Betta Care: To Filter or Not To Filter

To filter, or not to filter, why you might need a filter, and what filter to use.

Unlike a lot of people who give out betta advice on tumblr, I have quite a bit of experience keeping betta in unfiltered bowls. I maintained all the displays for work (unfiltered bowls between .5 and 2 gallons, plus ~60 fish in cups at any given time), and watched fish in various sizes of enclosure suffer health consequences based on being in those containers. I have firsthand experience when I say what my minimum size is for a healthy betta.

I'm going to make a controversial statement here when I say that I don't think betta fish absolutely need to be in a filtered setup. One of my fish has lived in an unfiltered/100%water change weekly 2.5 gallon tank for several months now, and is healthy. He's not just suffering no consequences, he is actually healthy. When I got him, he had developed severe swim problems due to being in a high-ammonia environment for months. He still has problems floating and swimming, and would not be healthy if he was in a tank with a water current.
On the other hand, I had a very large betta named Steve who was living in a 1-gal bowl when I got him. I moved him to a filtered 10-gal tank and his fins doubled in length, he developed iridescent scales, and his pectoral fins went from being stick-thin to long and flowing. Steve couldn't live to his full potential in a small bowl.
What I'm trying to get at here is that blanket statements about "this is acceptable" and "this is not acceptable" don't apply to all fish. Environments that are good for some fish are not good for others. It's important to learn what a healthy betta looks like and acts like, and to compare those betta to you to determine if your environment is meeting your fish's needs.
I'm going to use the word "tank" for any enclosure that you have your betta in. This information applies to tanks, bowls, plastic shoe boxes, wherever your fish is.

A couple myths: plants, shrimp, and snails do not filter your water. Shrimp and snails actually add to the bio-load of your tank, and produce the same waste that your fish does. Plants like peace lilies  and lucky bamboo are not meant to live underwater. Parts of them will decay and detract from your water quality. Marimo balls only grow .5cm a year, making them too slow of photosynthesizers to remove any wastes in your water, though they don't decay the way peace lilies do.
This is not to say that any of those are bad for your tank. All I'm saying is that having those in your tank does not mean you need to change your water less frequently.

I went over this in another part of care, but there are a few things that also contribute to your water quality worth mentioning again. If you are feeding your betta food with a high content of plant fillers and a low content of meat products, your fish will poop more frequently and produce larger poopies. In a small environment, this will make your water quality deteriorate faster. If you overfeed your fish, uneaten food will stay on the bottom of your tank. This food will decay and contribute to poor water quality.
Also, all betta tanks should be heated so that the water stays between 74-82 degrees. Living in an unheated bowl will drastically reduce your fish's life span by months or even years; you're literally slowly killing him. I'll go over heaters in another post, and just now leave you with the advice to research any heater on Amazon before you pick it up. Some heaters are unstable and have a tendency to consistently overheat and kill your fish.

So, to filter, or not to filter?

Why do we filter?
When your fish breathes, pees, and poops, it creates ammonia. Fish cannot live in an environment that is high in ammonia. If you have a filter, you grow a colony of bacteria that eat the ammonia and produce nitrate. This colony is called your biological filter. Nitrate is much less toxic to your fish. A good filter colony makes sure that your fish live in an ammonia-free environment.
If you have a functioning biological filter, you do not need to change all of the water in your tank every time you change your water. If you do not have a biological filter, you will need change all of the water every time you change the water. Because you do not need to change all the water every time you do a water change, you can have a tank that's 10 or 20 gallons without using 20 gallons of water every week to maintain it.

