Spring is in the air!

Spring finally came to my little country, and it was time for some spring manicures.
I think, by now, you know I'm a big fan of dark polishes, so the first one A England's Sleeping Palace, a beautiful plum/eggplant holo polish that I stamped with some black flowers. I know, black flowers are not exactly spring like, but still, it's flowers :) The image is from Moyou London Suki 07 plate.

You know I recently fell in love with A England polishes, and I'm thinking this may be my favourite of the ones I brought from London. The colour is so special and I haven't seen a polish like it before, and the holo is visible even without the sun, and it's just perfect.

I really liked another spring mani I did, it's light blue and, in my opinion, very spring like:

The blue base is Kiko 849, a light blue and slightly shimmery polish, stamped with Models Own Chrome Blue, a polish I got in London that is absolutely perfect for stamping. I bought anothe blue, a dark one, and now I'm sorry I didn't buy more of the Models Own Chrome collection. I'll have to do some online shopping, me thinks :)

The last one for today was my special , 1st day of spring manicure. I did a gradient with Eveline 922 (lilac) and Misslyn 568 (mint), and stamped some flowers with A England The Blessed Damozel:

What do you think? Which one of these do you like the best? Tell me in the comments :)

xoxo

Stefi

More A England

Hello, folks! :) 

You didn't really think I just got 3 A England polishes, did you? :)

Well, let me show you the rest. 

This is beauty is Saint George. As you may know, Saint George is the patron saint of England, and you can find out more about how this polish was named right here: A England Glossary. 

Anyway, this is a gorgeous polish, and coming from someone who doesn't really like green, and doesn't have a lot of green polishes (I think this is only my 2nd one), I am very much in love with it. It's holo, and it has this blueish glow, and I love it

I used for a nail art challenge the other day, you can find it all on Instagram. Seriously, go follow me, I'm @therapywithnailpolish. 

This is Dancing with Nureyev. Again, if you want to know how it was named visiti the Glossary link above. This is a beautiful blue/lavender holo, used here in a twin nails post on Instagram with my polish pal @secretjewelgarden.

And this is the solo shot. I used Nail Vinyls as a little accent, because this was just too pretty to cover up.

My dark loving heart was extremely happy when I put this on. This is Sleeping Palace, a dark eggplant holo with the prettiest holo flame I have ever seen.

The formula on all A England polishes I bought is perfect, most of them are one coaters, although I feel better when I apply two thin ones. I also recommend base and top coat from this brand, I find them both very good, I even think I found my go to base and top coat.

Anyways, my crush on A England continues, I don't think there's a single polish on their site I don't like, so you will see more of them here :)

xoxo

London, baby! aka Love letter to A England

Sometimes, when you least expect, something you haven't planned just jumps into your life, and you have to act accordingly.
A few weeks ago, friends of ours (and by ours I mean mine and husband's) asked me if I could help them move to London, UK. They were taking their 3 cats with them, and I was supposed to be cat person no 3. After some thought and a talk with my husband (who was suppose to stay home with my Dad), I said yes. Naturally, since I was going to London, my first plan was to buy as many polishes as I can.
The very first thing on my list was to search if A England, an indie company based in London, had any "brick and mortar" stores to buy polishes from. After finding only online stockist, I emailed A England with the question, and very quickly, came the reply. "Sorry, no, there are no physical stores you can buy polishes from, but we can arrange a  meeting once you're in London, and you can get your polishes, and with a little discount." Let me tell you, that was not what I expected. The owner of A England, Adina, gave me her phone number and all the necessary information, and I told her I will email her when I have the details of my short trip.
And so a week ago, after we settled and rested from our adventure of bringing 3 cats on a plane from Zagreb to Paris, and then driving to London, my friend Martina and I sat on bus on our way to meet Adina.
I was, as you might guess, fangirling, quite a lot. I wanted A England polishes since I found out about indie makers, but somehow, I always hesitated from ordering because the shipping costs from stockists were considerable, and I try to order my polishes directly form makers when possible, which, because of Royal Mail shipping policies, as some of you may know, is not possible when makers are in the UK. My trip to London came just as was seriously considering an order with one of the European stockists, so the chance to buy those beauties AND meet the mind behind them was a little overwhelming :)
I was expecting a polite hello, polish buying and goodbye, but Adina greeted us with hugs and kisses, offered coffee and sat us down for a chat :) Long story short, we ended up talking polish, cats and traveling for an hour, and it was the best thing ever. Of course I ended up buying more than I intended to, and, a week later, I am so happy I decided to buy her base and top coats, because I couldn't find the right fit for me for a long time.
Also, because she was so kind to me, I had a custom made gift for her, it's a handmade traditional Croatian souvenir you can see in this photo:

Yes, this is me, all cool, because a picture with A England's heart and mind is no big deal :)

I am very proud to say Adina loved my gift :) Don't know if you can see it at the photo, but it has a tiny mirror in the middle and says "I (heart) A England". Also, a proper thank you to my friend Martina is in order, because she thought of the idea of a traditional souvenir as a gift.
And yes, I know you're interested, we did meet Tristam The Cat, and he's even more beautiful in person than on photos, although he did give me the side eye for sitting in his chair :)
As you can imagine, I couldn't wait to try my new beauties, so I had to put one on while still in London, and take some tourist/nail blogger pics with it. This is Tristam, a perfect dark blue holo, on Greenwich Meridian:

And in the sun:

And of course, I had to start playing with them as soon as I got home. This is my new favourite polish, Crown of Thistles:

And this is The Blessed Damozel, stamped with Dancing with Nureyev: 

Of course, I used A England base coat The Knight, and top coat, The Shield, on all of these manicures. 

I can't say enough about the beauty and great quality of A England polishes. The formula is perfect, the brush great, they dry very fast, and all the colours have such depth in them it's really hard to stop looking at your nails when you wear them. The Shield topcoat dry extremely fast (and it's not supposed to be a dry fast topcoat) and is so very shiny. In general, A England polishes are really a superb product and I recommend them with all my heart. 

I do have 3 more to show you, but that will be another post. 

In the mean time, check out A England webiste, Facebook page and Instagram, and while you're at it check out the Glossary part on the website to find out about the names of polishes and the story behind them. 

xoxo