Julep Mystery Box: Truth or Dare

This came in the mail on Friday. 

About two weeks or so, Julep had a selection of six or so different Mystery Boxes, entitled "Truth or Dare" mystery boxes. You got to see one product that would definitely be in the box, and they had different options... Like an eyeliner, or a foot creme, or a hand creme, I don't know if that influenced what the other products chosen for your box would be or not, however. I chose the box featuring the Kajal Eyeliner because I really liked how the black eyeliner looks on my bottom waterline, and I've found it's one of the best, for me, for that purpose. And well... You can never have too much eyeliner.

The box took about two weeks to get to me, which is typical, when ordering a Mystery Box, and the wait doesn't seem that bad either... which it does for a regular Maven box. 

Speaking of which, the August reveal opened today, if you are a member of Julep. I really like the color choices this month, and the featured beauty product, which is an eyeliner. So I actually stuck with my regular box, and added on a few of the polish colors from other style profiles. The colors are all nice and bright :)

This was the inside of my Mystery Box.

My first add-on was the sea salt texture hair spray. I actually wore it yesterday at my engagement party to see what it would do to my hair. I had gotten a similar product from my June Ipsy bag and I liked what it did to my hair. 

The spray definitely adds definition and waves to my already annoyinging curly hair. However, since I live in Texas, the humidity and heat destroy anything I try to do with my hair in the summer months, so I can't tell you how effective the product would be in a normal climate or the lasting or staying power, when I'm sweating buckets outside. But it does give life to my hair.

This was my mystery bag, my second add on.

These Forget Me Not seeds are about two years old. I got them, when I first subscribed to Julep, in 2012. I have no idea if they'd even work if I planted them. 

Worth: $1.00

A moisture mask for my nails.  These usually come in a pack of three. I guess Julep got cheap and it just sending 1/3 with Mystery Packages now. It's $16.00 for 3... So value is about $4.50 or so, per one, but I don't use these things, so it's a waste.

from l to r: Roz, Kamala, & Vera.

I known I own Kamla and Roz , but I'm okay with this. I know a little 5 year old girl, who will absolutely love those colors because she adores glitter nailpolish, so I'll happily pass those two colors onto her, and I know she'll use them :)

Vera is a really old and ugly color. It's before Julep even had those swatch stickers on top of the bottles. It's a boring brown color. I probably will never wear it... I like bright colors.  But hey... It's like I have a piece of the Julep Vintage collection.

Using Maven Prices, those three colors are worth $24.00

So my mystery add on value is worth a total of:  $29.50, so I definitely got more than the $9.00 that I put into that mystery bag.

This is the actual mystery box.

My first look at the inside.

The "Truth" item, my Kajal Eye Glider, worth $17.60. It has two sections, a black one, which I use for my waterline, and a shimmery brownish one, that I rarely use. It also comes with an awesome sharpener, that I've found works AMAZING for ALL my eye liner pencils.

Julep's eye sheen in "Fig", which I own already, worth, $14.40, and an angled eye liner brush, worth, $9.60.

I own all of their eye sheen colors because I LOVE ME SOME EYE MAKEUP.

 Fig is a pinkish purplish color.

It's the most colorful of that entire eye sheen set. It's actually a very nice color. It's light enough to be neutral, but colorful enough to give my eyes a pop.

While it's not something I would've hand picked for my box, it's not unwanted.

from l to r: Venus, Aphrodite, and Lindy. 

Each worth $11.20, which makes their total value, $33.60.

Venus is very pink and very glitter. It has huge chunks of pink glitter and small speckles of silver glitter.

Aphrodite is gorgeous. It's a dark pink color with silver molten glitter.

Lindy, I feel like I have already, but that's okay, my little five year old will love it. It's a hot pink gel color with iridescent glitter in it.

So my mystery box is worth.... $75.20

That's not even close to the $100+ value that it promised. But it is certainly more then the $29 or so dollars that I paid for it.

I don't think it's my highest value ever mystery box, but it wasn't the worst either. I'm pretty satisfied with the products that I received in it. Yes, there were some doubles, of colors I already had, but that's to be expected with mystery boxes and those colors wilt go to good use anyways, and make a five year old very happy.

So, if you're interested, try out Julep.

Ipsy: Sensationally Sun Kissed, July 2014

This is what Ajani thought of this months Ipsy bag. He did not approve. 

The theme of July's bag was "Sensationally Sun-Kissed", which makes me think of skin and tanning products that I want nothing to do with. 

I didn't HATE this month's products or anything. I just wasn't overly wowed or anything.

