This month, we're a little pressed for time as we pre-decorate the eggs we're hiding for our neighborhood. [Shh. The Easter Bunny did it if anyone asks ;D] So, keeping it simple! Click the image you're interested in, and be taken directly to the page! No fancy titles, buttons, etc. Just images, and beautiful links. ;D The Secret SistersFacebook PickApril 2015 Birthstone - Leona2015 Pantone Colour of the YearWonder Maven - Holographic!!!Back from the Vault!
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Who is ready to kick off the new year with a BANG?! Julep sure as heck is! I can't BELIEVE how amazing some of these deals are. <3 HOLY SMOKES GUYS..... But September's Sapphire birthstone, Serena, is a KNOCKOUT! Seriously guys, this one has to speak for itself. By far and above the BEST of the collection thus far!! As usual, check out the birthstones you have missed in the last birthstone post! <3
Yup, it's absolutely that time. Prior to Claudia's unveiling, there were many concerns that it would resemble an existing Julep polish: Shoshanna. Even though Shoshanna is described as a "Full-coverage yellow holographic glitter", when it was released many felt it leaned green more than true yellow. I was among them. Still a beautiful polish, but one of those you couldn't quite put into a set colour category. Well, I did a comparison. A full blown comparison. First, the evidence for both arguments and at the end I'll give a breakdown of how they are either the same, or different. Enjoy! IT'S SHOWDOWN TIME!We'll start off easy, and use images taken directly from the respective polish's official Julep store page. Are we dupe-ready yet? Let's see what my pictures add to this. Uh oh! It's getting too close to call!What should we do? Time for the big guns: Live action polish! Final Call & Breakdown! Alright, we've seen all the evidence and it got pretty close. Ultimately? I don't think these are appropriate dupes for each other. The breakdown? Let's look at Claudia. She's in the same colour family as Shoshanna; that yellow/green/gold group. While she leans gold, true, next to Shoshanna especially she is clearly much more at home with the greens than the yellows. Claudia's holographic specks I mentioned Here are beautiful and sparkly, but Shoshanna's holographic intensity is much much MUCH more defined. As is typical for holo polishes it was hard to capture her true spectrum, but the video helped us see that, thankfully. Claudia's glitter is much more fine, and creates a smoother finish than Shoshanna's larger glitter that has a tendency to overlap itself with more coats. In a single coat, as shown on the clear swatch stick handle, Claudia offers more coverage by far with her smaller glitter. It's ultimately this smaller glitter, however, that makes her holographic bits less noticeable beside Shoshanna. In summary...
What do you guys think? Am I right in the final judgement? Or is it too close to call? Let me know, comment below with your own thoughts!
And if you're interested in purchasing either of these polishes, click the buttons below to get your own, and share your own dupe photos!! Y'all remember this pretty lady, right? If you don't, it's Julep's August [Peridot] birthstone polish, named Claudia. My birthday was August 1st, so as soon as this polish came out I nabbed it for myself. Now I'm here to share the swatches, and see what you all think!! 1st coat, both hands It's pretty clear right out the gate when you see the bottle that the website swatch IS actually true to colour. Claudia is a yellow/gold leaning green with little emerald flecks of glitter sporadically through the polish. This first coat didn't seem promising at first. You can see my nail lines pretty clearly. I will say it went on so easy though, which is a new experience for me. I'm used to glitter polishes being super hard to control. No such problems here! Second coat, both hands The second coat went on and immediately the difference was clear. NOW it very much resembles the swatch photo; Although if I am honest I would say a third coat would give you absolute unyielding opacity. This I would say is mostly opaque, but by no means perfectly solid. If 3 coats might have been perfect, why not do a third coat? Unfortunately, my bottle arrived with a considerable amount missing. I in no way insinuate I was given a used bottle; Only that the fill line was markedly lower than polishes I am used to receiving. I have already e-mailed Julep asking if this was intentional or accidental, and when I receive a response from them I will go ahead and put it in an updated post for you all to know. :) As an added bonus, this polish ended up becoming a fairly matte finish. Here I have the best cleanup I could do [Microglitter. Good griefers.], and two coats of Julep Oxygen Performance Top Coat over all nails except the middle. If it were my choice, I'd say add topcoat to this baby all the times. Not only is shiny 'In', but there are actually holographic bits throughout this polish. Yes, you read that right, this polish actually has scattered holo! It's very downplayed, but it's there. Without topcoat it does sparkle but only so much as a normal glitter would. WITH topcoat, it's like the magic dust is sprinkled. Every way you turn your hands, the sparkles attack. It's fantastic. And as my off-camera testing revealed, the shinier the topcoat/the more layers you apply, the more it sparkles. Love love love. I do want to apologize for how gold this polish seems to look. It does lean that way but it IS definitively green. And Peridot at that! Glamour shot! [No topcoat]BONUS! Polish in ActionNeed your own? Love it, and need your own? On the fence? Want to see the other birthstones? Head on over to this post, and pick up one for yourself. Or the whole set!!
