Julep Gem Collection 2014

I ordered the 2014 Gem Collection from Julep in the December Secret store for $34.00. When I went to the Toronto Julep meet up I saw a few of these colours that I fell in love with and was keeping an eye on the collection but I just could not spend $98.00 on it. It was on sale for a while for $49.00 and I was sad I missed that but then it went for $34.00 so I was very excited! The only thing is one of the polishes was replaced with another one since it's been sold out, but I contacted customer service about this which resulted in another polish of my choice so it worked out even though the sold out colour was very pretty.This collection came in a nice box with a magnetic close on the front with a removable foam insert to hold 12 polishes. 

The gem collection is full of sparkling polishes all of which are 5-free with oxygen technology. I'm in love with them all!

Julep Trick or Treat Mystery Box

I wasn't going to order this one since everyone seems to dislike the mystery boxes lately. Since the price went from 19.99 to 24.99 I stopped buying these, but when I can get a coupon I tend to buy them. I was able to use a coupon for $5.00 off so I added the middle sized mystery add-on. I didn't want the small one since it's usually one polish and I got the large one last time which included a makeup item, so I was hoping for 3 nail polishes extra which seems to be what the middle one is most of the time. This is what I got in my box:

I read a lot of complaints about this box like normal, but I'm happy with mine. I got quite a few polishes and I would use them all for something, and a few products.

The box which cost 24.99 contained 4 polishes and 3 products.
The first product I got was the Vanish Cuticle Softener and Remover, which I got in the last box. I was pretty excited actually because I saw this on sale on the website before and was going to buy more because I love it, so now I have two! This costs $18.00 or $14.40 for mavens.

The next product I got was Mint Condition Pedi Cream. Being winter this type of product is amazing since my feet get really dry and I like to pack on lotion before bed. I've already used this a couple times and I love it. This is $20.00 on the website or $16.00 for mavens.

The last product I got was Mighty Nail and Cuticle Serum. This is supposed to be used twice a day to help dry and brittle nails, which is so helpful for me since I have very thin nails and again being winter dryness is a factor. This is $28.00 online or $22.40 for mavens.

I got four polishes in the box which were:

Lacey from the Bombshell collection. It s a midnight blue with a purple shimmer and has been on my wish list for a while so I was happy to see this one.

Beatrix from the Bombshell collection. It is coal black with multidimensional glitter. This is the one that I saw in the spoilers that made me buy the box since I'm loving glitters lately. 

Veronica from the Classic with a Twist collection. It is a modern mauve creme and veryy pretty.

Chloe from the It Girl collection. This is a warm cocoa frost, which is a great fall/winter colour for me.

All of the polishes are $14.00 on the website or $11.20 for mavens, except Veronica which is on sale for $4.99.

This makes the value of the actual box $122 or $91.39 with discounts.

The add on was three polishes like I hoped and were:

Payton from the Bombshell collection. It is a green cream polish, I already have this one but have used a lot for nail art. 

Millie from the BoHo Glam collection. It is a vintage indigo cream. 

Roc Solid from the It Girl collection. It is a vintage military cream.

All of these polishes are $14.00 online or $11.20 for mavens. This makes the add on worth $42.00 or $33.60 with discounts.

I am really happy with this box for $30.00 I got a total of $164 of items or $124.99 with discounts. I will use everything I got. 

Julep Jewel Heist Mystery Box

On September 8th I got an email from Julep (and also saw on facebook) they were doing a mystery box called Jewel Heist that month that would be giving the entire birthstone collection to 50 people and a pair of earrings to one person. I used to love their mystery boxes but was hearing a lot of bad things lately so I was avoiding them, but I'm in love with sparkles lately so this seemed like a box I would enjoy, and I found a $10.00 off coupon making the box only $14.99 for what they claim to be $100+ value. Since I had saved that $10, I added the large add-on for $15.00. 

Since I live in Canada anything from Julep seems to take ages to get to me. I ordered it September 8th, got shipping conformation September 10th, and received the box October 2nd. 

This is what came in my box, for $30.00 I think it's not bad at all. I saw a lot of complaints about this box (like all boxes) but I think I'm happy with mine. The only thing I'm upset about is that I was expecting more jewel-tone nail polishes. If I hadn't of gotten the add-on I wouldn't have gotten any sparkles at all.

So the actual box came with these items: 

I think if I had of paid the $24.99 for these items I wouldn't have been happy even though the value is there. Here are picture of the individual items I got and their values.

The add-on came with these items:

First item is the Moisture Mask Trio which contains three masks, one for hands, feet and nails. This item is $20.00 or on sale at the moment for $14.99.

The next item is the Blank Canvas plumping lip primer. I'm not a lipstick person so this doesn't interest me that much, but I tried it out and it made my lips tingle so I took it off. I'm assuming that's the lip plumping properties which some people may like. This item is $22.00 or for mavens $17.60.

The one product in the box that I'm excited for is Vanish cuticle softener and remover. I've already used this once and I love it. I don't need it for cuticle removal much, but it takes stains off of nails really well. This is exciting for me since my nails seem to stain no matter how much base coat I use. This item is $18.00 but on sale right now for $9.99.

Finally I got three nail polishes. These were Alfre, Lynn and Nadia. All nail polishes are $14.00 or $11.20 for mavens, but Nadia is on sale right now for $4.99. Lynn and Alfre are both pretty colours. These are the first three polishes below. The add-on came with two polishes which are the two on the right, Taryn and Dawn. Both of these are $14.00 or $11.20 maven price. I don't ever use yellow as an all over nail colour but they are good to have for nail art. Taryn however, may be one of my new favourite colours. I'm in love with these blue glitters. 

