Swatch & Art: Ever After Polish - 2 Peace in A Pod

Hello & Welcome! I am excited for this post as my procrastination is at an end and I finally put together my cherry blossom mani! Even though we've had quite a bit of rain here that's blown most of the blossoms away already ;(

This is also my first time trying an Ever After polish, so let's get to it!
My base polish here is Ever After- 2 Peace in A Pod. This is inspired by the famous YSL Peace Green and is intended to be a dupe for it, as the original color is mesmerizing, but not widely available, and also has a steep price tag if you do happen to locate it.

2 Peace in A Pod - a creamy pale mint with pink shimmer

To be honest, I'm feeling a bit iffy about this EA polish...anytime I happen to see another dupe for the YSL I instantly get a craving to own the lovely pale mint and shimmery concoction. I finally gave in asked my friend to borrow her bottle, because she did this amazing mani with it that I've been wanting to replicate - see here!- and so I got to try it for myself. I ended up needing 4 coats to get coverage I was happy with - and that's a big minus for me. As soon as I put on topcoat, it was almost worth it. There is a lot of shimmer in this polish that I just couldn't get on camera, and it was really pretty, but I feel the end result is leaving me still craving something closer to the Peace Green. I did notice that there is  new, revamped listing of this polish on the EA site, which leads me to assume it's been tweaked with and perhaps it's better now, hopefully.

Adding Glam Polish - An Unexpected Journey totally satisfied me, as it's another layering combo I've been keeping in mind.

I really love how this looked in natural light!

Look at the glitters...it's just amazing! I am so glad I have a backup bottle of this now, as I don't see myself stopping to reach for it anytime soon ;)

And on to the stamped nail art! This look was inspired by a mani I saw on IG - see nails4cocktails original- I instantly had to buy the stamping plate that made it possible, Clear Jelly Stamper - Veil of Old Japan
I added matte top coat as there is just so much going on here that it's a little intense. I'm bummed about the ring nail - it got smudged and while I tried to incorporate a bit of clouds to tie in with the blue mountains, I feel like it got too busy...but overall, it feels great to finally get something off my list that I've been planning for so long!

For those unfamiliar, Veil of Old Japan is a layering plate - images are built up by stamping in stages, using a clear stamper. To break it down - you'd do branch + blossom + blossom,or mountain + snow/peak + outline. It's kind of an advanced technique and I'll admit I can get intimidated at times. I feel like it helps to stamp on paper first, to see what the actual parts are and if they even go together like I'm imagining.
For stamping polishes I mainly used BornPretty Store stamping polishes - black, white,pink, light and dark blue, I think the exception is one of the pinks, it was from MdU.

I loved making the cherry blossoms to much that I have another mani with them coming up! I hope you enjoyed this one!