Why would we not filter?
You need at least 2.5 gallons of water in order to support enough bacteria to make a functioning biological filter. This means that even if you have a filter running, if your tank is less than 2.5 gallons, you do not have any biological filtration.
Betta fish come from still (not small, not dirty, still) water and don't like moving water. Therefore, if your tank is too small to support a biological filter, it is better to not have a filter running in a betta tank.
Betta fish do not produce much waste, and they get oxygen by breathing air at the surface. Because of this, they do not need water aeration, and a 1-gallon tank will not reach dangerous levels of ammonia in a week, so it is possible to keep their water livable without a filter. Other types of fish cannot live in conditions that betta are comfortable with.

What about other kinds of filtration?
Technically, a filter can provide three kinds of filtration: biological, mechanical, and chemical. The really important one is biological. Your biological filter keeps your water breathable for your fish. If your filter doesn't provide biological filtration, it's pretty useless for betta.
Mechanical filtration takes all the floaty particles of fish poop and uneaten food and plant decay, and it holds all those pieces in one place (usually on the filter sponge or filter pad). No matter how good your mechanical filtration is, it does not remove dirt from the water. Your tank is a closed system and the only way you can get dirt and waste out is to change your water. Shrimp and snails provide limited mechanical filtration, in that they like to eat waste food, but they still poop out what they eat and add it back to the ecosystem.
Chemical filtration means carbon. In the same way that you can buy a brita pitcher to make your tap water taste better, you can put a carbon pad in your tank to absorb some impurities. Pet stores will tell you that carbon is the best thing ever. Pet stores tell you that because your carbon will run out and you'll have to spend more money on carbon every month. If you have medicated your tank, or if you have driftwood in your tank that's staining your water brown, carbon is useful to have. Otherwise, I recommend you don't have carbon in your tank. When you throw away your carbon pad, you'll also be throwing away a lot of your biological bacteria colony, which is bad.
Despite what some people tell you, a full carbon pad does not leak toxins into the water. It drives me absolutely nuts when people say that and I will go fuckin' science on your ass if you demand  to know why.

Should I filter my tank?
Be honest--How on top of water changes are you? An unfiltered tank can get toxic or lethal levels of ammonia very quickly without changes. If your tank is 1 gallon, I suggest changing the water twice a week (once every 4-5 days, really). If your tank is 2.5 gallons, you need to change it every single week. You can't miss a week, and you really shouldn't miss a couple days. You need to be on top of your water changes every single week. If you travel a lot, work intense hours, get sick, stay at your friend's house a lot, and might miss a water change, consider getting a larger tank with a filter.
Is your tank 2.5 gallons? If it is, you can go either way on the filter. However, due to the smaller water level, your biological filter is more likely to "crash" or "hiccup," which means some of your bacteria will die and stop filtering the water. If that happens, nitrite can build up in your tank. Nitrite is more toxic to your fish than ammonia. If you have a filtered 2.5 gallon tank, be ready to check your water quality frequently.
Is your tank too big to change all the water at once? If it's going to be difficult for you to change all the water, get a filter. With a working biological filter, you only need to change 15-25% of the water every week.

What kind of filter should I get?
Remember that the most important kind of filtration for betta tanks is biological filtration. To grow your biological filter colony, you need porous places for the bacteria to live, and a source of oxygen for those bacteria. The bacteria don't float freely in your tank water; they grow on surfaces like your filter media, your gravel, and your cute pink castle your betta swims through. Most grow on the filter media, because the point of a filter is to make a good habitat for your bacterial colony.

My favorite filter for betta fish are sponge filters.
A sponge filter is a piece of sponge that is built so you can hook an air tube to it. You use an air pump to make bubbles in the sponge, and the bubbles rising out of the exit tube creates suction that draws new water through the sponge. The bacteria grow on the sponge, and the sponge provides some limited mechanical filtration. Sponge filters make very small currents (just the bubbles from the exit tube), which are good for betta fish. They're cheap too, but you can't buy them at pet stores. I get mine on Amazon. If you have shrimp in your tank, be ready for them to spend a lot of time eating off of the filter sponge.