With the two nail polishes I also got the Sweep Eyeshadow Palette: Neutrals which I love. This palette is $24.00 or $19.20 maven price. I have blue eyes so these are the eyeshadow colours I use on a daily basis, and it's in a cute small package which is perfect to fit in a travel makeup bag.

The total price for the box was $102.00 or with sales and maven prices $69.97. The add-on was $52.00 or maven prices $41.60. This is a total value of $154.00 or with sales and maven discounts $111.57. Considering I paid around $30.00 this is a pretty amazing value since I will use basically everything I got. 

Julep Red Marker Sale

June 13th was Julep's semi-annual red marker sale with "up to 85% off". When you RSVP'd on their Facebook Event you were supposed to be access 24 hours early, however the sale was up even before that. I saw the sale a couple hours after it was originally posted and there were already items out of stock, so I got whatever I could then rather than waiting for the morning. I ended up doing a 2nd order towards the end of the sale since they added one more polish that I wanted, I'm assuming it was to compensate for some of the sold out ones. So in total I spent a total of $24.00 and got 4 minis and 8 regular sized bottles.

The minis I got came in a package called Little Lights. I really wanted Paris and Ivy and these were in the package along with 2 other pretty colours. This set was originally $36.00, I got it for $8.00 and it's still on sale now for $9.99. The four colours in this set are Ivy, Paris and Colbie all from the It Girl collection and Jameson from the Classic with a Twist collection. 

The next four I got came in sets of two for $5.00 each set. Neither of these sets are available on the website anymore and all of the colours individually are either sold out or no longer on the site. The first set I got was called Party Dress and contained Christine from the Boho Glam collection and Evelyn from the Classic with a Twist collection. I got this one because I really liked Evelyn but was unsure about Christine, but seeing it swatched I'm happy with both colours. The second set was called To All a Good Night and contained Bunny from the It Girl collection and Alexis from the Boho Glam collection. I liked both colours in this set, both have some shimmer in them which I like a lot.

The last four I got were all individual polishes. The first three were $2.00 each, and these were Mackenzie from the It Girl collection, Emerson from the Classic with a Twist collection and Kimberly from the Boho Glam collection. On the Facebook event page they had a vote for which polish of a certain list you would like to see go on sale for $2.00 and Kimberley was the winner of this vote. It sold out sometime during the day the sale was supposed to actually start and they added Emerson to the sale, which is the polish that I had purchased separately. The 4th I got was actually a full price polish ($11.20) that I got for free using the discount code POLISHPERK. They have so many pretty nail polishes that it took me a while to go through everything to pick which one I was going to get with the code. I chose this one since it was in the Limited Edition Collections section of their website, and I am in love with glitters. This glitter has a stardust finish which I don't like much being textured and matte, but with a good topcoat it becomes smooth and shiny.  

Here are the swatches I got of all the colours, Bunny is a little hard to see since it's on white, but you can see the shimmer a little. I am very happy with this purchase, $24.00 for 12 bottles is an excellent savings and I like all the polishes that I got. There were a few more in the sale that I would have liked to get but they sold out very quickly. 

Julep Glitter Polish

A while ago I saw on the OPI facebook page the Glitter Off peelable base coat and went to the mall right away to try to find it, and no one had it! I was in Trade Secrets and they finally had it :) it was 9.95 which is a normal price. I was so excited I decided I'd use a few of the Julep glitter polishes that I haven't really used yet. 

I have seen on Pinterest that if you use regular white glue as a base coat you can peel off your polish when your done but I never tried this it seemed like too much work. The base coat as you can see above is a white colour, it goes on white and dries clear. When I first opened it I noticed right away it smells like white glue! The texture is good though and the brush is a shorter brush than normal but works really well. 

I have been using a lot of dark polishes lately so my nails were a little stained which I didn't want to show under the glitter so I used Julep's Lynn as a natural coloured base before the glitter. I have very pale skin so it looks like I really don't have any polish on. 

For a while I purchased a few Julep Mystery Boxes so I have all these polishes that I haven't tried yet, so when looking for a glitter to use I decided to use 5 just to see how they are. 

The 5 that I used are Tracy, Jane, a mystery glitter (some people said it was called Erica), Chelsea and Aviva. 
Tracy is from the It Girl collection and has a sea salt finish and is a blue glitter. The glitter is very fine and very full coverage, I only needed one coat and it's super sparkly. Jane is from the Bombshell collection and is a rose gold glitter with different sizes of glitter. It's really pretty but hard to see on my nail since my skin is so pale. The mystery glitter came from the New Years Mystery Box in 2012 and is filled with a black glitter and some copper and gold in it. This one also has a full coverage, but I did two coats anyways just to get some more sparkle. Chelsea is from the Bombshell collection and came in the first box I got from Julep. It is a very pretty purple glitter with some silver and other shades of purple in it. Aviva is from the Boho Glam collection which I got from the Naughty and Nice Mystery Box, this was one of the colours that was guaranteed in the box and the reason I got it. It's a purple polish with purple and silver glitter. I was disappointed with this one, the texture is very thick and does not look as nice as it did in the pictures they showed. 

In a few days I will get to peel the polishes off and see how the base coat works! 

Julep Ursula

I have a few crackle nail polishes that I wear very infrequently. Julep had Ursula on sale for 2.99 with the rest of their crackle polishes, I figured if I was going to use any crackle black would be the easiest to use since it goes with everything. I usually like to use a thinner coat when using crackle so there are more lines but with this one the black isn't as deep with a thinner coat so I did it thicker. Underneath I used Fiona and Nellie from Julep and Guava, Craving Coral and Mesmerize from Revlon. I like how it looks, but next time I think I will do it thinner so there aren't as many large chunks.