After the fail that was the e.l.f. nail polish remover pads, I decided I’d try Julep’s offering. I figured since it’s a higher-quality company, they’d be better, and since they were individually wrapped, they wouldn’t dry out, and maybe I would finally have the perfect travel nail polish remover solution.
Decent size!
You can get a 10-pack of these Clean Slate Polish Remover Pads for $14, or $11.20 if you’re a Julep Maven. That’s a bit expensive per each, but it would be worthwhile to bring on long trips to change my polish on the go. Each pad is a decent-sized rectangle of decently thick material infused with nail polish remover. You’re supposed to apply to the nail, let it soak for a couple seconds and then wipe it off. How did it go?
This is all one pad accomplished.
Yeah, I’m not very impressed. The pad seemed to dissolve the top coat, because it left my nails looking dull, but it barely removed any color, let alone the fine glitter in my polish — which, by the way, is a Julep color, so they should play nice! It started out feeling moist but quickly dried out. I figured, maybe it’s just a dud so I broke out another one…
After two pads…
The second one started off strong but only got through two and a half nails before drying out. I thought about seeing how many pads it would take to clean off all 10 nails, but honestly, I’ve got better things to do today!
Speaking of better things to do…
Every Day is Gig Day!
Inspired by monthly makeup photo challenges but not quite up to 31 days of makeup every day, my friends Becka Bomb, Mandy and I worked together to come up with a fun 10 day belly dance makeup challenge! Each day we’ll each do our own interpretation of the day’s challenge — and you’re welcome to play along, too! We’ll officially start on Monday, July 11th. If you can’t start on Monday, you can either hop on in the middle and play along for the duration, or choose your own start date and complete all 10 days. Just make sure you tag it #everydayisgigday so we can all see it! Let me know if you have any questions about the themes!
PS: Don’t forget that if you love my blog, you can help me out by contributing to my Patreon!
I’m pretty fortunate to have good, low-maintenance skin, which means I can be pretty blase about my skin care. As such, I’ll frequently just try new things when I run out of whatever I’m using, because I don’t have loyalty to any one product (except for my Imperialis facial moisturizer from Lush, because it smells divine) and I don’t have to worry about my face blowing up on me because it hates a new product.
So here’s what I’ve been using for most of winter into the start of Spring. All of these products are from Julep and are part of their Korean skincare line.
I’ve been washing my face with the Love Your Bare Face cleansing oil. Oil-based cleansers are supposed to be gentle on your face while breaking up dirt and makeup. I usually remove my makeup before I wash my face, so I don’t know how well it works on cosmetics, but it does leave my face looking clean and clear, without drying it out. It’s an interesting product because you apply it to your dry skin and rinse it off. I usually slather it on my face before hopping in the shower.
I’ve also been using the Charcoal Konjac Sponge for exfoliating, because I wasn’t sure if the facial scrub that I had in my shower had microbeads in it, so I decided to just say to hell with scrubs and their polluting microbeads and scratching almond shells or whatever the heck they’re made out of. This sponge is a gentle way to exfoliate your face. I like the fact that it’s also bio-degradable, so once I’m done with it, I can throw it in the compost instead of the trash! You can use it with or without a cleanser, I just use it with hot water so I don’t have to worry about product building up in it.
Once I’m out of the shower, I moisturize with a little What Your Skin Needs facial milk. This product is creamier than an oil but lighter than the usual moisturizer. I use it after the shower under Imperialis for a nice, healthy, well-moisturized face. I also really like to use it before I apply my makeup if my skin is looking or feeling a bit dry, because it’s light enough that it soaks in well and quickly, so that I can get on with my makeup application and not worry that my products are floating on top of a heavy layer of lotion. On a packaging note, I also love the soft matte glass of the bottle, although it makes me hesitant to travel with this product! Since it only takes 2-3 drops to do my entire face, I wish Julep offered it in a small plastic squeezy bottle that would not be so fragile nor take up so much room in my tiny TSA approved liquids bag. I suppose I could transfer some into some sort of squeezy bottle myself if I really felt like it.
