piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013: Celebrating the Year of the Blogger!

Sent for Contest

After an agonising month of keeping my mouth sealed, I am happy to say that the day has finally come! Yup! It is time for piCture pOlish's Blog Fest 2013! For those who are new to the scene, piCture pOlish hails from down under and every year, a group of bloggers embark on a massive mission to swatch and showcase new colours from piCture pOlish for polishaholics to drool over. Well, at least that was what happened in the past...

This year, the girls from piCture pOlish decided to catch us all by surprise by having a huge competition instead to celebrate the Year of the Blogger! Yup! They have dedicated this event for all the bloggers and to celebrate what we do ♥ I must say, I was rather surprised and touched when I first heard about the theme for the blog fest this year. I might have mentionned it before but I think there are still many people out there who have the impression that nail blogging is a piece of cake. It looks deceptively simple but bloggers often put in a lot of effort to maintain their nails, painting them as perfectly as possible, photographing them accurately, editing the pictures and finally blogging about them - all these on top of living a regular everyday life (yes, we really do engage in other activities apart from painting our nails). For me, it has become slightly more challenging this year when I took on a full-time job after my graduation. I am often bone-tired after work and there were several occasions when I felt like throwing in the towel so that I can rest a little more during the weekends... but your comments kept me going, so here I am! ♥

So, before I digress further and get all soppy, let's talk about the competition, shall we? On 29 July, 7pm, local time, participating bloggers will showcase their own nail art creation to take part in the competition. All nail art creations will go into the running to be chosen to.... create a collaboration shade with piCture pOlish!! *excited dance* There are only three winners though - 1 voted by all of you, 1 voted by the participants and 1 chosen by the girls from piCture pOlish.

For this competition, I was given these three shades to work with:

Stunning, aren't they? I will post swatches of each of them but first... let's take a look at what I came up with. After wrecking my brains out, I've decided to unleash my inner Pollock to create this mani:

If you have been following me for a while, you would probably know that I can't really draw to save my life. And you should also know that it doesn't stop me from doing nail art ;) After all, there are plenty of nail art techniques that are really simple and idiot-proof! This is one of them. All you need is some pretty colours, a fan brush and follow these steps:

1. Start the manicure with a coat of base coat to protect your nails.
2. Paint your nails with a coat of white as the base colour and let dry.
3. Drop a drop of polish on a piece of paper.
4. Dab the fan brush lightly against the drop of polish so that the tips of the brush pick up some polish. You would want only a small amount of polish to get a streaky brushed look. 
5. Run the fan brush down (or up) your nails to get streaks on your nails.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 with other colours.
7. Once satisfied, seal the design with top coat and you are done! (Clean up required, of course)

Because the design is really simple, you are free to use any colours that you like. Personally, I think analogous colours with a splash of complementary colour work very well to create a striking combination. If you like some texture, you may use varying shades of the same colour or make use of slightly sheerer colours to create the illusion of depth. The trio from piCture pOlish were perfect for this and that was one of the main reasons why I went with this design. 

Now for swatches of each of the colours:

Flirt. 2 coats.
A bright magenta that certainly deserves that warning label on the bottle. And yes, it is more flirtatious than sweet so bring it on ;)
Before I forget, this hawt babe is a one-coater that applies itself. Super fantastic formula.

Violet Femme. 3 coats.
A deep bright purple that is slightly sheer but builds up to opacity nicely. Dries to a matte-satin finish - I think it really does have neon pigments! - so a top coat is definitely needed. I really love this shade of purple.

Kryptonite. 3 coats.
Now this is my kind of kryptonite. A deep dark green with chunks of holo particles and shimmers. Wonderfully shimmery and mysterious in the shade but all glowy and sparkly then it catches the light. You absolutely need to click through on the picture and look at the details in the original reso. I did not manage to catch the holo action but trust me, the chunky particles swimming in the dark green base is enough to make you weak all over too - well, maybe except the nails, they will be superhuman.



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**Products were provided for contest participation. All views expressed are our own honest opinions. Please see our disclosure policy for more information.**