Julep Maven American Beauty Unboxing!

Yesterday I received my first Julep Maven box in the mail! So exciting. If you're not sure what the Julep Maven Program is, basically you take a quiz and sign up and you get assigned a "style profile". If you don't like the one you get, you can try re-taking the quiz to get one of 5 different results. They send you an "editors box" similar to the boxes that they send to magazine editors to promote their new colors. You get sent 1 box every month that contains new colors or new products of theirs to sample and test out before anyone else can get them! If you don't like a color they pick, you can have them pull a new one instead, and the program is one of the most flexible subscription programs I have seen. You are allowed to send the box to someone else if you want, skip that month, cancel or have a shelf pull of different product taken, all with no extra fees or consequences. That was one of the main reasons I signed up, since most of the others have hidden fees and catches.

When I took the quiz, I got assigned "American Beauty", which included 1 nail treatment, 1 bottle of Cameron, a nice bright pink, and a bottle of Alfre, a "royal purple", which I would describe much more as a gunmetal grey with purple undertones.

Opening the box, there was a really nice handsigned Thank You letter for being one of people in the "soft launch" to sign up. So sweet and nice!

Opening the box, everything was packaged beautifully! The extra bottle of nail polish you see in there is Sienna, a lovely shimmery bronze gold. I ordered that separately and they put it in the same box.


Included in my box was a full size bottle of the Glycolic Hand Scrub, 1 bottle of Nail Treatment, 1 bottle of Cameron, 1 bottle of Alfre, and 4 sample packets!

Here's a close up of all the product, including the bottle of Sienna. Left to right is: Sienna, Cameron, Alfre, and the Nail Treatment.

The only somewhat disappointing thing for me is that Cameron is an exact dupe of Niecy. So if you're looking for a nice bright pink, either of these should work since they're the same color. If I had been able to use the "shelf pull" option, I would have used it on the Cameron color since I don't really need 2 of the same exact pink.

Also, I found all the results and realized that Boho Glam is a better fit for me, unfortunately. I'm really not sure if we are able to switch style profiles, but it was a little disappointing to realize that the quiz had a better fit for me than the one I got. But this program is new, and the experience over all is totally worth the price. If you sign up, make sure to use the code TWITTER for 50% off your first box! Then you can have $40 worth of product for only $10. Another perk is, if you sign up for the Julep Maven program, you get free shipping as long as you are a member, and 20% off of any other orders you make! Pretty sweet deal.

I am excited to see what Septembers pulls will be, and that I got to try this program out. My favorite is Alfre, because it's a beautiful shimmery lavender gunmetal grey color which will be perfect for this fall.
Thank you Julep!

Go check it out and see what style profile you get! If you end up getting your own box, comment and let me know how yours was too. I love seeing what everyone else is getting and so far I've only seen 1 other person who had the same box as mine.

Just as a note, I paid for the Julep Maven program out of my own pocket, they did not furnish product for me to review.

Julep Review Summer Collection

The other day, I noticed a little banner on Facebook, announcing a discount code for purchases of $35 or more. You get $15 off for putting in the code FB15 where it asks for a Coupon Code.

Right now, Juleps "Summer Collection", which includes 3 shades of nail polish, is marked down from $42 to $35. With the discount code it makes it $20, and I had a gift certificate for $15, so I paid $5 out of pocket for it shipped. Shipping is FREE all summer, so take advantage while you can!
$20 is still a great deal for these "3 free" nail polishes, which are seriously the nicest I have ever used.

This time around, Julep seems to have drastically improved their shipping procedures! Today my order came in a completely different box, it was a little black gift box with an elasticized ribbon bow holding it closed, and inside, each of the 3 bottles were carefully wrapped in bubble wrap. Hooray for companies that listen to customers and fix problems!

They also kindly included a coupon for $10 off my next purchase of $30 or greater, and samples of their "Facial for Hands Glycolic Scrub" and "Everyday SPF 30 handcream", which was a really sweet surprise!

The three colors included in the "Summer 2011 Collection" are Blake, a buttery yellow, Jaime, a dark super saturated turquoise, and Niecy, a bright pink. The yellow is honestly the color I am most excited about, because it's a color I've been wanting and I don't have any like it in my collection. Jaime seems similar to Amy, and Niecy to Natalie. I'll do a post comparing the colors, so you can see how they differ.

Painting on Blake, I noticed that it was VERY opaque for a yellow. Most yellow nail polish I had in the past required about 5 layers to even come close to being opaque. This one is there from the get go. However, painting it on is a little tricky. I had one hand that the nail polish seemed a little gloppy and then when I tried to do thinner layers on the other, it turned out streaky so I had to kind of pile it on at the end to compensate. Their nail polishes dry really fast, and they don't stink like other brands. The bottles are a good size, not too big, and not so small it's ridiculous. Looking at them, you think it won't last long, but I've painted on layers and layers of the color Natalie and the bottle is hardly touched. I've been using it for the past month straight, because I adore the bright coral color.

Using the glycolic hand scrub is simple. You wet your hands, and then dispense a dime size amount. Then you rub your hands together and it scrubs off all the dead skin and helps revive the skin. To be honest, while this product worked really well, I doubt I would end up buying it. It smelled and looked exactly like my St. Ives apricot face scrub, that I already own. I'm sure the ingredients are better, but I don't really see the point in purchasing redundant products right now. In the future I might spring for a large bottle so I can test it more properly, but judging from the sample packet, this is not a product I "have to have" at this point in time.

The SPF 30 hand cream basically looked like sunblock. It rubs in fast, and doesn't leave a greasy film, but I don't like how it smells. It has that plain lotion almost sour cream smell to me, which I did not find enjoyable. After drying, it has a scent reminiscent of white glue. But I do enjoy how fast it absorbed, and that it still feels moisturizing. If you need unscented lotion, then you would probably enjoy this! Again, if they made a scented version, I would buy a large bottle to test it out with.

All in all, it was nice to get to try the new products though! I really enjoy when companies put samples in their orders, and package things with care like Julep does. The samples were also extremely easy to open, which was an unusual surprise. Most sample packets have a ridiculous little "tear here" thing with a slot cut and then you rip it and either the package rips in half, wasting product, or it doesn't open at all so you have to get scissors. This is not the case with theirs. They have a perforated line across the top and it actually tears across that. Again, a company that actually thinks things through! Amazing.