But before that. Ipsy is a ten dollar a month subscription bag service that sends you a mixture of beauty products, skin care, and nail products, and other random stuff. The products you get are supposedly based on a survey you take when you join the site, but I'm not sure I would trust the accuracy of that survey. They all send all the makeup in a special bag for each month. It's nice to have makeup bags lying around for travel and stuff.

There's usually a waiting list, but I think you can skip the line if you add them to facebook and become a fan or something... well that's what I did... sometimes the waits are long, sometimes there aren't, sometimes there is no wait. It all depends.

Moving onward.

THIS BAG IS FUCKING HIDEOUS! 

It is so ugly. It looks like bright pink whoopee cushion.. or a pillow that a third grader makes in art class or something. It is SO UGLY! 

Bare Minerals 5 in 1 BB advanced performance cream eyeshadow, worth... I'm not sure? The full-size is $18.00... So this is probably 1/4th of $18.00, if I had to estimate, so... $4.50, approximately?

I think the color I got is Radiant Sands or Divine Wine... My swatch is actually very different in person than it looks in picture. It's much more coppery and shimmery, which make me think it's Radiant Sands over Divine Wine. 

I like the product and it looks good with my skin tone, and I like nude colors, mainly for work purposes, so this is a product that I'd experiment with. 

 Pix! Tinted Brillance Balm in Unique Pink, full-size, worth $8.00. I don't really see how this is tinted, I tried to do a swatch on my skin and I couldn't see anything except maybe a slight shimmer?

The other color that went out was a much darker red, so I can see how that would be tinted. But mine is very much a transparent color, at least on me.

It's basically chapstick. I have nothing against chapstick.

Whet Nailpolish, not full-size, but almost full-size, worth $9.00. A full size is .05 and my sample size is .03.

 The labeling  and description on their box amuses me greatly because it sounds like one of those products that you would get in an "adult" themed box meant to turn on your partner and bring our your wildest desires... Of course... maybe that's the point? BUT ANYWAYS.

My color was facetious, a very bright but dark blue. I'm pretty sure I have colors just like this, but I never say no to nailpolish :)

Whet Nails does have some interesting nailpolish colors with unique names, if you're curious.

Hang Ten Deep Tanning Oil, worth $1.00. The full-size is 8 oz and the sample size is 1 oz.

I don't mind getting sent tanning oil. I do use tanning oil if I'm just reading at the pool.But I tend to go more for oil with 15 spf as opposed to 8 spf, which is what this sample has.

I haven't been much into the pool lately though. Weather in Texas is bipolar and we get a lot of thunderstorms- even now it looks about ready to storm-, and the pool has been very crowded since summer school let out.

I'm going to Schlitterbahn next week, on a mini vacay with the fiance, and this is much too little SPF to use at a water park, all day, in the scorching sun.

So... Not sure if I'll use this product? I may, if I go to the pool for an hour or so. Or I may not. But I don't hate it like some people seem to.

Lavilin JoJoba skin soother gel cream, worth $3.15, a full-size is a huge tub basically.

Oh hey.. it just started raining, told you Texas weather is weird.

Anyways, this product is interesting to me. As someone, who gets sunburns [and not from tanning oil, I tend to get them on my face, where I use real lotion], and painful sunburns, at that, I'm always looking for products to soothe my skin. So, I'll stick this in my bag, when we go to Schlitterbahn and see if it can make a difference.

The total value of my bag was: $25.65

Not the highest value bag I've ever gotten, but not the worst either, it still more then double what I initially paid for it.

This bag wasn't awful, just wasn't my favorite, compared to other bags I've gotten, in the past. But hey, you can't expect every bag to be perfect.

So if you're interested in Ipsy, feel free to check them out.

Apple Pie Muffins

Let's see, I ordered a mystery package from Julep, at some point, last week. It was the truth&dare mystery package, where you picked a box with one product that you wanted and you knew what it was, and the rest of a mystery. They had like six different boxes to choose from and I chose the one with the Kajal Eyeliner because I've found that their black eyeliner that comes with that pencil duo works really well on my water line, and the sharpener that comes with that pencil is an amazing sharpener, it is the first sharpener I've found that doesn't destroy my 24/7 eyeliner pencils when I sharpen them. So... That will probably be here, at some point, next week, most likely since they sent it via DHL. Hopefully Julep can redeem themselves for the  Cynthia Fiasco that occurred in my July Box, that I'm still bitter about.

Ipsy went out last week, so I should get it either today or tomorrow, methinks.

But until then, you get Apple Pie Muffins.

I was baking a lot of cookies this summer, and cookies are bad for me because cookie recipes make a shit ton of cookies, and I love cookies. So I eat a lot of cookies. Therefore, I decided to go with something different this week, and made apple pie muffins. 

