Category: Subscription Sunday

Try it on Tuesday: July 4th Edition

Yesterday I anxiously awaited the arrival of my July Julep Maven Box, and when it arrived I was so excited to try out my new polish. As tomorrow is the Fourth of July for all of us Americans, I knew I just had to put on America the Beautiful right away! I decided to combine this glittery goodness with a red, white, and blue that I already owned. Here are all the polishes I used:

Left to right: unnamed red mini from OPI, Empire State Blue from NYC, 104 (white) from Fabulous Nails, and America the Beautiful from Julep.

To complete the mani, I painted two coats of America the Beautiful on each finger except for my ring finger on each hand. I am loving the One for Fun look lately, and just had to do it again! The glitter was actually pretty easy to work with. Unlike other recipients of July’s Julep Box, I have many stars in my America polish. I do admit, they seem to clump together, but with a bit of careful polishing, you can get them to stand out. I love the mix of glitters, too– fine red grains, blue & silver flakes, and the silver stars! It’s very beautiful. 

On my accent finger, I used the scotch tape method to create diagonal stripes of red, white, and blue. I love this trick, but always get impatient waiting for the polish to dry. Remember, when you use the tape, begin from the bottom up. In other words, I painted the red color first, then the white, and ended with the blue. It’s much easier to build on colors rather than attempt to work in between them. With a bit of patience, your nails will look great!!

Though this mani looks fabulous in person, it was extremely difficult to photograph. I tried areas with different lighting and tried shooting from different angles. Finally, my dad helped out with this camera phone macro setting and got the shot below for me. You can see the stars shining bright! 

What are you wearing for Try it on Tuesday or July 4th? Let me know! You can always post photos on my Facebook page HERE. Finally, don’t forget to enter my giveaway! Only 4 days left to score some polish and glitter from LASplash. You can see that post HERE.

My First Little Black Bag!

Have you heard of this super fun website called Little Black Bag? It’s another monthly subscription that is really interactive. You pay $49.95 (yes, a bit expensive, but fun to splurge!) and pick one item of your choice. Then, stylists pick 3-4 more items for you based on your answers to a style quiz. Don’t like the items you receive? You have an entire week to trade your items with other Little Black Bag (LBB) users! What kind of items, you ask? There are handbags, jewelry pieces, cosmetics, and more. I, of course, wanted some fancy nail polish! After lots of trading (and a few mistakes) here is what I ended up with.

The box has finally arrived!!
My wrapped up goodies!
Hello, new handbag & nail polish!

All together I got a Nila Anthony Ruffle Messenger Bag valued at $75, and two NCLA polishes valued at $16 each! That’s about $57 in savings. Not bad for my first attempt at LBB, but like I said, I messed up a little bit. I traded a handbag that I didn’t like for an item worth half its price, and lost out on that value. Now I know how the trading works, though! I’m hoping in my next LBB I’ll get even more goodies for my $50. I’d love to try out some of the NCLA nail wrap strips, and I’d love some jewelry next time. If you’d like to join LBB, please sign up HERE. I know this is a bit expensive, but you can skip any month if you don’t have room in your budget. I’m sure you’ll love this website as much as I do.

Before I end this post, here’s a closer look at my new polishes. They’re stunning! I can’t wait to try them out soon.

The glittery goodness of Miss Sunset (left) and Hollywood Hills (right).

Julep Maven Box: My July Pick!

Today Julep announced the Maven boxes for the month of July and I am super excited! All of the boxes are beautiful, but I decided to switch from Classic With a Twist to American Beauty. Here’s what I will be getting in my box:

Image
Source: Julep website

Stunning! The best part of July is that every Maven will receive an additional polish for FREE! You get a different polish depending on your country. I’ll be getting the gorgeous one for the U.S.A.

Image
Source: Julep Facebook Page

If you haven’t joined Julep yet, this is the perfect month to do so! Not only do you get the regular Maven box, but you will get the extra polish. Don’t forget– you can use the promo code COLOR2012 to get all of this for ONE PENNY!! People have asked me if this is a joke, but I assure you it’s not. Julep believes that once you try their products you will keep coming back for more. Remember, you can cancel your Julep subscription at any time and you can skip any month that you don’t want. Go sign up here: http://www.julep.com/?r=21760558 and become a Maven! Let me know if you join 🙂

My First Julep Maven Box!

For those of you that like my Facebook page, you know that I have been dying to receive my first Julep Maven box in the mail. It arrived yesterday, and I got right to painting! I’m typing this sporting my new Susie nail polish, and I couldn’t be more excited to tell you about this fabulous website. Get ready for some photos!

The box before I opened it!

For those of you who haven’t heard of Julep before, it’s a great brand that typically sells for $14 a polish. The polish was created specifically for Julep nail parlors, but now it can be purchased at Sephora or on the Julep website. The Maven membership is very similar to ShoeDazzle, when each month stylists pick products for you based on your answers to a style quiz. You can either choose to purchase a box for $19.99 each month, or you can skip the month. Though the price tag is a bit expensive for me, I had a promo code for the website that allowed me to get my first Maven box for just one penny! That’s right– I only paid one penny for this box of goodies.

As a Julep Maven there are many benefits. First off, Mavens get 20% off anything at the Julep website. Plus, each Maven box contains at least $40 worth of products. There are also special freebies and discounts throughout the year. Julep really takes care of its members! Here’s what I saw when I opened my first box:

A welcome note from Julep
The cute little package!

I do admit, the packaging was great. But let’s get to the products themselves! This month I got the Classic with a Twist Intro Box. It included 2 polishes, Susie & Niecy, and The Best Pedi Creme Ever. I love the colors I got, especially Susie, which is a light mint green. Niecy is a beautiful pink, but I didn’t try it out yet. Susie was meant to be on my nails first! I do admit, I got nervous with the first coat of polish, because it came out streaky, but the second coat covered up all imperfections and looked beautiful! I just love this cream polish. At the end of this post there are some swatches of it.

Doesn’t it look great?! I can’t wait to try out Niecy, too. The best part about all of this is that I got this box for just a penny! You cannot beat that deal anywhere. If you like what you see here, you can join Julep Maven, too and get your first box for a penny. Simply sign up HERE and enter the code COLOR2012 at checkout. The best part about being a Maven is that even if you don’t want to purchase a box each month, you simply hit the “skip” button and you aren’t charged any money. So even if this is the only box you get from Julep, how can you go wrong? You only paid one penny! So what are you waiting for? Go get yourself your first Maven box!