Julep's Kaylen NOTW

Just a quick NOTW on a very unique nail polish. I myself have never experienced anything like it. Thank you to Alex for letting me borrow it! She didnt really like it to begin with. I think she might just have to get used to it though. Alex signed up for the monthly Julep Maven box using the code "freebox" to get her first box free and got her polishes within 5 days. I will be giving this back to her, but not before I review it.

Kaylen is a bright neon orange, perfect for kicking off the summer. This nail polish is not a cream. It really isn't a matte either. I would call this a jelly. What your looking at is 3 coats and as you can probably see, my nail is peeking through the polish. Almost as if it's sheer, but quite. It is basically an opaque, see-through polish. When it dries, it doesn't really look matte or glossy. It looks {and feels} rubbery. I am sure there are better ways to describe this polish in a much more technical way, but this is what i'm going with. If any of my  nail obsessed girls know these technical terms, please leave them as a comment! 

Final verdict is that it was pretty cool. I liked it on my nails. Just like any other nail polish, this last 2 days tops without a top coat. As someone who serves food, my nails chip even quicker.

Have you guys tried this?

What did you think?

Im having a giveaway!

xoxo

Erica

When Mint Monkeys Fly NOTW

I am so bummed I missed out on The Living Daylights from the Skyfall Collection from OPI. It was on my wishlist! While at Ulta I was getting jealous that my bff Alex bought When Monkeys Fly from the Wizard of Oz collection and I didnt have it. {which by the way, they did a great job on marketing that movie! They did such a good job, that I hope I never see a video, commercial, or advertisement again let alone the movie itself! haha!}

I asked her "Can we share it?" 

Alex: "Yah of course! But you know how forgetful we are so you should just get your own" 

....Well played, Alex. 
Yeah she's right. We suck at sharing. It turns into one of us borrowing it and the other one never seeing it again. So I bought my own. I do not think it would live up to The Living Daylights" but I love my glitters. I think it could have did without the bigger gold glitters. They are oddly shaped and the edges of them don't lay flat on the nail. As for the little glitters, they are really pretty. When they hit the light, you can see a rainbow colors in them. You will see a closer look in a moment. Pretty

When I got the nail polish home and decided to try it, I was put off my the fact that the gold glitters didn't lay flat on my nail. I actually thought in the store those were skinny glitters because of the way that shape reflects the light.

I added a coat on to what was already on my nails:

China Glaze's Refresh-Mint + Julep's Portia

Luckily, the trio fit together perfectly. The glitters in Portia is similar to the glitters in When Monkey's Fly, but Portia's pull a little more bluer {I feel like I am talking about a person}  Refresh-Mint is a sky blue {not mint, for whatever reason} and since Portia also has a sheer blue base, it turns Refresh-Mint into something a little more dustier and darker, but honestly a refreshing twist on an old pastel favorite {no pun intended...sike! it was intended}

Back to When Monkey's Fly. The hardest part was getting those hard to manage gold glitters in the right place. You have to add it to your nail by simply painting your nails like you normally would, then once the gold glitter is on the nail, hurry up and grab it slightly with your brush to move it somewhere on the nail to where it looks proportioned and nice. This required adding globs of nail polish on to each nail. 

Yeah, I had already painted Refresh-Mint and Portia on my nail earlier that day {I would say 4-5 coats total for the first 2 polishes} but I was still concerned that after I added 2-3 globbing coats of When Monkeys Fly {I keep on wanting to type when mint monkeys fly!} my nails were going to smudge. 

Can I tell you that it dried like seriously quick. Those big blobs of nail polish dried so quick, I couldn't even believe it. 10 to 15 minutes. Open a pop can. Type. Do whatever. They were dry. I am impressed with OPI. This is the only OPI polish I own {I know!} and if this is a testament to what all of their polishes are like, I don't mind paying the extra $1 instead of buying China Glaze.

I am on 4 days of this mani. There is some chipping. But remember, I am a server so I am constantly using my hands. Four days is a really long time! I usually see my polish chipping/peeling after 2 days.

I thought about taking it back honestly. I couldn't get over those weird shaped gold glitters. Then...

I have gotten an crazy amount of questions/compliments on my nails at work. I always talk about nail polish to a couple girls at work but other than that, there is really no nail polish. I had people {other than those girls} asking me to see my nails and asking questions.

Now trust me people, I am no pro at painting my nails. I have gotten better because I paint them so much but nobody is going to compliment my actual nails {my nail beds suck! I am being serious.} People will however want to see your nails if you are wearing the When Mint Monkey's Fly Mani. Or if your wearing When Monkey's Fly. At least I think that is what it is. This nail polish just has special powers or something. I went from not liking it to it being the best investment I could have made when it comes to nail polish

This blog post seems a little too long all for a nail polish. Am I joking? Geez. I am insane. 