I had tried to make apple cinnamon muffins once before, back when I lived in New Jersey, and they were um... special. I like to think I've come a long way from those baking days. These muffins came out amazingly delicious. 

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose-flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 cups of apple pie filling

 [which is found  in the baking section, Though additionally, I'm sure, if you had the patience, you could just dice the apples yourself. I'm just not that patient.]

1 stick of butter

2 eggs or egg substituite

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup of milk

Optional: Cinnamon/Sugar Spice

[I found mine in the baking section of the supermarket.]

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and spray muffin tin with Pam or something similar.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

3. Coat the apples with 2 teaspoons of flour in another separate bowl. I cut my apple pie mixture into smaller pieces so it would fit better into the muffin tin.

4. Coat the apple flour mixture with a cinnamon/sugar mixture. I just bought the cinnamon and sugar spice I found at my supermarket, but you could also just mix like two teaspoons of sugar and two teaspoons of cinnamon with each other, and coat it like that.

5. Cream the sugar and butter together in a big bowl.

 6. Add each egg, one at a time, and mix the mixture after each egg is added.

7. Mix in the Vanilla.

8. Put about 1/2 of the flour mixture in the bowl and mix.

9. Mix 1/4 of the milk [half of half a cup] into the mixture after blending the flour.

10. Put the other half of the flour in, mix, followed by the other half of the milk, and mix.

11. Dump the apple mixture into the bowl.

12. Mix the apple mixture with the batter.

 13. Pour the batter into a muffin tin, and cook for 30 minutes.

14. Remove the muffins from the oven. 

Optional topping:

1. Melt some butter in one bowl, and make a sugar/cinnamon mixture in the other.

2. Take one muffin, at a time, from the tin, dip it into the melted butter, and roll it in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

 Transfer the muffins to a plate to cool, AND ENJOY. 

They taste like an apple pie inside of a muffin. SO GOOD.

Julep: July 2014, The Poolside Collection

 I would like to preface this entry, but saying, I'm very annoyed at Julep this month, which as most of you know, is quite unusual for me.

I'm not that angry about the box coming 8 or so days then usual... Perhaps a little confused? I know people, who got their boxes, when they normally got their boxes, so why did they get their box on time, and mine took about two weeks to deliver? 

Maybe it's because I added extras? I'm not really sure. They did change their shipping service this month, so maybe that's why it took longer to get to me? 

Normally, I wouldn't be so concerned with how long something took to get to me, but I've had Julep for over a year, and ALWAYS got my shit by the first of the month, sometimes even earlier. So I'm just wondering? I mean if they can't ship nailpolish by air, how did I get mine before? Is this a new law?

I do feel bad for the people who ordered the 4th of July nail collections that were extra this month. They probably didn't get those by the 4th, and maybe some of them were really looking forward to wearing America to celebrate the holiday.

Well whatever. 

We'll get to why I'm upset later.

Julep is a nailpolish/makeup subscription box. They've changed their subscription policy over the past few months, so for new members, there are now two options:

My Maven, which is about $19.99 with a three month subscription, and $25.00 per month without a subscription, and it allows you to fully customize what you receive in your box... So instead of just changing profiles, and getting like the IT Girl box instead of the Classic with a Twist box, you could customize a box and remove things in and out from all the different selections this month.

I'm truly tempted to change my subscription to that. I've been very "meh" about a lot of the beauty products shipped with my usual classic with a twist box, and then I'll like colors from IT Girl and another profile, but will have to settle for one over the other because I'm still grandfathered into the old subscription service. So, I do think, I'm beginning to truly embrace the concept of a fully customizable Julep box. That way I can swap out colors I don't like or beauty products I am not interested in for colors I will enjoy wearing.

The other subscription service is Maven Luxe, which is $40.00 a month, and is also a fully customizable box with more products, so you get more bang for your buck. I personally wouldn't be comfortable spending $40.00 on a Maven Luxe box. 

 This is what was inside of my big white box.

This is why I am annoyed. I added on three "Mystery Polishes" for my add-ons. I know you have a chance for repeat colors if you add random colors... BUT SERIOUSLY JULEP YOU SENT ME THREE OF THE SAME FUCKING COLORS!!! I mean are they idiots? Did they NOT realize that they were shoving three of the same colors in my fucking box? I AM SO PISSED OFF. I WASTED FUCKING MONEY FOR THREE OF THE SAME FUCKING COLORS, and to top it off, THEY'RE THREE COLORS I OWNED ALREADY!

The patriotic tootsie rolls don't even come CLOSE to making this better for me!

See, three of the exact same colors.

