and seeking attention or if they genuinely do not realise that they came across negatively.

I used matte polish for the fast drying factor. I would like to take pictures in sunlight to see if the manicure looks better. The base colour is Orly Purple Pleather with two dots of Orly Purple Velvet. Over the top of these two dots and an extra one is Max Factor Fantasy Fire.

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay. Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet. 

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog. 

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colourful community.

Green Moon and winner of the 2012 Melbourne Cup

I am not that interested in the Melbourne Cup except as an excuse or inspiration for nail art. Cup Day was about frocking up at w ork. When I heard that the winner of the cup was Green Moon, I instantly thought of green moon fingernails.

A moon manicure is something I have never tried. Luckily I did get some paper reinforcement stickers in preparation for such a day. I do think that a moon style is better suited for longer nails than mine but I could not resist with a tribute to this Irish horse.

In my quest for fast polish drying and mixing things up a little, I used Orly Viridian Vinyl as my base colour. It is a green matte polish although the finish tends to be more satin. I let that dry overnight while I did a Google search to find out what the colours were of the jockey's silks.

This morning I woke up and got my paper reinforcers ready with Orly Blue Suede. The satin matte polish to bring the look together while drying fast. Brett Prebble's silks were navy blue with white stripes as armbands. I don't own a white matte (*gasp*) and I did not think that white would go over the navy well.

Green Moon turned out better than I expected for I worried about my placement of the moons. Also, I would have liked to have been able to put a white stripe on for the other part of the jockey's silks but opacity and bleeding concerned me. There could be lots of improvement but this will do fine.

The race that stops a nation - Melbourne Cup.

Today was the day of the big race. When I started work at my new location I was told that it was a must to get all dressed up for Melbourne Cup Day. It is tradition to wear clothing like you were going to the races with fascinators. They also tend to go to a luncheon.

I did frock up in a black halter neck dress with red roses. I would have liked to match my dress to my nails but I did not have time to polish my nails. The time factor was what made me choose Avon Red Velvet for the matte polish dries super fast factor. I had hoped to get some stamping in before I stuck things to my nails but I did not have time for that either.

For decoration I went with the black butterflies and the black and white roses. There were some fimo slice butterflies in red that I decided to put on too. Unfortunately my skill in handling the nail glue was dismal. I got it all over my fingers. There is a spot of it on the floor. Yes, I even spilled a large part of the bottle onto my coffee table. Lint will be seen in the pictures too as I tried to get some of the glue off with acetone. Not my luckiest of days.

I also did not win anything in the work sweeps. :P I did win a compliment from a male customer when I gave him his change. He reassured me that I did not stab him with my butterflies.

If I had done my nails after the race I could have done them in honour of the winning horse, Green Moon.

I Love Conversation Hearts

Recently I received some MJ plates from the creator of the Fun plates. I was pleased with how quickly they arrived from the Phillipines to my end of the world. The only thing I was uncomfortable about in ordering these was wondering what the postage fees would be like.

The Conversation Heart lollies image is from MJ VI. I had to rummage around in boxes for the tools to do this since I have not unpacked my nail polish properly yet. Hopefully that will happen soon. For ease, the stamping polish was Konad's special polish in mauve. I think the image stamped as well as any other image I have from Konad or Bundle Monster plates.

The base polish is Pretty Serious Emma Louise that I posted about recently.

I found out about this newest release of image plates from Spellbinding Nails. They are a great collection of plates and I will have to bring more in coming posts. You can order your own from My Online Shop. For the four large image plates I was changed 650 Phillipine Pesos which exchanges to around A$15.