Blog

In celebration of six years of The Ordinary Co, we set up a space at Antea Social, for a day where cafe-going guests could preview our current and upcoming collections at their own time. While we can't gather like we used to in past years, we practiced safe distancing by ensuring that our visitors were arrived in groups of less than 5 and stayed within these allocations as they enjoyed a cake and tea. Just an Ordinary day at a cafe! The Ordinary Co's mission when we launched in 2014 was to provide wearable fashion accessories that were accessible to the modern women. In the years to come as the brand grows older, we look forward to expanding our demi-fine offering, A Little Less, to provide a wider range of jewelry of an elevated quality that still offered great value to our customers. With the launch of our new packaging this year, designed by one of our long term customers, fan and turned collaborator, Kimberly Chan (@chankimberly), we look forward to providing a better purchasing experience for our customers to gift themselves or their friends a piece to wear for their every day. We've also provided the option this year for customers to select a "reduced packaging" option if they are simply purchasing the jewelry for themselves, and do not require unnecessary wrapping to be kind to the environment. And extra kudos to the lovely community who popped by, Antea Social for hosting our pop-up display, Still Life Floral for sprucing the space up with flora for the day, and Nodspark and Stackers Singapore for additional little gifts for our guests. For the first time, we invite our customers to enjoy 10% off Storewide (min spend $50.00) with the code ORDINARY10 and 20% off Storewide (min spend $100.00) with the code ORDINARY20 from now till 24 Sep 2020 storewide, including our demi-fine range which does not get discounted except on special occasions, such as our birthday. Thank you for six years and looking forward as we grow and evolve together!

We caught up with Shilbe, owner and creative mind behind the whimsical yet quirky Still Life Floral to gain insight into her flower designing process as she puts together the rose-inspired tea time set up for our collaborative collection with Fresh Beauty. Having picked up floral arrangement as a hobby during her university days, she has since trained with Award-Winning Floral Artist Zita Elze and attended master classes with Catherine Muller and Putnam & Putnam. After quitting her marketing job 2 years ago to start Still Life Floral, Shilbe shares with us her journey and the mindset that goes behind each of her novel creations. Thanks for this beautiful set up! What inspires your arrangements, and what is Still Life Floral's philosophy behind every one of your creations? At Still Life Floral, our handcrafted designs are led by intuition and emotion, rather than solely by colours or textures. We collaborate with the best that nature has to offer throughout the seasons to create designs befitting the context/occasion a.k.a mood-based designs. It's fascinating that you choose the concept of mood-based floral design as a starting point - can you tell us more about it and how does this guide one's flower styling journey? The turning point in my flower journey was when I attended Zita Elze Flower Academy. Her unique approach to teaching flowers was unlike anything I've experienced and really draws on being in tune with your emotions rather than rules. I realised I had been approaching flowers all wrong before and the shift was pretty much instantaneous for me.  Making the right flower selection is of utmost importance to creating a mood that you set out to do. I've made the mistake before (multiple times) of selecting all the pretty flowers at the market, then coming home only to realize that I can't make an arrangement with it because the flowers just don't go together.  Each ingredient plays a role to achieve a feeling and mood and only when you pick the right ingredients, your arrangement will make sense. This intuitive sense unfortunately can't be taught in a single class, but rather a result of an amalgamation of experiences over many years. It is so important to see a lot, feel a lot and experience as many things you can to widen your horizons. And as with any other art form, all these will help you gain new perspectives and insights that are immensely helpful as you embark your flower journey. What are some of your personal favourite flowers variants? There are too many to name but I love fritillaria, sweet pea, rubus (berries) and unique orchid varieties. It is also why I chose the Degarmoara orchid as my logo. We love how you sometimes forage for wild flowers in your garden and in fields that grow locally in Singapore. Sometimes local flowers are overlooked, but you've found a way to weave them into your bouquets and elevate them. What inspired you to do that? I always look to my surroundings because they always seem to have the answer that I'm looking for. It was one of the important lessons I learnt from my flower teacher, Zita. She always said to "look around, the answer is always there". It is just one of those things that you've just got to experience it for yourself to understand. It is also the reason why when I find something calling out to me, I buy it without much hesitation, and know that I will use it for an unknown future project. Thanks for sharing your personal approach to creating these beautiful arrangements, do you have any last tips on creating your own bouquet for people who are not sure where to begin! Go to the flower market with an image for inspiration and remember not to get swayed by all the pretty flowers at the market. Notice the colours of the petals, veining of the leaves, stems etc and see how they relate to one another. It will help you to make a decision on your ingredients. Also, use a vase to help you instead of arranging it in your hand, it will make it a lot easier. Follow Shilbe's journey as she explores mood-based floral design on @stilllife_floral. The Fresh Beauty x The Ordinary Co collection is sold out online.