So that’s what I’ve been doing, and my skin seems to like it. My face feels soft and looks clear. It’s a definite improvement over the cleanser I was using at the end of fall, which was leaving my face feeling just a bit filmy (probably a bad interaction with our hard water in Tucson!).
Ok, this look doesn’t have quite the depth and complexity as the galaxy nail tutorials you’ll find on Pinterest, but it’s also really quick and easy and doesn’t require any special skills or tools. You need three things:
A base coat. I used the same Julep one I always use, but if you have one that is specifically designed to prevent staining, use that. I still have a purple stain on one of my nails a week later.
A dark creme color. I used Julep Colton, a very deep royal purple. I think it will look best with a dark blue or purple. You could also use black but I like the not-quite-black better.
Top coat with multiple sizes of iridescent and silver glitter. I used Julep Melody.
I used these products.
Simply apply the products in the order I listed them. Colton turned out to be opaque enough that I only needed one coat for total coverage, so if you can use a similarly opaque color, go for it. I also recommend giving your dark color a LONG time to dry. Mine was perhaps not dry enough so I had some color transfer into my glitter coat and now the entire bottle has a purple tint (it was naturally a little purple and now it’s a LOT purple). I only did one coat of Melody as well and I feel like it was just enough glitter to create a nice night sky.
The key is to use a top coat with at least two different sizes, so it gives the appearance of near and far stars. The inclusion of iridescent glitter creates the illusion of twinkling. If you want to get even fancier, you could add decals, charms, or nail art in moon, star, or comet shapes on an accent nail.
This is a fun look for any sort of space themed, star goddess, or sci-fi belly dance gigs you might have, or just for a fun look between gigs. It doesn’t take any longer than just giving yourself a basic manicure but it’s sure to bring a smile to your face every time you see the twinkling stars on your fingertips.
Shameless plug: If you like these Julep nail polishes as much as I do, you can use my Referral Link to sign up for the Jules Maven subscription box and I will receive credit towards my subscription. Thanks!
I got this in one of my recent Julep Maven Boxes (click that link to sign up to subscribe for the Maven Box and I’ll get a referral bonus, thanks!). Skip the Brush is a stick blush with a cream-to-powder formula. I got the color Golden Guava which is a warm, shimmery pink.
Golden Guava
In general I lean towards traditional powder blushes because I just feel like I have more control over them, but this is an interesting product anyway. Just lay down a line of product and buff out with your fingers (or a brush if you prefer). It gives the skin a nice flushed look, with a bit of shimmer. If you don’t like shimmery blushes, skip this formula because all four colors look very shimmery. I feel like the shimmer allows it to serve as both a blush and a bit of a highlight, for those days when you don’t want to use two separate products but still want to sparkle like a faerie.
The color is buildable, but I’m skeptical about it ever building enough for stage lights. This is more like for daily wear, restaurant gigs, or maybe an outdoor, natural light photo shoot.
Looking glowy.
While I do use this product, I’m not sure I’d recommend buying it, considering the price. It’s $24, or $19 if you’re a Julep Maven, and I feel like there are other, better blushes for around that price point. If you are a Maven, and you have the opportunity to get one as part of your monthly box, go for it, but I don’t think it’s worth the cash.
Up for review today, three nail products from Julep! I’m reviewing the Oxygen Nail Treatment, Oxygen Bonding Base Coat, and Oxygen Performance Top Coat. The photo shows the Oxygen Brightening Nail Treatment in the center instead of the base coat, because I accidentally grabbed the wrong bottle. Unfortunately I have not tried that product yet so no review for you.
To be honest, I don’t really understand the beauty science behind Julep’s oxygen claims, I don’t know if it actually does anything or is any better for your nails than other formulas. I just know that I like their products. Julep does seem to dry a LOT faster than my other favorite brands, to the point where I don’t even need to use drying drops sometimes. I’m not sure if that’s because of the Oxygen technology or some other part of the formula, but whatever it is, I like it.
