Julep November Boxes: American Beauty & Boho Glam

Hi Everyone!
I received my Julep Maven boxes just in time for Halloween! If you read my last entry, you'll notice I said I got the American Beauty box, despite putting in a shelf pull for the Classic with a Twist.
Unfortunately, even though my invoice stated that it was changed, it wasn't. Luckily, I really love the color Trina in person, so it's okay. The company contacted me and if I end up getting the Classic with a Twist box, I will definitely post photos and swatches for you all!

If you're not sure what the Julep Maven program is, here's a link to my post detailing the program. If you would like to go sign up, or check it out, here's the link for the Julep Website!

One thing I noticed this month is that the boxes that the products are sent in are much more appropriately sized. They're at least 50% smaller, and there is no gift bag inside anymore. Personally I am super pleased about that, because I have about 6 of those gift bags sitting around. I feel bad recycling them,instead of using them, but the only way I'd give a gift in them is if it were a Julep product. They would be good for a kids project of recovering them though.

This month, they switched to shredded black paper, and purple tissue surrounding everything, which was packed inside the absolutely adorable and beautiful cosmetic bag. It's a gorgeous cosmetic bag, that's got little pockets to hold lipgloss/lipsticks, or whatever else. The zipper is metal! I loathe plastic zippers, so this is a huge plus for me. It's gorgeous enough that you could easily give a Christmas gift inside of it, and then wrap the whole thing in a box. I tried to take a photo of it, but my camera is having troubles right now and it wouldn't get it. I'm going to try again tomorrow, hopefully with better lighting!


Now on to the details of each one!



American Beauty: This month, American Beauty comes with a bottle of Trina. It's definitely eggplant purple as they say, but it's got a bit of a shimmer to it. It's a beautiful color for sure. One coat was not enough to get opaque coverage for me. I took a photo so you could see.


The lipgloss is Arousal, a neutral, rosy-brown with pink pearl. These are more of a shimmer frost finish. I don't mind it but I know many people aren't fans of frost lipproducts. The color is very warm. Swatching it, it came out a really pretty golden bronzey pink. The smell of this product is familiar to me, but odd. I can't quite place it. If you don't like heavily scented products, this might bother you.

I haven't worn it yet to see if it's moisturizing or not, I'll let you know.

Boho Glam:


This one, I was a little scared of. Yellow green is a scary color to me. I got it because I like to challenge my color horizons. Unfortunately, as cool as this looks in the bottle, it looks terrible on me. My skintone is NW15 for reference. It looks almost like highlighter yellow, or pea soup. I think this would be gorgeous on someone with a darker skintone. The coverage is great, it only took 1 coat to get a totally opaque coat. I really wanted this one to work on me, but it just doesn't. I'm going to see if I can put Sienna over it and somehow make it work.


The lipgloss in this style profile is in the color Extravagant: warm pearlized golden bronze. This one really is super close to Arousal, it's just missing the pink part. It has the same scent, and frost shimmer. I didn't find the texture to be too sticky, but it was a little bit to me.

I love the cosmetic bag, and the lipgloss in this set, and the nail polish is great except that the color looks terrible on me. That's not Juleps fault though, I think this is just one of those tricky colors to pull off and I don't have the skintone to do it.

Here are swatches of the lipglosses on my hand, so you can see how they look. I personally found the colors in the tube to be totally accurate as to how they looked. The formula is a little on the thick side, slightly sticky, and kind of heavily scented. So just be aware of that! They remind me of the texture of the Victoria's Secret lipglosses that come in the squeeze tubes. Again, sorry, my camera is having troubles. But as you can see, neither color is very dark, and they're both extremely similar to one another. They're both very shimmery bronze neutrals. I'm going to do better swatches earlier in the day.



Just for comparisons sake, since I know people are curious, I put Blake and Selena next to one another, and Gayle and Trina, just so that people could see the difference between them directly.



As you can see, Blake is much more of a bright buttery yellow, whereas Selena is darker, and more pea soup green. They both have the same exact creme finish, and opacity.


Trina is much darker than Gayle, and they have completely different finishes. Gayle is a creme finish, and very opaque. Trina has the same finish as Zoe and Boris & Nicole have, that sort of metalic sheen. It's not opaque and would take at least two coats for complete coverage.

Again, huge apologies for my super blurry photos. My digital camera was having problems focusing. Hopefully I can save up and get a new one soon, so that my photos are much clearer for you guys!