Meet: CLAUDIA! Named fter mega-model Claudia Schiffer, the blond bombshell and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, here is the August Peridot Birthstone polish! I'm in love, and in honor of my August 1st birthday I have allllreadyyyy ordered mine. ;D Missing the others? Check the links below to pick up any of the released birthstones you have missed, and stay tuned to know when new ones are available!!!
After some strange issues with them getting here, I finally got my July Julep Maven box & Add-ons! And on the same day I got a RAOK from a wonderful lady in a Facebook swap group I frequent. It's OPI's Toucan do it if you try, and I've been searching high and low for this baby! It's just as amazing as I hoped, AND matches the containers for Julep's Bare Body products almost exactly! Made for a great photo op! [Below] The five polishes to the farthest left are my Beau's picks from this batch. In order L-R are:
I could nooooot be more excited to see these in real life. They're sooo close to how I imagined them, which always adds to the excitement. Although, that might just be the extra 2ish weeks I had to wait >_> The three products are the NEW Bare Body Polish, Bare Body Milk, and the wonderful as always Mint Condition Pedi Creme. The Bare Body Polish is described as: "An invigorating scrub that polishes away the rough stuff standing between you and smooth, beautiful skin. The creamy formula is packed with tiny spheres that exfoliate without scratching—and unlike salt and sugar scrubs, it doesn’t crumble under (water) pressure." What makes it work?
Best of all, it carries Julep's signature "summery" scent! It's a light scent with just a few hints of floral, and an indescribably sunny scent added. I'm not one to favor florals, but this is light enough that I really do love it - And the Milk, which has the same scent! ;D I've tried both Bare Body products, and they both are a vast improvement on Julep's old scrub-type products [I'm looking at you, Pomegranate and Grapefruit body scrubs!!], which were [and are, since I still have them >_>] extreeeemely oily. As in, fall down in the shower oily. Or get stuck in the bathroom until you have to yell for 5 minutes for someone else in the house to come rescue you because you can't grip the doorknob and soap/water just made it worse oily. Neither of which are fun; I Promise. These, however, have no such problems!! The exfoliant in the Bare Body Polish is subtle like a raw sugar or salt scrub, but just as effective, if not more so! TamaraVickiLissaLindenTeganDawnBeverlyKelseyLorenzanaBraiden Good morning/evening everyone! The last polish from my Ulta haul is here to be seen! Only one coat required! Yes! It only required one coat. Absolutely no nail was visible underneath. This is probably the BEST polish I've ever put on. It's a soft highly reflective metallic rose polish with ultra-thin bar glitter and textured specks throughout. From a short distance away, it looks a bit like when you open up a Hershey Kiss wrapper, and use something flat to "fix" it smooth again. I love it! Up close, it just looks like glitter, and to the touch it's textured! This has impressed me sooo much. I'll definitely be looking to pick up the others in this collection now!!
I promised you all that I was doing the swatching and reviewing of the July Julep Maven polishes, and I'm still working on a full post. For now, here is a look at two of the swatches beside the official Julep Dollop! Hopefully this will help some of you Mavens out there see the difference there can be between Official images, and real life looks. <3 Kelsey!Lorenzana! As you can see Kelsey came in pretty true, but Lorenzana captured on-camera more grey than pink/grey. I will assure you the bottle itself matches the Lorenzana dollop as perfectly as the Kelsey does in the pictures; But my camera decided to catch only part of Lorenzana's beauty. Click the buttons below each swatch if you'd like to buy either of these for youself!
OKAY STOP: PSA time. Whatever your personal definition or idea of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is, you should ALWAYS show respect and understanding for someone who has been diagnosed with it. And if you do not know if someone has been diagnosed, assume NOTHING. If you're not comfortable enough to do the asking, you should be aware that they may have chosen not to advertise it publicly in a tagline after every one of their posts. We're not in Nazi Germany, we don't need to label ourselves physically based on our differences. If you can't find the empathy within yourself to understand, at least find the humanity to respect it. NOT try to correct them. More often than not, you're only going to offend someone or deeply wound them emotionally if you insinuate they are lying, or are not suffering from a very real disorder. Even if it's not as "serious" as yours is, respect that it is THERE, and they are suffering. And ultimately, how you cope with an illness is not the standard: Everyone suffers differently. Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind. |
Whut is?With this blog, you can expect to see reviews, impressions, tips, inspirations, deals, and more. If there is something specific you would like to see, don't hesitate to let me know! Instagram feedArchives
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