I AM ENRAGED!

It's not even worth contacting them because they'll just give me some bullshit about how they've already said that mystery colors and boxes and such can be product repeats.

I'll probably give one to Audrey, the daughter, of a friend, who loves her "Jamie" manicures. As for the other two... who knows.

However, because I filled up all my add-ons, I got two free polishes with my order. So from L to R: Farrah and Alexandra.

So that sort of makes up for my three fucking Cynthia polishes because I don't have any of those two colors, but I am still angry.

Farrah is a beautiful color. Only I wish it had a different name because it totally reminds me of Farrah from Teen Mom turned Porn Star and Erotic Author.

But it's a Silk Finish color, not that the different finishes really matter to me. It's a very light lavender with a silver sheen in it, and I like it very much.

Alexandra is a whitish fleshy type color? It's not a bad color. It's just not something I would have chosen for myself, but it's a nice nude color and will probably look good under some glitter finishes.

This months theme was the Poolside Collection, it had some pretty nice colors. I liked June's colors  a lot better, and hope the purchase some of those in the semi near future, but July's colors were also nice. There were at least two or three other colors I wanted aside from the ones I got.

Here's the box within a box.

I went with "It Girl" this month because it was the ONLY box that didn't come with the body milk, and I had seriously no desire to get the body milk which was the big beauty product this month.
 

Was IT GIRL my favorite? Oh hell no, I really liked some of the other colors in the other boxes better, but it was the only one that didn't come with the beauty product, and that's the ONLY reason I chose it.

SEE THIS IS WHY I WANT TO SWITCH TO MY MAVEN.

from l to r: Linden, Braiden, & Dawn. OH AND MORE TOOTSIE ROLLS!

Linden is my favorite color out of the colors I got this month. It's a bright summery blue and it reminds me of the color of pool water at a swimming pool... Though technically the water only looks a certain color based on what color the bottom of the pool is painted combined with the reflection of the sky... BUT ANYWAYS, IT LOOKS LIKE POOL WATER, I LOVE SWIMMING, AND I LIKE THIS COLOR. 

Braiden is a stardust finish silver glitter. It's a silver glitter. I mean I like silver glitter. My twitter name is @silverglitter, and it's really sparkly and shiny, but I've also gotten other silver glitter polishes from Julep that are very similar to Braiden. So, it's nothing unique or special, in my opinion.

I don't like Dawn. It reminds me of yellow mustard, and I hate mustard. I'm also not a fan of yellow nailpolishes, at all, unless they're bright neon yellow, so meh to Dawn. It's just too yellow. 

So there we have July's box. I wasn't very thrilled with it. I'm angry about the three repeat colors I got as my add-on. I didn't like Dawn. And Braiden was just meh.

However, I do very much like Linden and Farrah, and I can find uses for Alexandra, so this month wasn't a loss, overall, but not an OH MY GOD AWESOME month either.

Ummm. You can't win them all? 

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Justin and I used to do a long distance relationship thing. Hell, we did it for 2.5 years or so, and in that two year LDR thing, we used to send each other care packages. I would always bake him cookies, and he would always send me stuff like jelly belly jelly beans and Magic the Gathering booster packs. Occasionally, Justin would send me cookies that he made from a mix. I always made mine from scratch.

I sent Justin triple chocolate chip cookies, as a part of one of my first ever packages to him. He remembers these triple chocolate chip cookies in detail and cites them as his favorite cookies ever.

It's been about a year since we got engaged, so to commemorate that.... I attempted to make him... you guessed it... TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. It's not the same recipe that I used back then since that hard drive has gone to the point of no return, but I think they taste just as good.

So... HAPPY ONE YEAR SINCE WE'VE BEEN ENGAGED, and 248 days left till our wedding :)

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour.

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa

1 cup butter 

[or eight tablespoons, if that's easier to measure. It's typically two sticks]

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs or egg substituite

1 cup of milk chocolate chips

1 cup of dark chocolate chips

[or even white chocolate chips if that's your thing]

1 1/2 tsp espresso powder

1.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Cream butter and sugars

3. Stir in vanilla and add the eggs one at a time

4. Mix in flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa, and espresso powder.

5. Stir in the dark and milk chocolate chips.

6. Drop by teaspoon onto the cookie sheets

[NOTE: this recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies, so if you want less than they, cut the recipe in half.]

7.  Cook for 11 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for about ten minutes or so before removing them from the cookie sheets, or they'll fall apart. Of course, I like them all gooey and stuff, so I taste tasted them before they cooled... THEY'RE LIKE MELTED BROWNIE BATTER IN COOKIE FORM. YUM.

Then Enjoy :)