My monthly Julep Maven box arrived a day ago and this beautiful raspberry shimmery color, Joan, was included. I wanted to try it out right away…
Base Color: Julep Joan
Stamping Color: China Glaze Emotion (sort of a hard polish to find since it came out years ago, but it does stamp beautifully)
Stamping Plate: Konad m57
*Inspired by this stamping manicure by The Nailasaurus, one my favorite nail blogs. :)
Today’s manicure: two coats of Julep Eloise (navy), with one coat Girly Bits Cosmic Ocean. :)
The above photos were taken with my iPhone the morning after I painted my nails (in natural light). Here’s a shot with my big momma camera (Canon 50D) taken the night before right after painting my nails (desk lamp)…
And one the next morning in natural light with the big momma camera…
Wearing Julep Eloise today. It came in my October Julep Maven box (American Beauty). It’s such a pretty, dusty navy blue. Perfect for fall. :)
Have you all heard of Julep? I had never heard of them until just a few months ago when I heard about their Julep Maven boxes. Basically, it’s a subscription service where you receive a box of nail polish (and sometimes other assorted manicure/pedicure items) for $20 per month. You take a style profile quiz to see what type of box you might like and then those are boxes you receive each month. But you can also swap for a different box if desired, or skip a month. It’s very flexible, which is what I like.
Anyhow, I got my very first box just over a week ago (btw, I received the American Beauty box). Inside were two colors, pedicure toe separators, and a pedicure lotion. I had heard that Julep polishes were thicker than other polishes (great for just one coat manicures), so I was curious about the formula.
Enter Julep Renee, a pale lavender polish. I received Rene and another polish, Eva (a bright berry red). I have a few polishes that look very similar to Eva, but none like Renee, so of course I decided to try out Renee first…
As reported by other bloggers, the Julep formula is thicker than I expected. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t overly hard to work with. I could have gotten away with one carefully applied coat of polish, however I did apply a second coat. And the beauty of it was that it self-leveled and evened out. Perfect! It also played with Seche Vite, my all time favorite top coat. Just passing the Seche Vite test gives any polish bonus points with me. :)
All in all, based on this one polish, I’m going to keep my Julep Maven subscription. Julep polishes are now being sold at Sephora for $14 each, so to receive at minimum two polishes + any extras they send for only $20 is a steal in my book. And a no-brainer for any nail polish junkie. :)
EDITED TO ADD: My only complaint about Julep polishes is that they are smaller than the average nail polish bottle. Most polishes are 0.4 oz – 0.5 oz. However, Julep polishes are only 0.27 oz. That’s nearly only half. Not sure what’s up with that. (Butter London is 0.4 oz. and also costs $14 at Sephora).
Here’s another look at Renee before I go…
