No H8 Purple and 3-D Shadow

Let me be honest. I know I'm not all that good. I'm a self-proclaimed crappy artist. I am improving, but I can laugh at my mistakes and I never take myself too seriously. I've learned to laugh at myself first, which takes the wind out of others' sails when they want to laugh at me. While that might cover real insecurity and that is absolutely a defense mechanism I have learned, I never let the bastards get me down. I even, just today, added a way for my readers to vote -- abominable, adequate, or awesome. I fully believe that you'll see a combination of all of them at some point, as long as I keep this up.

Personally, I am so new to beauty blogging that I haven't had enough exposure to be bullied, but there is something in our culture, and especially on the Internet, that leads people to one-upmanship in hurtful, cruel ways. I've seen it on other blogs, and I can't imagine how it would feel to be knocked down for no good reason based on the quality of one's cuticles.

Today's manicure was inspired by Vicky Boombastic Nails, who did it with a silver, blue, and purple combination. I had never heard of the technique before, and found a NYFW tutorial on the Daily Makeover, which made it look humanly possible for my talent level.

I really like the completed effect -- I wondered how such a red and such a blue purple would look next to each other, but it seems to work. I started with several coats of Sinful Colors' Let Me Go on the inside edge of my nails. After that was dry, it took just one coat of OPI's Suzi & the 7 Dusseldorfs in another thin, slightly curved line, and I filled in the rest of my nails with Sinful Colors' Let's Talk. A coat of SV on top smoothed it all out.

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 colorful community.