Thank you so so much for reading, and I hope that you all have a great Halloween!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my huge huge giveaway announcement! I promise it'll be worth it!

American Beauty & Boho Glam October Boxes Release!

Normally I don't post twice in one day, but I just had to share with you all! The emails announcing the products for the October boxes just arrived in my inbox, so I wanted to put them up so you all could see!

If you're not familiar with the Julep Maven Program, it's a monthly subscription service for $19.99 a month. If you join now using the coupon code FB, you get the introduction box for $5. [note, the intro box is not the same as the monthly boxes, you get the intro box no matter when you sign up, and then the next box you get is the monthly version.]

On to the releases!

First we have the American Beauty October box:

Included in it is the brand new Julep Glow On Hand Cream! Even though I already own the SPF 30 hand cream, I am really excited to get to try this. My hands have shown their age more in the past few years and it's nice to get a product that will help combat that! I love Shea Butter, so I am thrilled that that is one of the main ingredients. Retails for $32.

This month they are doing "Mani Pedi Combos" which is a super cute idea. The American Beauty Box includes Brooklyn, a 2011 Holiday Color. The description reads "Ruby Red with a hint of sparkles". I will be curious to see how this compares with Boris & Nicole. It sounds like it will be perfect for holiday parties!

Also included is Dendrie! I was literally just eying this color on the Julep website, so I am super thrilled that it is going to be included! It's a light dove grey. I'll have to compare to my bottle of Annette and see how similar they are. The two colors together retail for $28.

Now on to the Boho Glam October Box:


The Boho Glam box definitely has a different vibe to it than the American Beauty, and I'm glad. I love getting two completely different sets every month, and even more that both of them fit my style!

Included is the Julep Glow On Hand Cream. I like that they have a basic set up for the boxes, and keep the products consistent between boxes. Then everyone feels equal!

The "Mani Pedi Combo" for the Boho Glam box seems very sweet and edgy at the same time. There's another Holiday 2011 exclusive color, Gayle, included. Gayle is a "regal, deep aubergine". Once again, I probably wouldn't choose that color in a store, but I'm super excited to get to try it out and see how it looks! I also really like that their holiday colors are festive without looking gaudy. I'm curious if it's a creme or shimmer finish. But I bet it'll look very sophisticated for those events!
Next is Malin, a soft champagne pink. I love this color! I've been looking at the soft pinks, and don't currently have one, so this is totally perfect!

Right now I'm super excited to get my October boxes, and I hope you are too! What style profile are you and if it's different, let us know what's in your box.

Thanks so much for reading.

Julep Maven American Beauty September Unboxing!

My box containing the American Beauty September pull from the Julep Maven Program arrived today! Hooray!
So now I get to show you the unboxing of another gorgeous new fall color, Boris & Nicole.

This box is for the style profile of "American Beauty". If you follow, you already know that I subscribed to American Beauty first, but fell in love with the Boho Glam style profile after originally signing up, so now I get both. So far I've been very pleased with box boxes, because they're completely different from one another!

If you end up joining, make sure to put in the coupon code FB to save yourself money and get the first intro box which includes 2 nail colors, a treatment, and the glycolic hand scrub, for only $5! That's a total steal.




Opening up the box, everything was packaged beautifully as always! They put everything inside a gift bag, and tied a little orange ribbon bow onto it. Inside, my polish and cuticle oil were packaged together wrapped up in orange tissue. Very fall appropriate! Included was a set with the Crystal Nail File, and the Lint Remover, since I was one of the first 100 subscribers to the Maven Program, then we have the SPF 30 Hand Cream, 2 sample pouches, the bottle of cuticle oil, and the nail color Boris & Nicole!



Boris & Nicole is a gorgeous very rich, very fall color! I have to say, when I read the description of "Red Brown" that they sent me, I immediately was picturing a weird brick red, and wondering if I hadn't have put in for a shelf pull because I was extremely skeptical if they could pull it off, much like I was with Alfre!

Well I shouldn't have worried.
Boris & Nicole is a gorgeous burgundy raspberry with gold shimmer swirls. It reminds me of fall leaves, and holiday parties and Thanksgiving. It's a shimmer and I got opaque coverage with just one coat. This polish painted on very smoothly, and looks beautiful!
Unfortunately, none of my photos can do this gorgeous color justice! It's just beautiful in person, not at all what I was imagining.

Here's a swatch of what it looks like on me. Please excuse the left handed paintjob, and the bad lighting. What you see is one coat of Boris & Nicole.