For larger tanks, I'm a fan of undergravel filters.
Undergravel filters aren't super popular in the fishblr community, but I have never had a problem with mine as long as I clean the gravel properly.
An undergravel filter works similarly to a sponge filter. You use rising bubbles to pull water through your gravel on the bottom of your tank. The bacteria grow on the gravel.
There are two kinds of undergravel filters that I've seen. What I'm going to call "real" undergravel filters have a grating that covers the entire floor of your tank, and two lift tubes/bubble tubes (one at each end). A lot of cheap tanks now have what I call "fake" or "nonfunctional" undergravel filters, which have a very small grating that covers maybe 25% of your tank floor, and has one lift tube (usually in the center). The fake undergravel filters don't get enough lift from the central tube, and don't pull enough oxygen through the gravel to support good colonies. If your tank came with one of these, I suggest you throw it out and get a sponge filter.

If you want a filter that you can buy at the pet store, I suggest modifying a HOB or hang on back filter.
These are cheap and maybe came with your tank. It's got a tube that goes into your tank, pulls water into the filter, and returns the water to the tank via a little waterfall-looking thing.
Most HOB filters come with a carbon pad, which isn't a great home for bacteria. However, if you go into the canister filter section of the filter aisle, you'll find all sorts of great biological media. You can get sponge, ceramic noodles, bioballs, whatever they're selling that has good bacteria growing properties. Then just shove whatever it is you bought into the empty space in your HOB where your carbon used to be.
If you can find a good one, I suggest getting a nice prefilter sponge. This is a sponge you can put over your intake tube on your HOB. It reduces the current for your betta and provides even more places for bacteria to colonize. If you have a sponge with a lot of surface for bacteria, you don't need to put anything in your HOB, and use the sponge for all the filtration.
Some HOB filters have too high a water current coming from the water return waterfall, and you will need to baffle it. A lot of people use water bottles (google for a tutorial) and I've had good luck putting filter floss in the output.
If you're limited to the filters Petsmart sells, I think the HOB is the best option.

Internal filters can work, and your tank kit might have come with one. These work like a HOB and either use a propeller or rising air bubbles to draw water into it, and then return the water through a little chute. I don't like them because I feel like they take up a lot of space in the tank (compared to a sponge or HOB), the water flow is usually difficult to control, and they're built to take carbon. Some of them have electronics that remain submersed in their plastic housing, and I worry what'll happen to the fish if that leaks and gets water on the power supply.

If your tank kit came with an undergravel or an air-powered internal filter, the easiest thing to do is to buy a sponge filter, because you've already got the air pump and the tubing.


There's other kinds of filters, like canisters and fluidized sand, but they're expensive and usually overkill for a small betta tank.

Up next I guess I'll just ramble about how to decorate a betta tank for ten pages and then pretend I wrote something deep!

~Polly

One of 15

Blogger doesnt like me uploading pictures from my phone, so here's a link
Check out @SeriousPollyNod's Tweet: https://twitter.com/SeriousPollyNod/status/716668820610416640?s=09
Let me tell you, I love reading stories that aren't meant for you, where you don't get all the information because you're snooping, or you feel like you are.
Famous Blue Raincoat is a good example. I once read a book called Cathy's Book, which was more an ARG than a book, and that helped change how I like to tell stories.

Also my boss leaves me sticky notes all the time, so I collected some for inspiration.
Two years ago, I made a 9 foot tall portrait of Sarah Palin out of sticky notes on the outside of a Staples. Long story as to why. Anyway, then I took down my 1200 pastel squares and they lived in my car for about a year, so those are the colors I see in my head.

Another Project

So, for my New Year's resolution, I got off tumblr. The only exception is writing for my blog
20dollarlolita
which is about budget Lolita fashion.

On Blogger, I have
musicwithoutmusic
which is for people who would like to play stringed instruments like guitar, ukulele, and bass, but don't know how to start.

And my lack of tumblr means I'll be back here to share things like how I feel about my job, some frustrations with bipolar disorder and how people fail to understand it, and my betta fish.