Love
Erica

NOTW: Alicia at the Club

You will know why I made up that clever name in a second but can I gush over the pastel coral? I love that color so much! Can you believe I am almost out of it....that's really a shame considering I got it not even a month ago. Well maybe like a little over a month ago. I know they have one from Sally Hansen called Coral Reef so I will probably have to purchase that eventually. Ok enough of all of that, let's get on with the NOTW!

Julep Nail Polish is called Alicia: it goes on so nicely! All I needed was 1-2 coats.

L'Oreal Nail Polish is called Club Prive: I love the color, but it is really sheer. I used like 5 coats. I heard that L'Oreal bought out Essie so I guess L'Oreal's nail formula is similar. I do not think that though. The Essie ones are much more opaque so maybe they haven't gotten to changing the formula for the L'Oreal polishes yet.

hey, i couldnt get a great picture- these are good enough i guess

So yeah just a quick little NOTW

Till Next Time,

xoxo

Erica

Julep Maven Box for 1 Penny!

Hey guys! So last month (march) Julep Maven was doing a promotion for people that don't have subscriptions to the Maven box. You paid 1 penny for the box. 1 per house and per person. I was exited because I love nail polish and since there nail polishes are on the expensive side, why not pay a freaking penny and get a couple plus a hand scrub!?

This month, they have another code for this offer and it is "penny". If you have never had a Julep Maven box, try it! Even if you don't like it, it was a penny, what did you lose, yah no? And by the way it's not a penny plus shipping or anything, you pay exactly one cent. 

Another thing I liked about Julep Maven is that you can choose what box you want before hand. It's not a guessing game. However, whatever 2 or 3 nail polish colors come in each box, you can't add or eliminate. So I got the Boho Glam box because of this color, Alicia.

Alicia is gorgeous pastel coral. It was like nothing I have ever had or anything I have seen before! Alicia is a cream finish and it goes on extremely smooth. Even if you mess up and now have streaks, it will basically dry down to one smooth coat, which is awesome. Absolutely fool proof. In a NOTW coming up, I only had to use 1 coat on a couple but mostly I used 2 coats on each nail. One thing that I thought was weird was if I didn't use a top coat, the nail would get smudges on the actual nail polish. I don't mean the actual polish shifting, I mean like grey smudges. I guess I brushed up against something? either way, with a top coat, your good to go with it.

As for Portia, I wasn't necessarily exited about getting it, but I did think it was a nice color. Plus I am a little suspicious of glitter polishes... I like to open up the glitter polishes right in the store to see exactly how much glitter will be on the brush. With Portia, you barely get any. As you can see it is a sheer polish tinted blue with some sparkle to it. However, the Julep Maven website did describe the polish as just that, so I wasn't getting led on or anything. I haven't used it yet so that is all I can say.

Here's my heart swatches of Portia (left) & Alicia (right). As you can tell Portia looks like it would be a gorgeous top coat for any given blue polish. Not a stand alone polish. Or a polish that will form a nicely shaped heart. As for Alicia, she is my new best friend!

The Hand Facial I thought had a cutesie name. It smells like citrus. I am not too keen on citrus, but it smells good, I guess. Nothing like the best thing that has ever went up my nose or anything, ifyaknowwhatImean, but good. It does have exfoliators in it, and you know me I love my scrubs! We do have a Mary Kay hand scrub in the bath room now that I can compare it to and I like the Mary Kay one better. The Mary Kay one has much smaller granules and I feel like that element calls for a better scrub & it smells much nicer (an extremely light, fresh, & clean scent with a small hint of cucumber melon) 

Evening out the pro's and con's, I cannot complain for 1 penny. But with the regular price, which I believe is around $17, I am not too sure yet. I feel like for that much money, you should be able to pick out the nail polishes that go in the box. You can only pick set for set, not polish by polish. So, I dunno. I guess if you are contemplating signing up for your monthly box, take it or leave it. Either way, I hope I helped!

on a side note I am almost done with this season's trends series. Click here for examples of this past fall trend's series. I am also doing a Fashion TAG which I made up by myself and I must say, it's a pretty good TAG! If you are interested in being tagged, let me know in the comments! I will being tagging a couple specific people but I am not too sure who would be interested so please let me know in the comments!

Do you guys get the Julep Maven Box? What do you guys think of the Company? If you don't get the box, are you thinking of taking advantage of the promo code?

stay beautiful,

Erica