Dressing Soft Is For The Idle Rich

MANICURE MONDAY - Vileplume

I had a long standing promise to one of my friends, Jasper, to evolve my Gloom into a Vileplume, her favourite pokemon, which I finally did last week. As a result, I’ve had Vileplume on the brain for a while now.

I really like the idea that the petals are super large and almost conceal the face of Vileplume. Also, since the Quicksilver nails I did, er, quickly, I also enjoy the idea of using the thumb as a face/head and the other four nails as a unit to express the rest of the character. So for this manicure, the thumb, or body of the Vileplume can be hidden under the larger petals, like the real Vileplume.

Below is the big long blabbering of text explaining what I did in case anyone else wants to do it. Apparently Tumblr doesn’t allow me to add post cuts to photo posts. :[

Ingredients:
Ink - JOE FRESH
Violet - JOE FRESH
Cherry - JOE FRESH
Pineapple - JOE FRESH
Sun Kissed - JOE FRESH 

Surprise, surprise, I use JOE beauty products too. Anyway, most of the paints here are not super opaque so I had to experiment to get a nice dark purple for Vileplume’s body and pollen cloud.

So for the first step, the undercoat, I used Ink on the thumbs, and Cherry on the rest of my nails. Cherry is probably one of the better ones because it gives a really smooth, uniform coat (in short, I don’t need to do a second coat to properly paint my nails). The Ink is a really nice deep blue, but can be a bit thin at times. Extra bonus, it has a bit of glitter to it. I learned the hard way to let this coat dry completely before putting more paint on top (I’m really impatient, okay?). 

The next layer, which I’m aptly calling THE SECOND COAT is a little more fun. For the thumbs, I just tried to put a nice uniform coat of Violet over the entire nail. The Violet paint is a bit thin and not as easy to put on as the Cherry, but with Ink as an undercoat makes a really nice and rich purple. For the rest of the nails, just polka-dot the Pineapple paint  however you see fit. I just kinda globbed it on and let it dry. Also the globs kinda spread and flattened, so don’t put them too close together or you’ll just get a monster dot.

It looks pretty dang cool already, but we’re not even done yet. The final coat is where it comes to life (also where I kinda messed up but shhhhh I won’t tell if you won’t). Since the thumb is to be the entire body of Vileplume I wanted to put the face on the upper half of the nail. I tried to make mine smile, but seeing as how my most precise instrument is the paint brush it kinda just looks like it’s yelling. Which is pretty intense. The ‘petals’ were topped off with a final coat of glittery gold paint, Sun Kissed. I really like Sun Kissed because it’s quite translucent (so it’s pretty much always a top coat). Not only does it catch the light and shimmer a bit more, but Vileplume always had a cloud of pollen around it, which I’ve tried to emulate with this final coat. Even though it’s a top coat I made sure this coat was extra thin so it wouldn’t overpower the rest of the paint. It also has an extra bonus of smoothing out the paint so I don’t rub it off.

And there you have it. An overly long explanation of Vileplume nails! I’m willing to take any other suggestions for next week’s Manicure Monday! Just keep in mind I don’t have black nail polish.

2012-04-04: Fashion Show, Fashion Show

I hope this is elegant and classy! My friend, P, is walking in a fashion show tonight, which sparked me to create an outfit around my fascinator. I wanted to have something both femme and masculine, so hopefully a blazer and a skirt help me pull it off!

Blue & Green Fascinator - Headcase Hats
Cream tee-shirt - JOE FRESH
Blue one button blazer - Zara
Green Skirt - Higher State
Green tights - JOE FRESH
Nude Heels - Winners 

2012-04-03: Carmen Sandiego Returns!

Last year I wore the hat and dress, but now with a few new wardrobe additions, I feel this is a proper Carmen Sandiego outfit. 

Red Fedora - Headcase Hats
Red Trenchcoat Dress - JOE FRESH
Dusted Pink tights - JOE FRESH
Black Heels - Winners
Yellow Trenchcoat - Jacob 

2012-03-31: Bond, James Bond

Do I look like a Villainous Bond Girl? I sure hope so because that is what I was aiming for. It was a black tie event (The UofA Dance Club’s Top Hat & Tails) and the theme was 007. In my subtle way I tried to amp up the gross Orientalism portrayed in the early films with my fascinator. I like it and it’s nice, but it just bleed gross Orientalism. I dislike how Asian ladies are exoticised and either portrayed as meek, humble ladies, or dangerous dragon ladies out to kill with their exotic looks.

