alizarine claws

See my new, pretty header?! Alright, I admit it: I am not completely satisfied, but at least it is a start. My hope is that it will make us all, both me and you, feel more welcome whenever we open up this page. Adding a little personality.

When I first decided to get started on a nail polish blog for real, I did what I assume most of you have done at some point: tried to come up with a fun and clever name to use. It took me a while, but of course I ended up with the most obvious name, the one I should have picked from the start. Maybe one or two of my dear readers have been wondering about it?


Those of you who were familiar with my online presence before, know I have been rocking the nickname alizarine for a while. Actually, it has been with me since some time during the late 90's, with only smaller modifications, and in this very form since before the new millennium. You may or may not be aware that alizarine [French], or alizarin in English and alisarin in Swedish, is a common color pigment on an artist's palette, a chemical compound with a slightly varying color, leaning against crimson. And it just so happens, that this was the pigment I was using the most back in the day when I still did some painting. Also, large parts of both my real given names are found in the word.

And of course, you can not disregard the prominent association to blood, which is of course loaded with symbolic meaning for individuals among certain popular subcultures.


Claws? Yeah, I like cats. No, I love cats. But you already knew that. And I am starting to suspect that preferring cats is not unusual among polish loving girls, even though I know some favor dogs- or both. I have already posted a little story about the family cat Stöj. He is now the only one. But I have had up to seven cats at once in the past. The one that was with me the longest was Sara. I took her home without asking, when I was twelve, and she finally passed away because of kidney failure a couple of months ago, not long before christmas. But her claws will follow me a long time, or at the least their product, since I have a tiny scar on my lower lip that Sara put there once when she was under a lot of stress.

Sara in the midst of a huge yawn.

Anyway, my alizarine colored claws are now overlooking this blog from the top, and the above is the story behind it.

Swedish word of the day:
gäsp -noun yawn
Because I'm sure now you're doing it.