 I guess right now, no news is good news.

If you want lots of short updates, there's my twitter, and if you want very infrequent, costume-specific updates, check out my facebook page.

I might give BEDF (blog every day in February) a shot. For now, my job and MwM are taking a lot of my time, so I don't want to commit to blogging, when all I'm going to do is be blogging about the same day over and over. My job's streesful, but consistent. Not good blogging material.

That's about it. Sorry, guys. That's all for this post.
Goodnight
~Polly

Blah Blah June is coming

I have the tradition of failing Blog Every Day In June every year.
But I like the idea of trying to do it.
Even if I'm not successful.

See, there's this thing about saying you'll do something, and then doing it every day for a month.
This month I'm going to kind of change it up.
This month, I want to get better at both guitar and bass. My logic is that if I touch the instrument once a day, I"ll be better than if I didn't do anything at all.

See, my only friend in this city is moving, and I'm scared to death of being stuck here alone.
And I really like playing music with people.
And I think I'm good enough. I really do. I have gear I'm not ashamed of (this was a problem in the past). I have a solid ear for intervals, and a good backing in theory, and I can improv basslines in various styles, and I can write basslines based on chord progressions.
I'm passable at acoustic guitar. I'm okay at rhythm guitar.

But who cares. No big deal. I want more.
I want to be better at the actual playing. Build up the muscles. Build up the intuitive skills and the sense of where the strings are.
So here's the list of things that I can do for practicing when I don't feel like doing actual music.
You know, the stuff that you can be doing lying down in bed while you're not thinking about it.

So here goes

As for strumming, up, down, updown for guitar. Up. down, updown, fingerpicking for bass.
Eventually work in 8th notes and shit,. 
The rest

• Chromatic scales: Always chromatic scales. Bass and guitar. Up and down.  Super fun. 
• The stretchy one. 1, skip a fret, 2, skip a fret, 3, skip a fret, 4. So your pinky's on the 7th fret when your done. Then up a fret and again. And again. Till you hit 12.
• Hammers and pulls. Once with 1-3, once with 1-2, once with 2-4, once with 2-3. Until you're sick and want to kill pull-offs.
• Metronome training. Just everythign but with a metronome. I'm kind of shit with teh metronome, but I'm okay with a drummer. It's weird. 

Anways. I'll think of more things but I'm getting tired and so I'm going to post.  BEDJ and bass every day (also BEDJ) start on Monday.

A Lesbian's Review of Pure Romance

Background needed:

1. I am a lesbian
2. A coworker/friend invited me to her party. It was her first party as a consultant, and she was both consultant and host.
3. I knew of Pure Romance through being invited to a party once but never going, and then checking them out online. 
4. There were other people at the party, but for the sake of privacy, this story will be told as if they were cardboard cutouts capable of generic speech. 

So, for those of you who don't know what Pure Romance is, they're basically Mary Kay of sex toys. Pure Romance sells things for getting intimate: perfume, shave gels, lube, sex toys for couples, sex toys for solo/couple*, and a few other things.  Pure Romance products can only be bought through a consultant, either at a party on online through the consultant's site**.
This is a method much like other companies such as Tupperware, Amway, Mary Kay, Big Yellow Box, and Herbalife. All of these work through the same sort of promise: Own your own business, and you will make money! Once you make your business, the REAL money comes when you sell your business to others! This is what I'm going to define as multi-level marketing (which is not my term). Level 1: you're selling the product. Level 2: You're selling the business. Level 2 often includes hosting a party where someone else is the consultant. You're making money selling the product. They're making money getting you to sell the product. In some versions (lookin' at you, Amyway*** and Herbalife****), the real money comes in when your business you sold starts selling the business.

But we're not going to talk about that. What I'm reviewing from here on out is the level 1: the product, and my experience with the selling aspect.

