Review: Julep Bare Face Cleansing Oil

Julep Bare Face Cleansing Oil (referral link) came in the most recent Julep box. It promises to "[remove] makeup, dirt, and excess oil without over-drying skin". I'm going to come right out and say that this has been my favorite Julep non-polish Maven item to date! It smells citrusy, it removes my makeup, it comes in a sleek bottle and it doesn't dry out to my skin! I've found that unlike cleansing balms (which I love), the oils can have a tendency of drying out my skin. Not this! The only thing I'm not a fan of is that the dispenser is a little short which means I have to hold the bottle to squirt out a few pumps (I usually use around 3-4 for my whole face) and you can't pump it while it's sitting flush on the countertop. Otherwise, I'm a big fan though I might not pay the $28 retail price for the 3.4floz ($22.40 for Mavens). We'll see.


Ingredients: Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, PEG-30 Sorbitan Tetraoleate, Rosa Canina (Rosehip) Fruit Oil, Citris Grandis (Grapefruit) Peel, Tocopherol, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Coffea Arabica (Coffee) Seed Oil, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract, Hibiscus Abelmoschus Extract, Squalane, Phenoxyethanol.

NOTD: Julep Demi

Fall has definitely made its way to the DC Metro area. It's chilly and there's a briskness in the air. I felt the pull towards a dark raspberry shade, Julep Demi. This came in my first ever Julep Maven box and made me fall in love with the formula and brand. Due to the jelly-ish nature of the shade, it pulls much more vampy and darker in person even though it looks like a pretty standard red in the photograph.

This is 2 coats, though I really could have gotten away with 1. Again, this is more of a deep raspberry color. But as you can see in my original post, it changes with the lighting. I love the Julep formula (aside from the metallics) and have continued the subscription though I rarely post about it.

Has it felt like fall where you are?

Disclosure: Referral link utilized

NOTD: Julep Charlotte

Apologies for my semi-absence. Sinus infections are no fun. Today I decided to paint my nails with Julep Charlotte, a slightly murky purple color. This is one coat (plus base coat). I really love the Julep formula as they apply smoothly, dry quickly and last fairly well on my nails.

If you are curious about Julep, the maven program gives you the best bang for your buck (2 polishes plus extras for $19.99 a month). I've been a member for quite a few months now and I love it. You can get your first box for a penny with codes COLORS4ONE or PENNY.

Disclosure: Referral link utilized.

Green Weekend & Julep

I hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day and that those that partook in festivities are feeling alright. My recommendations from my slightly less routine college days include a burger and a bottle of Gatorade (seriously, the grease will help). I suppose this post should have gone up yesterday but as I'm sure you can tell by my lack of posts, school and work have been kicking my behind. Without getting into details, I've been working almost 50 hour weeks and on average, I have 2 assignments or papers due a week on top of it! I took a breather today and painted my nails Julep Leah. Without repeating myself ad nauseam, Julep's polishes dry the fastest out of all the formulas I've tried and they look good and don't get gloppy while you're doing your nails (hint Revlon fix that).

Julep is basically having a BOGO free promotion for St. Patty's Day. Buy $14 of products (1 polish), get a bottle of Leah free. This promotion is good through tonight for those interested and you don't have to be a Maven to use it!

While I'm on the topic, Julep has been offering another penny promotion for new Maven members. Simply use the code SHAREONMARCH and you can get your first month of Julep Maven for 1 cent. You don't need to use my link of course, but it's here. Given my love for the formula, I've kept up my subscription and I like that I can skip months that don't interest me or choose other profile boxes for different colors.

I hope everyone is doing well and I apologize for my absence. The semester ends in April, thank goodness. After that, I'm taking the summer off and then have one final class in the fall and then I'm done!

Disclosure: Referral link used.

Julep Boho Glam February Maven Box

My February Julep Maven Box arrived in the mail today. This month I opted for the Boho Glam box as the colors seemed more up my alley and it included the Essential Cuticle Oil which I had been wanting to try. This month's box definitely has a Valentine's Day theme complete with red packaging and chocolate! Julep sure knows a way to this girl's heart!