I took this photo (and a few others of sadly similar poor quality) in one night, so what’s missing from the original outfit was some gold and black make up I had. 

Oriental-themed fascinator - Headcase Hats
Black Velvet Dress - H&M
Gold tights - H&M
Black Heels - Winners 

2012-03-30

I really have no defence for how kinda awful this entire thing looks. It was a friend’s birthday and we were to go dancing that night. I just bought heels and a couple fascinators for the following night’s event and wanted to do a practice run. Essentially I wanted to see how a fascinator would stay on my head and if I could survive a night in heels. I did, but… over all this was a fun, but ridiculous outfit.

Fascinator - Headcase Hats
Brown vest - gift
Blue Pleated Dress - JOE FRESH
Dusted Pink Tights - JOE FRESH
Nude heels - Winners 

2012-03-27: ELECTIONS!!

This is what I wore to the OUTreach Elections! In all honesty I just wanted to wear a top hat. But the week before I bought fishnet stockings and pieced it together - I’d go as Zatanna, the Superhero Magician! 

[Source]

It’s times like this I really wish I did have a proper camera because you can’t see the fishnet details here. I tried to make a nod to comics by wearing grey pantyhose under the fishnets. In the 70s, when Black Canary was introduced, she wore fishnets, too, but it was TOO RACY by the editors so the colourist was forced to colour her legs blue to show that she really wasn’t bare legged, even if that was the intent. I think this was adapted to Zatanna later, but Zatanna adopted grey legs, not blue - thus why my legs are grey here. Also I’m a bit modest (as modest as you can be in a top hat and booty shorts) and didn’t want to show bare legs under fishnets!

Also, one minor detail! When I took these photos, I was taking several outfits at once, so the nails I have are incorrect!  I originally had white nail polish on with an Oyster topcoat. The oyster was a translucent silvery pinkish layer. I felt it was adequately magical for the event.

Top Hat (7”, Smithbuilt) - Headcase Hats
White dress shirt - Land’s End
White Bowtie - Le Chateau
Black two button Blazer - Isis
Black (Booty) shorts -H&M
Grey Tights & Fishnets - JOE FRESH
Black heels -Winners 

2012-03-23: Drag show & Mod night!

Two friends and I spent that night at the annual OUTreach Drag Show Fundraiser and then hopped off to the Mod Club for a Mad Men theme. Added on top, we wanted to take a black & white theme to everything.

Since it was a drag show I wanted to wear ridiculous amounts of make up, so I gave myself some silver nails (red here because the photo was taken at a way later date) and lots of black eyeliner and just smothered my face with silver eye shadow. I got a few compliments, but I honestly thought I looked silly. Silly in a good and fun way, though.

Black & white block dress - Jacob
Red thin belt - H&M
Black tights - JOE FRESH
Silver wafer shoes - Zara 

2012-03-20: TINTIN!

Continuing the French comic theme, I pulled together this nice and simple Tintin outfit. Sadly, Snowy is missing, but I think he’s just busy trying to catch a bad guy!

And yes, I know Tintin wore shoes, but I felt adventuring boots were in order.

White Dress shirt - Higher State
Blue V-neck sweater - JOE FRESH
Suede Coat - Gift
Orange skinny jeans - Zara
Black Boots - Pravada 

2012-03-13: Babar!

NOW PRESENTING THE ELEPHANT KING, BABAR! CITIZEN, MEET YOUR KING!

HNNNNROOOOOOO

(It was near the end of the night and mistakenly wore the nude shoes, not the white shoes for the photo. But fret not, on the day of, I wore black shoes and white socks, just like Babar!)

Black Bowler hat - H&M
Green double breasted blazer - Zara
White dress shirt - Higher State
Red tie - Le Chateau
Green skinny Jeans - Zara
Black shoes - Target
Flower decal -Headcase Hats