THE PARTY, an overview
Pure Romance parties consist of all women over the age of 18. Well. I say women. It was specified that they should be "female". I do not know what Pure Romance's policy is on trans and nonfemale women. It may be up to the discretion or the party host or the consultant, or it may be Pure Romance's policy that the only dicks allowed are synthetic and battery operated.

Everyone sits down at the party. There was wine at mine. Our consultant/host (henceforth called GFHBF because random numbers are fun) started up with a little game, involving a lot of innuendo****  and us all admitting that we have sex organs.

The story and sales pitch we got was pretty fun. We got to try out perfumes, look at body sprays and shimmers, and then progressed into tasting lubes. They were some damn tasty lubes.

This progressed into sex toys. Bullets, and the optional c-ring they could go into. Pure Romance doesn't say "cock ring." Up next were the g-spot vibrators and a demon called the "B.O.B, your battery operated boyfriend!" It was blue. It rotated. It vibrated. It had a tiny remote control attached to it.

There were discussions about clitoral stimulation and how to find your g-spot. We skimmed through the catalog, looked at anal toys and fetish supplies, and then went into a private room with GFHBF to place orders.

I then locked my keys in my car, failed to break into it, in the hail, and called AAA.

It was a fun party. I had fun.

THE PARTY, a review on product
I love the idea that intimate products can be bought privately, among friends, and without pressure to prove anything or know anything about toys. It'd be a good environment for buying your first toys, where you can go home and not have to admit to anyone that you just touched something called "The Thumb's Up."

Some very important sex toy rules were set down. Cleaning product was available from Pure Romance, and the consultant was clear that it's needed. Silicone toy safety was covered too, like no silicone lube on silicone toys, and no leaving your silicone toys where they can touch each other. Anal toys were not to be bought without lube. All in all, good rules.

I could have gone with a little more safety on the butt stuff, personally, because I've known people to do dumb shit like puncture their colon on a toilet plunger handle or get nasty anal fissures because their partner said that anal was a good idea but wasn't quite sure how. My main issue was that most of their butt toys were silicone, and silicone lube is the lubiest of them all, your butthole needs much lube, and Pure Romance just established that you can't use silicone lube on silicone dicks.

Unofficially, I've been told by several people who know their way around bondage products from many manufacturers, including Pure Romance, to never get their fetish supplies. First of all, they were added into their inventory to cash in on Fifty Shades of Grey's popularity, and second of all, they're cheaply made. Mostly what I saw consisted of 50 types of blind folds and some badly-made whips. In general, in my opinion, fetish toys are specialized enough, and bondage/kink likes and dislikes are specific enough, that trying to find stock Pure Romance can offer would be very difficult. It's kind of like buying bras from Chinese Ebay.

Other than that, the products seemed pretty damn swell. Prices were similar to what you'd find online, but more comfortable to order, since the party goers were aware of their products and quality.

THE PARTY AND PRODUCTS, a review on inclusivity.
As I had expected,  I was the only lesbian in the room. I know that I was not the only non-straight woman in the room, but I believe I was the only one who wasn't interested in penises or men.
And, also as I had expected, this wasn't something Pure Romance frequently caters to. Most girls who go to a sex toy party like that are going to be interested in a different kind of sex from what I am interested in. I'm not a lesbian trying to make everything equal or take away dick fun for the non-lesbian women. I just thought it'd be fun to share how my sexuality affected my experience here.

The party itself was very fun. There was an understanding that all of us girls like sexual stimulation and that it's nothing to be ashamed about. The consultant tended to say, "your partner" and not "your boyfriend," or "your man." Most of the conversation was about personal preference, your right to control your sex life as a woman, and about embracing your sexual desires. There were absolutely no jokes about me being gay that weren't jokes I made.