Inside was the Cuticle Oil as expected, Marisa (Rich Cobalt Blue Shimmer) and Oscar (Gold Glitter). Both colors launched as a celebration of the Oscars that aired recently and maybe you can't see him that well in the picture above, but each box comes with your very own chocolate Oscar.

Isn't he nice and likely delicious?

Julep Maven is a $19.99 a month program and it seems with the program they tend to send newly launched colors rather than items in their normal line. So far I've enjoyed it as I really like the polishes. They are some of the fastest drying polishes I've ever tried and the opacity of them has been great. I am disappointed with their metallic shades since they streak horribly though I've tried my best to only pick boxes with creams or shimmer finishes.

Swatches to come!

Disclosure: My referral link has been used.

Current Nail Favorites

There have been a lot of meetings at work lately so I've gone for something super polished that doesn't require much maintenance. Also, with the cold, my nails have been very brittle so I've been using treatments to get them back into shape. I've been using an old favorite and a newer nail treatment item I received in one of my Julep boxes.

The Barielle Natural Nail Camouflage is something I discovered a couple years ago and I love it. It's a great ridge filling base coat and it also provides just enough color to make nails look polished if you choose not to apply color on top. The Julep Nail Therapy is just a clear treatment that can be used as a base coat. What I like about it is even as a treatment, the nails look shiny and it stays on for quite awhile so very little maintenance is required if you wear it alone.

I know this is a rather safe look, but I've been alternating - actually I'm wearing both of them right now - between the Barielle & the Julep and it is very work appropriate. I also haven't gotten one break or tear.

Don't mind the cuticles. That's my next project!

Disclosure: Julep referral link used.

Julep Hayden

Julep describes Hayden as simply "neon peach" which is right on the money. It looks like a pastel peach in the bottle but when it dries, it is definitely takes on a slightly more bright-in-your-face look; it is not matte like many neon polishes on the market though not as shiny as some other Juleps and it should be noted that it looks slightly brighter in person than in the above swatch. This was 2 very poorly done coats as it was my right hand and I'm right handed. It is important to note that if you've been using Julep polishes for awhile, this used to be named Amanda. I'm not sure what caused the name change but if you have an Amanda lying around in your collection, it's the same polish.

As with all of the Julep polishes I've tried so far, this was opaque in 2 coats and dried very quickly compared to other lacquers on the market. That is the reason I've since kept my Julep subscription service as I tend to do my polish at night and these don't need a quick-dry top coat. Even with the price, if I can cut out a step, I'm a happy girl.

The Julep Maven program can be gotten for $5 with code MAVEN5 if there's interest. This post includes my referral link.

Julep Leah

Julep describes Leah as "Vivid and refreshing grass green with a hint of shimmer" and that is a fairly accurate description. This is a bright green and not a color I generally go far but it's very pretty. I'm always worried about greens giving me "lobster hands" as I'm quite pale and prone to redness. While the touch of silver shimmer is evident in the bottle and quite pretty, I didn't find it translated to the nail so the effect is more of a green cream. I find that in certain lighting Leah looks more minty as shown below which is nice but a little strange.

As with all of the Julep polishes I've tried so far, this was opaque in 2 coats and dried very quickly compared to other lacquers on the market. That is the reason I've since kept my Julep subscription service as I tend to do my polish at night and these don't need a quick-dry top coat. Even with the price, if I can cut out a step, I'm a happy girl. I got some bubbling with this as you can probably see and you can blame yours truly as I didn't keep the bottles upright before swatching.

The Julep Maven program can be gotten for $5 with code MAVEN5 if there's interest. This post includes my referral link.

Julep Megan

Julep describes Megan as a "A playful and sultry Mediterranean aquamarine shimmer" and I agree with the color description, but I feel this more of a frost formula and for that reason, it does have the tendency of being prone to brush strokes. I don't find it as bad with the color Leighton that was in my intro box but it is something that I feel needs mentioning.

