Julep's Sally and Joan Half Moon Mani Nail Art

I'm attempting nail art.  It has not gone well for me at all today.  I'm not disappointed with the end result. Just disappointed with the whole process!  Ugh, I always respected the ladies who did awesome nail art knowing that I'm not one for nail art.  But this put that respect on a whole new level.  I was inspired by a youtube video made by the brains behind the Let Them Have Polish blog.

I used the two polishes that I recently got in my February Julep Maven box.  The colors were Sally, described as an antique ivory, and Joan, described as a raspberry plum with rose gold shimmer.  They were inspired by the great actresses Sally Field and Joan Crawford!

I have to say Sally was being very very very tempermental.  I love love loved the color.  I thought it looked so delicious in the bottle, like vanilla ice cream!  But when I applied it it was streaky, thick and goopy.  It wasn't leveling out and it was making me sad.  Plus it took forever to dry.  I had no choice but to add thinner.  I believe I added like 12 drops of thinner.  Which is a lot considering this is a smaller bottle!  But after that Sally was behaving so much more nicely.  The color is just amazing on my nail!

Here is Sally alone on my nail.  So pretty!

This is Sally without the flash of my camera.  Makes my
fingers look nicer. 

Then I attempted the second color Joan.  It is such a beautiful color.  The gold shimmer look like gold flakies.  I can't tell you how many times I messed up this mani.  I wanted to cry.  I kept smudging everything and gouging chunks of polish off.  And the top coat picked up a little bit of the color and spread it all over my nail.  I had to do a bad paint touch up on the half moon part.  You can see it on my middle finger.  Well kind of.  If I had blown up the picture you would have been able to totally see it.

Here it is without flash.  I really liked the end result.  

With flash.  This picture is a little more color accurate.  

I also used the new Polymer Freedom Top Coat that I got in my Julep box.  This top coat claims it is like a gel manicure, and it even uses light to cure.  I was really excited to use this top coat.  I used it on my mani when I first got my box because I was so excited and it was great!  It dried a whole lot faster than I thought it would considering that I just used the light from my lamp.  It was easy to apply and very glossy!  It definitely gives my all time favorite Seche Vite a run for it's money.  

For this particular mani, I needed to be a little more careful with application because it did pick up some of the red and spread it across my half moon section.  That was a such a buzz kill, but typical of most top coats.   Also, it does seem to have a little shrinkage like Seche Vite.  I was hoping that it wouldn't, but I'm inpecting my nails as I type and I can see the polish retracting ever so slightly.  I  still really like this because it is 4-free whereas Seche Vite does have a harmful chemical in it.  So I've been searching for a 3-free fast dry top coat that comes close to the action of Seche Vite.  So far, Julep's Freedom comes really really close and I'm definitely going to be getting back ups of this!  Keep in mind this might not be best for sealing in nail art, I think Seche Vite is still the best for that.    

I'd love to know what you think of my attempt at nail art.

Julep Maven 2013 February Box

Hello all!  I wanted to show you what I got in this month's subscription box from Julep.  I've been a Julep Maven since about last September, but only got like two boxes.  You can skip any month that you don't want, which is totally awesome!  To be honest my two boxes were my 1 cent box and a box I forgot to cancel.  I didn't think these were a great deal.  It is a really expensive polish @ $14.95 a pop (cheaper if you are a maven), and it is a small bottle 8ml of polish a typical bottle has 15ml of polish.  

So if you subscribe and are a Julep Maven every month you get 2 polishes for $19.99 plus a bonus item which is a great deal if you love high end polishes.  They will also send you deals on their stock of polishes from time to time.  Every month they send you an e-mail that the period to change your monthly box is open.  It is usually open from the 20th-24th then you can't change it, so if you don't want the box that would be the time to skip.  Instead of cancelling my subscription I like to see what they are offering so I log on every month.  When I saw what they were offering for February I seized the opportunity!

Here is what they offered
2 - Polishes

1 - Oxygen Nail Treatment
1 - Freedom Top Coat - a polymer topcoat that cures under the light in a minutes!

So that is like 4 polishes for $19.99.  I had been looking for a nail treatment, and I'm always down for trying new top coats, and this top coat sounded buzz worthy.

What my box looked like when I opened it!

The nail treatment.

The UV activated top coat.  You just hold it under a lamp for two minutes.

Here is Sally (Field) and Joan (Crawford).  Look at that pretty gold shimmer!

I couldn't believe that there was something else in there.  They added a cute
eyelash curler.  This is perfect for traveling instead of bringing the bulky one.
And of course I tested it out and it works perfectly!  Oh and chocolates!

Well, that was my exciting Julep Maven box for February 2013!  I have already used the top coat and I really like it!  It will be in my next post!  I can't wait to see what other goodies are in store for me in the coming months.  If you'd like to sign up to be a Maven then click here!  I've used my referral link.  Use the code "PENNY" to get your first box for a penny!  ;)