The products, however..
Look. I know that a lot of girls who like vaginal vibrators also like dick. I understand that a lot of people who like vaginal vibrators like them to look like and feel like dicks. I understand that only about 1.6% of USAmerican women identify as lesbian and that most of them probably don't go to parties like this. I understand that I am not in Pure Romance's normal demographic and I am not expecting them to cater to a side demographic like mine.
That said, while I was looking through their catalogue prepping to make my purchases, I ruled out all of the toys that would be emotionally uncomfortable to put in my me, and then kept looking. And the thing that got me was the names. Like I could just see myself going to town, about to hit it, and suddenly that evil voice that tries to make me never have fun would just go, "its name is Carl," and that'd be a great o-moment killer, and as a chick with a stressful life and frequent periods of genital numbness or total anorgasmia, I don't need the voice in the back of my head reminding me that I have Mr Know It All or The Cabana Boy all up in my vag to kill the occasional moments I get.

So, Pure Romance, if you want to cater to lesbians, which I am very aware that you may not want to do, if you change your naming structure so that the sleeker and more stylized toys didn't have obviously men/male names, I would appreciate it.



ALL IN ALL I give Pure Romance a 5/5 on concept, 3/5 on product (I'd personally prefer a smaller selection of safe and high quality toys than trying to expand it into fetish gear and anal play that you're not sure 100% how to encourage to be used safely), and a 3/5 on lesbian inclusivity, which is very damn impressive because I don't think they were actually trying for that at all. A ?/5 in trans inclusivity awaits further information before I can make that ruling.

So, women with vaginas over the age of 18, if someone invites you to a Pure Romance party, I definitely suggest you give it a shot. Stepping out of your comfort zone is always fun, and if your party is like mine, you'll stretch your comfort zone in new directions without ever feeling like you left. If you're not into toys, they're great for you. If you're thinking about toys or just getting into them, they're fantastic for you, and if you're really into toys, you might have everything in their catalogue already, but in that case you need to buy some of that rainbow sherbert lube. I'm tempted to buy some to just put on ice cream. That shit was tasty as hell.

Wishing you luck
~Polly

___
*Any solo sex toy can be used as a couple/more than couple. You've just got to think.
*That's a lie. You can buy the toys online through Pure Romance directly, but don't. You'll pay the same as you would through a consultant, your order's private, and no one's making money off it except Pure Romance. If you see something on their site that you like, hit me up, and I'll ask my consultant to send you her webpage. You'd make her fucking week.
**My mom has sold Amway for over ten years, now
***Some of my best friends are Herbalife
****inYOURend-o

