SGSwatchFest: Mother’s Day

Today’s the second Sunday of May, the day we celebrate Mother’s Day. Mums are the most important person in our lives, so it seems sorely inadequate to dedicate just one day in the year to her. Nevertheless, it’s still a reminder to show our appreciation for our mothers.

For SGSwatchFest: Mother’s Day, we’re doing red and/or pink manis to celebrate all mothers. For my mani, I chose piCture pOlish O’Hara and Ozotic 607.

I took all the photos in natural light but it was quite a cloudy day.

On my right hand, I applied two coats of piCture pOlish O’Hara. It’s a bright, sexy red jelly with scattered holo. Formula was great to work with and it dried with a glossy finish. This was without top coat.

piCture pOlish O’Hara

piCture pOlish Sprees

As you may already know, I am closing down my little venture into nail polish retail, Star Trinkets. When I made that announcement late last year, I think one of the main concerns among those who have been buying piCture pOlish and Ozotic through me for a year or so was whether it means they now need an alternative source.

Well, after some consideration and feedback from the piCture pOlish girls, I’ve decided to revert to the pre-Star Trinkets arrangements. What it means is that, instead of keeping ready stock, I will be taking requests via email and making collated orders from time to time. In other words, it would be like a spree. It’s also basically what I’ve been doing with the new piCture pOlish shades released this year.

At the moment, I cannot provide a schedule for ordering. It will be more on an ad-hoc basis as I will need enough requests to justify the shipping costs. When I am planning to place an order, I will announce it here and on social media. My main purpose is to help those in Singapore but I will gladly take requests from international ladies too.

There are the prices (in Singapore dollars):

• Regular piCture pOlish: SGD$16.50 per bottle
• Premium piCture pOlish and Ozotic: SGD$18.00 per bottle

The prices are inclusive of Normal Mail postage within Singapore. An additional SGD$3.00 will be charged for Registered Mail.

For international orders, I will have to give you a quote on shipping based on how many bottles you order. As a guide, shipping will be about SGD$10 for three bottles, inclusive of Registered Mail, which provides limited tracking.

You can email your requests and queries to susan@thesubtleshimmer.com.

SGSwatchFest: St Patrick’s Day

It’s time for another SGSwatchFest, and the theme is St Patrick’s Day! Although we don’t exactly celebrate that here (except at some Irish pubs), I think it’s a perfect time to wear all the pretty green polish we have!

I have a soft spot for Ireland as the Emerald Isle is truly beautiful. I really hope to visit again someday. For now, I shall be contented with a mani featuring pretty green polish and a shamrock that I’ve in love with!

These are the shades that I used:

• Thumb: Pretty & Polished May Flowers (I love their colour changing creamy glitters!)
• Index: piCture pOlish Majesty with Kryptonite for the shamrock
• Middle: Wing Dust Crocodile Farm
• Ring: KBShimmer Get Clover It
• Pinkie: Pretty & Polished Irish Brawn (I won this in P&P’s giveaway!)

I added Nubar Diamont top coat over the mani. I’ll give more details on each polish before their respective macro shot. This first photo of the mani was taken in the sun.

St Patrick’s Day mani (sunlight)

Flakie Friday: piCture pOlish Hypnotic Voodoo

Happy Friday, everyone! Today is the last day of the school term, so I get a break next week. Double YAY!

I was almost going to skip Flakie Friday this week. I just wasn’t feeling inspired about doing a flakie mani over the past week. Then, inspiration struck last night, and here we are!

For this week’s mani, I layered piCture pOlish Hypnotic over Voodoo. I love how the names go so well together! I was going to do the layering as an accent nail initially, but I loved how it looked over the first nail so much that I happily layered Hypnotic over the remaining nails. As such, I did not take any photos of Voodoo on its own.

piCture pOlish Voodoo is a reddish brown with beautiful shimmer. I can’t really tell what colour the shimmer is though. It looks kind of coppery, but perhaps it’s a mix of red and gold shimmer. In any case, this is a very interesting vampy shade. I applied two coats. piCture pOlish Hypnotic has a clear base with iridescent flakes that mostly show as blue, green, and orange. The flakes are a bit sparse and this was two coats.

It was really hard to capture all the details in this combo. These were the best I had. The first photo was with flash.

piCture pOlish Hypnotic Voodoo (flash)

Zoya Blaze vs piCture pOlish Monroe; Zoya Aurora vs Ozotic 624

When I first saw swatches of the scattered holos from the Zoya Ornate collection, my immediate reaction was to wonder how similar they are to the Ozotic 600s and the new piCture pOlish scattered holos. However, Zoya isn’t easily available here in Singapore (the authorised distributor really isn’t doing a good job to distribute them), so I didn’t have a chance to compare them for myself. Thankfully, a Polish Angel in the form of Marisa from Polish Obsession got them for me recently.

I have comparisons of two of the Zoyas today – Zoya Blaze vs piCture pOlish Monroe 2.0; and Zoya Aurora vs Ozotic 624.

In terms of the scattered holo, they basically look the same. If there were any differences, I couldn’t tell. The key difference is in the colour.

Let’s look at the first pair of Zoya Blaze vs piCture pOlish Monroe 2.0 (if you want to know the difference between the first Monroe and the reformulated one, check my comparison post).

I applied three thin, easy coats of each on alternate fingers. Two coats would have been sufficient but I wanted to be sure the coverage was even for flash photography. I then added Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat. Both shades are dark reds. However, Zoya Blaze is clearly more red and vibrant. piCture pOlish Monroe is a deeper red and leans more maroon. I think both are very rich and gorgeous shades and I love them both!

All the photos were taken with flash.

Zoya Blaze vs piCture pOlish Monroe 2.0

Sundry Sunday: Emily de Molly Fifth Element and piCture pOlish Cosmos

For today’s Sundry Sunday post, I have two Australian shades to share – Emily de Molly Fifth Element and piCture pOlish Cosmos.

Both brands have been described as ‘indie’, although one is handmade and the other is manufactured. To me, there’s a huge difference between the two. I prefer using ‘indie’ only for handmade ones, for the manufactured ones are produced by a business after all, whatever its size.

Anyway, on to the polish!

Emily de Molly Fifth Element has a bright, creamy turquoise base with crimson and bright blue glitter in different sizes. I wanted this both for the colours and the name. I may not care much for Bruce Willis but Fifth Element was an awesome movie! I believe I used three thin coats.

piCture pOlish Cosmos is a second collaboration with Pshiiit Boutique. It has a dark blue base with what has become the signature scattered holo of piCture pOlish and their partner brand, Ozotic. I used two easy coats.

Emily de Molly Fifth Element flanked by piCture pOlish Cosmos (sunlight)