Oxygen Nail Treatment is a stand-alone product that gives your nails a clean, shiny, healthy look. I like to use it when I want a natural nail for the stage, as sometimes I find that — because I have long nails — colored lacquer draws too much attention to my fingertips when they’re not the star of the dance. Because it only needs one coat and dries within minutes, it’s really easy to apply and gives me the appearance of a nice manicure for performance and photos. I have the sheer ivory one, there’s also apparently a sheer pink option which might be even nicer.
Oxygen Bonding Base Coat provides a good base to apply nail color over. I haven’t really tried it with any insane colors so I can’t say how well it prevents nail staining.
Oxygen Performance Top Coat gives a smooth, really shiny finish to your manicure. It apparently has caviar extract and platinum in it, making it the fanciest thing ever painted onto my nails.
I’ve had a lot of trouble with base and top coats over the last couple years, they seem to get goopy, sometimes within just a few months of purchase. I don’t know if it’s because of the heat or the dryness. Either way, I’ve taken to keeping my entire Julep collection in the fridge. I bought a cute little narrow fridge drawer from The Container Store (aka my favorite store that doesn’t sell makeup) and whenever I get a new Julep box, I put my nail products in there. I’ll probably start transferring some of my other favorite colors into the fridge, too.
As a reminder, while you can purchase these items normally from the Julep shop, you can also sign up for the Julep Maven box, a beauty box subscription that also nets you a discount on any Julep purchase, and access to special sales. If that sounds good to you, click on my referral link, which will give me a small bonus when you join!
I was a little skeptical of these Orbital Eyeshadows, because the swatches on the site didn’t look amazing and well, let’s face it, Julep is primarily a nail polish company. I wasn’t sure how’d they do with eyeshadow. But one day I was buying some nail polish and they offered to throw one of these in for $6 and I thought the Zenith color looked like it might be good on me, so I decided to give it a try.
Zenith!
Zenith is described as “Cocoa with Gold Pearlescence.” I’d say it’s a warm medium brown with a gold shimmer effect and some glitter. It is VERY shiny! I wore it for Open Stage at the start of the month and I applied a few layers with a damp brush (it’s advertised as a wet/dry formula) and was really impressed with the high-impact effect it gave. I ended up just wearing this color and some black eyeliner, as I had a short amount of time to get my makeup done. And because I was rushed, I didn’t have time to take a photo before the show, so you’ll have to settle for this one taken after…
Not the best photo of my eye area…
As you can see, even though my falsies are melting off and my mascara has flaked all over my face, my eye shadow color is still strong, sparkly, and doesn’t seem to have given me any fallout. It was a hot, sticky night, I danced hard, and then hung out on 4th Ave for a couple hours after the show. I’d say this was probably about 6+ hours of wear and it looks good. I applied it over Urban Decay primer and sealed it with a spritz of e.l.f. makeup setting spray.
Ye Olde Arme Swatche.
The above swatch shows this color applied dry and wet, with a somewhat dense, flattish synthetic brush. For stage wear you’re definitely going to want to either apply it wet and really pack it on, or do it as a wash of sparkle over a more opaque color to create a duochrome look.
My one complaint is how bulky the packaging is. It comes in a square plastic compact with a mirror built into the lid. It’s nice and all, but it’s huge! Here it is compared to the small and large MAC shadows.
Size comparison.
And if you scroll back up to the picture of it open, you can see there’s just a lot of excess space around the shadow pan. I have a lot of makeup and not a ton of space to store it, so bulky products like this annoy me. I’d really prefer a more low-profile compact, preferable with a clear window like the MAC shadows, so that if I had more than one of these, I could see what color it was at a glance, instead of turning it over, reading the color name on the back, saying “Which one was that again?” and opening it up to remind myself.
So in summation, this is a pretty color and has decent durability and sparkle, but I’m not sure if it’s worth paying full price and making room in your vanity for it. On the other hand, if you’re signed up for the Julep Maven Box, and this is one of your options sometime, you might not be too unhappy with it. And if you’re not signed up, you can follow that link to do so and I’ll get a bonus, FYI!