Once again, I'm so happy that the Maven Program selects colors, because so far I've gotten about 4 colors I would have never picked by myself, but I adore all of them.

I'm eying the beautiful forest green color, Emilie, and Zoe, the burnt orange. All the new fall colors can be seen on the Julep website. Enjoy looking and post your thoughts on these colors if you already own them, or are buying them. I'd love to know others opinions on them too.

Right now, Julep has a great set that includes Alfre, Emilie, and Zoe on sale for $35 instead of the regular price of $42. So if you're interested in the fall colors, that might be a great way to get to try 3 out of the 4 for a discounted price! If I did not already own Alfre, I would have purchased that set already. Who knows, I might end up purchasing it and using the extra bottle of Alfre for a future give away.

Thanks for reading!


*All products featured in this post have been purchased by me to review and were not furnished by the company.

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.

Julep Nail Polish set review

Last week, the "Must Have Summer Set" by Julep, normally $64.95, was on sale for $28 shipped. Normally I would never spend that much on nail polish, but the colors are the same ones I have been looking for for summer, it comes with a cuticle oil roller-ball, and a nice box to keep it all in.



The shades are: Helena, Amy, Natalie, and Jennifer. They name all of their nail polishes with actual names, and sometimes they're named after celebrities.

Helena is a vibrant fuchsia color. Normally I think fuchsia looks gaudy or loud, but it really is prefect for a nail polish. Here I have my nails painted with it. (Please excuse the weird looking hand. It's hard to take a photo of your own hand, with an iphone in the other one as the camera in bad lighting.)



Amy is a nice turquoise that's perfect for summer. It's not as vibrant as Helena, but still just as pretty. This is one of my all time favorite shades of blue, so I was surprised that I was more drawn to Helena right now. But this will be great for later in the summer, and I think it would be fun to play with putting white designs over it because they would really pop.

Natalie is described as a "retro honeysuckle pink" on the website, but to me it's more of a coral pink color. But it definitely looks like a color out of the 50s, but this is one of those colors that never goes out of style.

Jennifer is a nice pinky nude, which is perfect for my pale skintone. It's fleshtoned without looking creepy, and you could easily use it for a french manicure, or a job interview where you want painted nails but clear is too boring.

The set comes in a nice little black cardboard box that ties shut with a black ribbon, making it perfect for gift giving, or as a Thank You favor for your bridesmaids. It's nice to have a little box to store the polishes in because then you can be assured that they're all together.

I love this set, and $28 was a total steal because I know that I'll regularly use all of these colors. There is a lot of variability even though it's only 4 colors, you can easily go from professional looks to fun looks and they're not too bright to wear on your hands. I generally stick with clear on my fingernails and do the crazy colors on my feet, but I can wear these on my hands without feeling like it looks tacky.

The included cuticle oil is amazing. You don't even have to wear nail polish and it'll make your nails look shiny and nice. See below? I don't have any nail polish on, just the cuticle oil.


Another thing I loved was the customer service. When I received my set, upon opening the box, I noticed that it smelled strongly of nail polish. Carefully examining the bottles, I realized that the bottle of Helena had been damaged in shipping. It has a crack clean through the bottle diagonally. Thankfully the nail polish did not leak out everywhere though. I emailed them *politely* explaining what happened and they sent me back a very sweet message saying that they were so sorry it had been broken and they would send me a new bottle right away. Two days later my new, unbroken bottle of Helena arrived in the mail. It's always nice to do business with a company that clearly cares about its customers and providing great service. Below is a picture of the busted bottle next to its unbroken twin.




All in all, I highly recommend giving Julep a try. If you're lucky enough to live near their nail salon I imagine it would definitely be worth it to stop by!

Also, now until the 30th, Julep is running a promo where you get $15 off any order of $30 or more with the code GIRLFRIEND, because they have a new summer set (see below) that's super cute.



Go check it out and take advantage of their sale if you're looking for some nice nail polish. Another great thing is, they're "3-Free" which means they're healthier to use. (I can tell because the fumes are WAY less than the nail polishes I have used in the past. I actually paint my nails outside most of the time because traditional nail polish smells up our whole entire house like chemicals for hours and gives me a headache.)

This is what the whole "3-Free" means: Our Julep Nail Vernis is 3 Free, which means we do not use carcinogens like formaldehyde, DBP and toluene. Also, our colors are ultra pigmented for easy application, fast drying, and long lasting – we developed them for use in our parlors.

If that wasn't enough, they also donate to organizations that help empower women. Definitely a good company to buy from!