You know what they say about couples that grow together... plants, that is! We explored the home of plant enthusiasts Charles and Amanda to gain insight into they unbeleafable collection for the first of our The Ordinary People series. Your house is beautiful - what inspired the both of you to start growing your home garden? We started buying plants to bring warmth to our new home. We started with the classics - money plant, rubber plant and a fiddle leaf fig. We don’t really remember how we got from 3 to 60ish but it gradually became a common interest and led to more weekends together at the nurseries instead of Netflix on the couch. That's a lot of plants! What's the number one mistake plant owners make? Over watering! Don’t smother your plants! Most indoor plants only need to be watered about once a week depending on the soil and environment. Stick your finger into the soil to test before watering. If the soil is moist, leave the plant alone!  In that case... Which is each of your favourite plant and how does one take care of it? We should not have favourite plants! It’s like saying you have a favourite child or pet! Charles’ favourite is the monstera borsigiana albo variegata. He has 4 of them. They have a dedicated humidifer and the best spot in the house with morning light. They are very finicky and throw a tantrum if not given what they want. Out of our 60ish plants, Charles only waters the variegated monsteras and he does this very precisely with a measuring bottle. This is clearly the spoiled favourite child. Amanda’s favourite changes with time. Right now it’s a philodendron gloriosum from Ecuador. It’s really special as it’s hard to find one with thick creamy veins and pink edges. It was the nicest one from the shipment! It currently gets morning sun, grow lights, a humidifier, regular misting and weekly dose of fertiliser. We're sure you've had some crazy plant adventures, since you have 60plus! We shipped plants from Thailand and got a call on a work day from AVA at 4pm saying that the plants had arrived but the office was closing at 5pm. Amanda was at the vet and only managed to leave till 4.20. She drove from Farrer Road to Lim Chu Kang in the rain to pick them up and got a speeding ticket - $500 fine and 12 demerit points! Such an irony because she rarely drives (first time in 4 months) and is usually a super slow driver. Any special lengths you've gone to get THE plant of your choice? It’s not easy to buy variegated monsteras in Singapore. We heard that a nursery would be getting a shipment from Japan. We left our name on the waiting list and checked with our plant friends / the nursery regularly. The shipment finally arrived on a Friday at 10am but the nursery refused to sell them to us despite many many phone calls as they were apparently “reserved”. Charles cabbed to the nursery in the middle of a work day and pestered the nursery aunty to sell it to him. It worked but he had to wait 1.5 hours for others to collect their plants. We didn’t get first dibs but still picked out a decent plant. The plant went through so much, it had root rot and thrips but finally pushed out a new leaf 2 months after we first got it.  It's great that you guys are both so equally dedicated! How did this hobby help you grow closer as a couple? Charles is into Soccer and computer games. Amanda is into cooking and ASOS so it’s great that we found something we both liked. We spend time fussing over the plants together and figuring out how to care for the plants. It’s also a lot easier to repot plants with 2 pairs of hands! We spend time identifying wishlist plants and enjoy looking for them. We celebrate and feel really proud when our plants push out new leaves. It’s the ultimate validation for plant parents! We met a group of plant enthusiasts on Instagram who are way more knowledgeable than us. They have much larger and impressive collections than we do. We’ve started going to nurseries together with them and doing house plant tours amongst the group. One of them lives in the same block! It’s nice to share our interests and exchange care tips in a larger group. We’ve gotten so much advice and support from the local plant community. Any last tips on where to go to begin your own home garden? We get our gardening supplies from the nurseries along Upper Thomson. Our favourite plant shop is Pottaplantta. Visit them if you’re new to plants and need advice on what to get for your space / lifestyle. For a one stop shop, gardeners day out happens once a month at hort park. It’s an amazing place to see plants, buy plants, talk about plants and meet plant people. Charles and Amanda wear our Lovers Custom Bangles