After quitting ipsy, I had intended to wait a while before trying out a new subscription service. I had friends trying a few different ones so I figured I’d wait and see which one seemed best based on their experiences. But then I saw the May birthday box from Julep and it had this amazing emerald green in it, so I decided to go ahead and sign up for a 3-month trial.
The Julep Maven Box has a few things going for it over ipsy. One is that everything you receive is a full-size product. The other is that it’s fully customizable. Based on your style profile, they assign you a box for each month, but you can change to a different box and/or swap items out. The May birthday box was pre-set, but for the following two months I took full advantage of the ability to get the items I was most interested in that month. The fun thing is that each item you swap out offers slightly different options to replace it with, but each one has a lot of options so you’re pretty much guaranteed to find something you like.
There are also a few downsides to the Maven Box. It costs about twice as much as ipsy, and you only get 3 items as opposed to 4-5. Although as I said, they are full-sized rather than samples. Additionally, my birthday box came with 4 items, and June and July both had extra bonus items you could get by clicking a link in the email. June was a random nail polish from that month’s collection, and it turned out to be a bright coral orange that I’ll never wear, but it was a free bonus so I’ll just give it to a friend. For July I had a choice between a base coat I already had or a lipstick, so I chose the lippy. About the only thing I dislike other than the higher price is that I think the packaging is excessive. I like that it comes in an actual box instead of a padded envelope (my ipsy packages were often poorly sealed!), but I don’t like how each nail polish comes packaged in its own little box.
The big difference between the Maven Box and other subscriptions is that all of the products are Julep brand, so you’re not going to get to try any exciting new-to-you brands with this one. Julep is primarily a nail polish company, but they also have hand care, eye makeup and a lot of other beauty items, so you can get a really good variety. My choices have been nail-polish-heavy since I’m a polish addict, but you could easily get a box with no polish at all.
A subscription to the Maven Box comes with a few perks as well. You get a discount in the store, free shipping, and access to extra sales. You can add additional items to your box at a discount, and if you buy enough you get freebies (I haven’t gone that far yet). Actually, the sales are both an upside and a downside, as I’ve been fighting summer boredom by buying way too much nail polish! Another perk is that from month to month you can decide to skip a box and not get charged for it, or to send it to a friend as a gift.
I’ve enjoyed the service and the products enough that I’m going to keep it up for at least a few more months. There’s still a lot more nail colors I want, after all!
Now for a brief rundown on each box and my thoughts on the products.
May: I’ve worn all 3 nail colors. The emerald green one is the color of jewel beetle elytra and thus is my new favorite thing ever. The pale robin’s egg blue is boring on its own but looks really pretty with a shimmery top coat (I’m wearing it now, in fact). The pale metallic hue is lovely, although I put it on my toe nails and it got stained by the run-off from my oVertone in the shower, so that was a mistake. I have not worn the metallic taupe eyeliner yet but it looks nice. I also added the Plie wand to my order, but I think I’ll do a separate review on that later.
June Box.
In June I got a pretty purple “back from the vault” nail color, an eye liner that coordinated nicely with it, and a lip gloss, as well as the bonus nail color. I wear the lip gloss a lot, it’s a deep wine color that tints my lips nicely and gives them a good shine. It’s liquid without being sticky — I still wouldn’t want to have my hair down while wear it it, or work with a silk prop, but it makes my lips feel hydrated rather than goopy. Also it has a vanilla/cocoa butter kind of scent, and a weird cooling applicator that feels really nice on a hot day.
July’s Box.
July JUST arrived. In fact, I saw on the tracking that it was supposed to be delivered today so I decided to wait to write this post until the mail came. So obviously I haven’t had a chance to try anything yet, but I’ve got a nice brightening nail treatment to keep my nails looking nice when I’m not wearing color, a couple cool colors to try (including a stormy purple-green duochrome) and the freebie lipstick.
Over the next couple of months I’ll be doing more specific reviews of the items I’ve been getting from Julep. You don’t have to be a Maven Box subscriber to get your hands on them, which is definitely nice because I’ve tried a few things already that I can definitely recommend. In the meantime, if you DO want to subscribe, please use my referral link, which will give me $15 to spend on more goodies to review on this blog! Thanks!