As with all of the Julep polishes I've tried so far, this was opaque in 2 coats and dried very quickly compared to other lacquers on the market. That is the reason I've since kept my Julep subscription service as I tend to do my polish at night and these don't need a quick-dry top coat. Even with the price, if I can cut out a step, I'm a happy girl. I got some bubbling with this as you can probably see and you can blame yours truly as I didn't keep the bottles upright before swatching.

The Julep Maven program can be gotten for $5 with code MAVEN5 if there's interest. This post includes my referral link.

Julep Maven It Girl January Box

My Julep January box arrived in the mail. This is my first "real" box as a full $19.99 paying member. I opted to do a "shelf pull" for January as the It Girl boxes from now on will be all polish. They were also running a promotion allowing a free upgrade in January with an option for 1 of 3 different products (2 nail colors and the nail treatment). I actually elected to chose one of the polish colors so I was a little annoyed to see the nail treatment in my box; however, searching further, I found a little card that apologized as the color I had selected had sold out and offering this and a coupon for a free nail polish of my choice!

This month's box included 3 different nail colors and a sample of their nail polish remover pads. Considering each polish normally retails for $14, I think the $19.99 price is pretty reasonable. The colors included Hayden (a peach cream), Megan (a shimmery teal-aqua) and Leah (a bright grassy green with what appears to be silver shimmer). I haven't tested these out yet but swatches will be coming soon.

Use code MAVEN5 to get your first Julep box for $5 - not quite the steal I posted in my first box post, but a good deal nonetheless.

Disclosure: Referral link used.

Julep Maven American Girl Intro Box (December)

Julep recently had a pretty amazing promotion and finally convinced me to try the program. Usually, each box is $19.99 however for a certain number of sign ups, you could get the first box for 1 cent (the code is SHAREON but I'm not sure if it's still working or not). I couldn't pass the deal and signed up.

In the first box I received the following:
* Julep Nail Vernis Demi (red)
* Julep Nail Vernis Leighton (silver)
* Julep Glycolic Hand Scrub
* red flaky glitter sample
* age defying hand brightener sample
* spf 30 hand cream sample

While I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the shape of the polish bottles, the tall and skinny shape requires care as they are very easy to knock over. I managed to keep that from happening but I had a few near misses. The brush is very nice and I managed to get a nice opaque finish in one coat. I did two out of habit and also to attempt to get out the brush strokes from Leighton (though it was unsuccessful).

Bathroom "A" lighting

Demi is a burgundy that borders on raspberry and looks different in various lighting. To me, it has a bit of a jelly finish but has full coverage.

Leighton is a metallic silver and has awful brush strokes. I'm not a fan of this and would only use it for layering purposes.

Both covered in under 2 coats and they dried fairly quickly (even without a topcoat). I haven't truly worn them to determine wear, so your mileage may vary.

Natural light, in the shade.

 Natural light.

 Natural light.

Bathroom "B" lighting 

Demi is definitely a bit of a chameleon. The box also game with the flaky red glitter sample which looks cool but I doubt I'll ever use.

I haven't tried the hand scrub yet but I've heard good things about it. Also, I've decided to stay subscribed for at least the January box. They sent out an e-mail message saying current subscribers could upgrade and get another polish for that box so I've decided to pay the $19.99 for at least one more month. As with Birchbox, I like the idea of getting a few items a month to play with and $20 is less than I would spend if I were to order from a place like transdesign when I get the polish urge, though in reality, I doubt this will curb my polish binges especially when OPI, Essie or China Glaze come out with new collections.

Disclosure: I've included my referral link but you do not have to click it if you're interested in trying Julep.

The normal website is simply http://www.julep.com.

Julep Maven for .01!

I've been seeing videos for the Julep Maven program and I've been tempted. Similar to Birchbox, Julep Maven centers around nail polish and other nail care items. When someone on YouTube posted about this deal, I couldn't resist. She indicated that it was good for the first 1,000 orders and I'm not sure if it's still working but I thought I'd post about it nonetheless. It's only good for first time Julep Maven members. The code is SHAREON and you can get the first month for 1 cent, it's $19.99 a month after that. I figured, what the hey? If I dislike it, I can always cancel after receiving the first month.


Disclosure: It's a referral link but you don't have to use it, just go to julep.com and sign up and use the code.