How to turn yourself gray

All right, you whippersnappers, Great Aunt Polly here to teach you about gray.
But Great Aunt Polly, we know about gray. We've been graying since 2009.
Shut up or you don't get any ginger snaps when I'm done talking. I'm here to teach you about GRAY SAFETY. The thing about cosplay is that a lot of methods that come up are things that work, but can permanently damage you, your friends, your costumes, and your reputation. But I'm first going to address damaging you.
(Please note that I'm using USA standards for labeling and safety warnings, since that's the only thing I'm familiar with. The general advice should apply everywhere, but labels might be more or less specific depending on where you are. Research is your friend)
One of the methods I've seen for graying up is mixing acrylic paint with lotion and using that on your body.
NO NO NO NO NO.
No.
A lot of acrylic paints have heavy metals in them. They're usred to make the right colors. There's no consistent way in the USA to tell if it does. There's the AP certification, but I've seen the highest safety label on cadmium yellow with real cadmium. Cadmium is a heavy metal, and you don't want heavy metals in your body.
Story time, children. Almost a year ago, I got lithium poisoning because of some meds I was on. It was a solid two weeks of vomiting and dizziness. I missed two weeks of work. I missed two weeks of class and had to drop my favorite class because I couldn't catch up. It sucked. My lithium toxicity was still below the range considered toxic.
Lithium poisoning is one of the less shitty heavy metal poisoning.
Your body can absorb heavy metals through your skin.
Do not put acrylic paint on your skin. Heavy metals stay in your body for a long time, sometimes years. They can build up over years.
A lot of people ask if PAX makeup (acrylic paint and pros-aid adhesive) is still okay. I don't recommend it. Show me one referenced source or scientific study that shows that Pros-Aid neutralizes heavy metals and I'll change my view. But I don't believe that PAX with acrylic paint is any safer than lotion mixed with acrylic paint. It may actually be more danger since it is so much harder to remove from your skin.
So I just need to get actual body paint? Party City sells tubes for $1. That's not too hard!
Hold up again, children. I'm going to put this in bold italic capitals because if you only get one thing out of this write up, it should be this:
DO NOT EVER USE ANY MAKEUP THAT TELLS YOU TO ONLY USE IT LESS THAN (4, 6, whatever) HOURS.
This is really important. Using acrylic paint and lotion naturally feels like it's a little less than safe, and you're instinctively going to want to be cautious. Actual body paint, you think, is going to be safer.
Well, that warning's there for a reason. If they put that label on it, it's because it needs to come off your skin before the bad ingredients reach toxic levels in your body.
I learned this the hard way. My friend cosplayed as a Weeping Angel once and we got our makeup from the party store. It said it was good for six hours, but apparently she was sensitive to an ingredient. Four hours in, she was unable to walk without help because she was so dizzy, and then threw up for almost a solid half hour in the convention bathroom.
It is impossible to know if you are this sensitive without trying it on, and even if you aren't sensitive, the chemicals will still build up in your system; your body just isn't trying to get rid of them.
Great-Aunt Polly, I'm not made of money, damn it. I need to gray on the cheap. You just ruled out the cheapest two paint methods.
Watch your language, kid. First of all, I didn't rule them out. The makeups ruled themselves out by being dangerous to your body. Let's say it one time together, Homestuck is not worth bodily harm.
Homestuck is not worth bodily harm.
Good job. Everyone have a cookie.
So, what's a good option?
Well, the following paint brands are safe and all offer paint I'd say is safe on your face:
Ben Nye (Cream Liners)
Mehron (Paradise AQ, Starblend)
Snazaroo (All of it)
Krylon (aquacolor, color cups)
Graftioban (I've used their RMG because I got it for prosthetics, but I trust all of their greasepaint)
These all take a lot of paint to cover a body. Paradise AQ's big $11 thing has covered me for two fullbody paintings and that's it. I've heard you need two or three Ben Nye creamliners to cover a body. This is a lot of money for an unemployed old lady with no kids to take care of her.
You definitely need face-safe makeup for your face. Your skin is thinnest on your eyelids and so you're going to want to stop anything nasty from getting into your body fast. Just because your body paint is body-safe doesn't mean it should go on your face for hours at a time.
So you've got that, right?
Now you need some water-based cream makeup. I use Mehron Fantasy FX (I like Mehron). You need a tube of gray and a tube of white to get the right color. This comes out to $7. Order a tube of sealer too (this is not optional any time you wear body paint. Seriously. Not optional)
Then I picked up some lotion. I use Body Series Hand and Body lotion SPF 8, but you're not going to be able to find that in a store. Just pick up any lotion that you like and isn't super fancy. While you're out getting lotion, grab some aerosol spray-on sunscreen, some baby powder, and some Monistat chafing relief powder gel. The powder gel's got the exact same ingredients as Smashbox Primer Potion and doesn't cost a shitload. You're also not going to be using it on your eyelids. If there's empty squeezey bottles, get one too. 3 oz or bigger's best.
The exact proportions of white to gray are going to depend on your particular face paint that you're matching. Here's what I do (to match a 50-50 white and Storm Cloud ParadiseAQ mix):
Squirt a little bit of lotion in the bottle to stop the makeup from getting stuck on the edges. Close the lid and shake the crap out of it till it's on all of the inside surfaces. Then put the entire 1oz tube of white into the bottle. Shake to mix it up. Then add the gray, little by little, until it looks like the right shade. Mix it up after you add even bit. I add edamame-sized blobs at first and then decrease the dosage as it gets closer to the color.
Put some face paint on your arm so that you can compare the colors.
Put some powder gel on your arm. Let it dry and then put a tiny bit of the face paint over that. Let it dry.
The color should get lighter when it dries, because the lotion's white when wet but clear when it dries. Add more gray and keep testing until it's the right color.
To cover yourself in paint:

1. Primer (powder gel) everywhere the paint's going
   
2. Put the paint on a sponge and sponge the areas with a smushing motion, not a smearing one. A little paint goes a long way.
   
3. LET IT DRY ALL THE WAY. Put a second goat on the areas that need it.
   
4. Put baby powder on it, let it cook for a minute, then brush it all off with a fluffy
   
5. Spray a light coat of sealer. You really only need one on most areas that aren't going to be touched a lot because
   
6. Spray sunscreen over all of it. (it seals it a bit more, and prevents premature aging and sunburn! Your skin's going to get more heat absorbing if you make your skin darker)
   

The other way to save money on body paint is to use less body paint. Make yourself some troll arm tights so you can skip painting your arms (and you should never paint your hands anyway or you'll get gray everyfuckingwhere and that's not okay, kiddos.), and while you're buying gray tights for your arms, get some for your legs. Then, if you're cosplaying Feferi (who I think has the most skin showing. That or a godtier page) you'd just need to paint your chest and back, neck, and face. Saves you a lot of paint and a lot of money.
So, kiddos, to sum it up

1. Heavy metal poisoning is bad. You can't know (in the USA) if paint has them or not.
   
2. do not put acrylic paint on your skin
   
   1. do not put acrylic paint on your skin
      
      1. Do NOT put acrylic paint on your skin
         
         1. (Don't even CONSIDER oil paint)
            
3. Buy good quality paint. It'll look better and keep you safer.
   
4. Prime and seal.
   
5. The gray can't rub off if the gray's made of tights and not paint
   
6. Don't get gray on anyone's clothes.
   

Thanks for listening, children. Everyone have another ginger snap.



Questions? Just ask your loving Great-Auntie.
Found something factually incorrect? Correct me!




~Polly

oh hey I was going to do beda hahahahaha

Happy August 16.

I've been getting into fanmixes, and I'm working on finishing my second one and noticing that I tend to start them with two songs by the same artist.
Not intentionally.
It just happens like that.

Anyway, whatever, I'll post the tracklistings for them since no one reads this blog anyway.
They're for the DTMG fandom but more accurately for our elaborate backstories for the characters.

So here we go:
"Slipping" for Billy Joe Cobra

1. Desensitized--Green Day
2. No Pride--Green Day
3. Anthem--Blink 182
4. Failure's Not Flattery--New Found Glory
5. Out of Reach--The Get Up Kids
6. Even if it Kills Me--Motion City Soundtrack
7. Pain--Jimmy Eat World
8. Sober-P!nk
9. Watch Me Fall Apart--Hard-fi
10. Song To Say Goodbye--Placebo
11. Blackbird--The Beatles
12. How To Be Dead--Snow Patrol
13. Slipped--The National

"The Grave That You Refuse To Leave" for Madame X

1. Sprawl (Flatlands)--Arcade Fire
2. (Headlights Look Like Diamonds--Arcade Fire) <--Might change this one
3. Westbound Sign--Green Day
4. The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most--Dashboard Confessional
5. Home Is a Fire--Death Cab for Cutie
6. City With No Children--Arcade Fire
7. Steadier Footing--Death Cab For Cutie
8. Is There A Way Out--The Get Up Kids
9. Flaws--Bastille
10. No Light, No Light--Florence+The Machine

But that one's still really in progress and editing and shit