New Nail Polish Swatches: Julep Alicia, China Glaze Aquadelic

Once the color Alicia arrived, I noticed that it reminded me an awful lot of a Wet N Wild color that I already own from last year! The Julep Alicia is like a more pale muted version of the same exact color! So funny.

Painting my nails with the color Alicia proved to be somewhat of a challenge. Generally I haven't had issues with "gloppy" formulas from Julep, but I have heard others mention that their polishes were like that in the past. Well this bottle is "gloppy" for lack of a better term. Getting it to paint on was tricky, because it wasn't like my other polishes that flow smoothly and thinly off of the brush. Instead it kind of just came off in big pools and I had to shove it around on my nail. This resulted in a really thick streaky first layer.
After letting that dry, I put on a second coat to cover up the streakiness, but it looked REALLY thick on my nails.
I definitely need to invest in some nail polish thinner! I've noticed that my creme finish polishes are the ones that I have issues with texture from. My shimmer ones are usually a breeze to apply. Glitters are thicker as well, but I only usually need one coat with them as well, so it's not an issue.

Sorry for the terrible looking manicure! I really like this color though. It's a really pretty coral, very 80s to me.

The texture however, is really bad. So I'll have to get the thinner and try again!

The next color came in my order in the mail. It's my order from BeBeautiful and I highly recommend them if you are looking for a place online to purchase nail polish from! Shipping was fast, everything was packaged REALLY well. It came in a cardboard box, inside of which they had put the polishes into boxes, wrapped them with bubble wrap and then put paper around for more cushioning.

I got Aquadelic from the China Glaze Electropop line, Techno from China Glaze also, and then the Hunger Games colors I was missing, because my Sally's ended up selling out of them really quickly. They also sold out of the blues from the Electropop line, and did not have Techno.

Aquadelic is also a creme finish, and I had some problems with it being kind of thick as well! So this problem is definitely not brand specific. I think the creme formulas just end up being thicker so that they are more opaque? But I want to get some thinner for this polish as well. Again sorry for the REALLY sloppy paint job. I didn't clean up my mistakes before taking a photo! But you can see that the color is very opaque and it has a shiny finish on it.

Aquadelic is a really gorgeous aqua/teal color, like the tiles on a swimming pool. This is my all time favorite color, especially with coral. I wear a lot of coral and a lot of teal, so I like being able to paint my nails in either one to contrast with my clothing. I feel like both colors are fun, summery colors and they definitely make me happy.

I also went to CVS and purchased one of the Wet N Wild Sinful line colors. It's called Distant Memory. It's a shimmer finish teal that's like a more green version of Aquadelic. I had a hard time photographing them accurately because the lighting was bad. In person it's much more vibrant and doesn't look like a creme finish as it does in this photo!
Hopefully I can get swatches of it soon.




After that haul I'm taking a hiatus from Nail Polish shopping because it's just to tempting! As it was, I restricted myself to just the two blue colors from the Electropop line. I wanted to buy the whole collection, but realistically, I won't wear most of them so it would just be a waste of money.
But I'm really happy with the colors I got, I think they'll be perfect for this summer.

Sorry for the length between posts everyone! I just got a full time job, so it's been a little hard to figure out how to balance everything.

I ended up signing up for Birchbox, because they are currently having a deal where if you sign up for an annual upgrade by today the 29th, you get a bonus pink box, and 110 bonus points! So you get $20 in credit, which makes it a fantastic deal. The code is upgrade100annual’ if anyone is interested in taking advantage of this deal.
Hopefully Birchbox ends up being a good fit for me. I have soooo many product samples due to Sephora promos where you could get 16 samples with an order, so I'm trying to use them all up if at all possible instead of hoarding them.

Today my Julep March Boho Glam box came in! I think this one has my favorite packaging yet.

If you're unsure what this Maven thing is, here's my blog post with all the details! If you join, you can always cancel, or skip a box, or change profiles, hassle free. It's $20/month, but I find that with the extra products they are introducing, it's worth it. I also really like that they tell us beforehand what will be included in each months boxes, so that I am able to switch if necessary.

For example, I'm usually American Beauty, and Boho Glam. American Beauty this month has some gorgeous nude colors. However, I already have about 6 of their nude colors in my collection, so I switched to Classic with a Twist instead, since it comes with a pretty lavender color. Unfortunately there is still a nude in there, but one is better than two! If you're curious about this months boxes, here is a link to a blog with all the different profiles! 

My box arrived super fast this month! They shipped it out a few days ago. My Boho Glam box was the first to arrive, and it came in the small black box. No golden box surprise for me! =(
Haha. It's okay though.

Opening it, everything was in a nice lavender gift bag, tied with a pretty white ribbon, with the style card on top. I really love the way they did the colors this month!

Inside in bubble wrap were my two nail colors, the nail elixir, and then the glass dropper.

The coral color is Alicia, which is a very pretty pastel Coral shade that will be perfect for summer! Next is Portia, a turquoise base with iridescent glitters in it.
I thought it was kind of weird that the dropper was put separately, instead of inside the bottle. But it's nice to have the screw top lid if you are going to travel!
One issue I had was putting in the dropper. Because the bottle was filled to volume, it ended up displacing oil and overflowing it when I put in the dropper! So now my hands are covered in Argan oil. Just be careful with putting in the dropper. I would even suggest waiting to fully put it into the bottle until you've used it a few times, to prevent the weird displacement issue that I had.

I happen to own Josie Moran's Argan Oil, in the 1.7oz, so I figured I would compare them for you all! The Julep version is 1 oz. Both have similar glass bottles, the same style of dropper, and the ingredient list is the same. Both just have 100% Organic Argan Oil. I put them side by side on my hand, and they're identical. Same color, same texture, same scent [which is none really]. The Josie Moran retails for $28/ounce, and the Julep version sells for $24/oz. So honestly, they're pretty similar cost wise. If you are a Maven then the Julep version only costs $19/oz which is a really nice deal.
Packaging wise, I have to say I prefer the Josie Moran, just because the label is a little more well designed, and doesn't look so generic. I'm not a fan of black and white labels like the Julep one has.

Just for fun, here's another comparison. Someone on the Julep Facebook Page pointed out that Portia looks exactly like Vanessa, just with some blue added into the base.

So I pulled out my bottle of Vanessa, and yup, they're pretty much exactly the same polish, just Vanessa has no blue in it.

The glitters, as you can see, are identical between the bottles.

Here's a close up for a better comparison.

Personally, it doesn't bother me too much, but I'd be totally lying if I didn't admit that it does a little bit. It sort of feels like they had a bunch of Vanessa leftover, didn't know what to do, so Hey! Let's add blue to it and release it for Spring!

I happen to love that shade of blue, but I do wish that maybe something different had been added into the mix, some other color of glitter along with the iridescent, just a little tweak besides the base color change to really bump it up a notch and make it more special.





All in all, I think this is one of my favorite boxes yet, despite the redundancy with products I already own. I know a lot of people don't like the addition of body products, but for me it's fun to get things such as Argan Oil that are splurges for me to buy normally. I also like knowing I'll have backstock of Argan oil, so I can use it on my hands regularly.

Now I'm super excited to get Classic with a Twist in the mail!