Julep: June 2014, The Three Wishes collection.

School's out for the summer, which means, I spend at least two hours of my day, sitting here, and reading books on my kindle. The latest summer read is The City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare... The entire Mortal Instruments series is one of those book series that's so badly written, but quite enjoyable to read, especially at the pool. Though, I do admit, The Infernal Devices series, which is sort of the prequel to the Mortal Instruments series is an enjoyable read. 

After my tryst at the pool with my kindle, I went and checked the mail, to find I had to pick this up from the office:

I wasn't quite sure what it was. I ordered one of the Memorial Day Mystery Boxes from the sale over the holiday weekend, so I thought it might be that.

I opened the box and under layers of brown paper was this:

My monthly Maven box from Julep alongside with some random extras I added. I didn't pay a cent for the box, I just used some Jules I stored up since I have nothing better to do with them since they can't apply towards mystery boxes.

Julep is mainly a nailpolish subscription box service. I've been a member since last March or April, so I'm grandfathered into their old subscription service, which is I pay $19.99 for a monthly box of products based on the profile I choose for that month.

They've recently vamped their service for NEW members. There are two options now: 

My Maven, which is $24.99/$19.99 [with a three month subscription] and you can customize a box for $40+ of products.

My Maven Luxe, which is $39.99/$34.99 [with a three month subscription] and you can customize a box of $60+ of products.

I don't know anything about their new services, but I do like the idea of complete customization, and have thought of converting over, but haven't since I still like the box I get every month.

I have a special relationship with Julep, they were my FIRST ever subscription box.  I'm very attached to them.

A closer look at what was inside my box.

I did add on three products this month. So, let's start with those. 

Julep also had a promotion, if you added on three products, they would send a fourth product, for free.

Mae, was my free product. It's from the bombshell collection. It's sort of purple gray periwinkle color with a satin finish. It sort of reminds me of the color of the sky during a stormy summer afternoon in Texas. 

from l to r: Hope and Cameron

Cameron, Boho Glam, is a repeat for me. I got it in my February box. It's a silver purple glitter color with a stardust finish. I've worn it. My prek girls loved it. 

One problem I find with duos that I add on is that they nickname the duos... Something like: Winter Lights, and I don't actually look at the colors that are in that duo, I just think it looks cool and order it.

But...

I don't really mind repeats. I either give them to friends, or the daughters of friends.

Hope is IT Girl, and a satin finish white color. I don't really wear white nailpolish, that much, but I think in winter, with a shade of silver or gold glitter, it would look quite festive.

from l t r: Sienna and Tracy

These are actually both repeats for me. But again, it's my own fault for not actually looking at details of sets before I place orders.

Sienna, Classic with a Twist, is the color of silver mirror glass with a gold tone. It's a pretty color.

Tracy, IT Girl, is blue silver sparkle.

from l to r: Veronica and Marjorie.

These were both new colors for me.

Veronica, classic with a twist, is a darkish rose pink color.

Marjorie, IT Girl, is dark orange.

They both remind me of the colors of a pretty sunset.

Onto my Maven box.

This month was the Three Wishes collection, and I really wanted to upgrade to the entire collection of nailpolish, but my FMLA ass couldn't afford it. I'm hoping some of these colors will go into future secret stores, and I can get them then. 

The add on this month was Pixy Stix, which are one of my favorite childhood candy, so I was quite pleased with this. I just wish I had gotten a blue one, instead of two purple because the blue flavor is my favorite.

I went with IT GIRL this month because I really liked the colors moreso than my usual profile which is "classic with a twist." I also had no reason to want the Base Coat or Top Coat that came with my usual.

from l t r: Phia, Jennine, and Savoy.

Phia is my favorite. I don't even know how to describe it. It's a light purple silver orchid glitter color. I can't wait to wear it.

Jennine is also gorgeous. It's a turquoise Stardust finish polish with light green and dark blue glitter in it. I also can't wait to wear this one.

Savoy is a silver gold chrome color. 

Overall, I am very pleased with this month's box.

Granted, I got a lot of repeat colors, but that was mostly my own fault.

So anyways, I love nailpolish, and their polish is very high quality and very good lasting ability, and this comes from a completely hands-on prek teacher.

So if you're so inclined, check Julep out.

Ipsy February

It seems like all my February subscription boxes have been coming early... Or maybe it's just that February is a really short month, so it seems everything is coming quicker than usual. But in my mailbox today, was February's Ipsy bag.

Ipsy is a $10.00 a month subscription makeup service. It's much more makeup oriented than say Birchbox. You sign up, there's a waiting list. The waiting time is about a month, but if you connect it to your facebook account, you tend to skip the line and become a member quicker.

You get 5-6 makeup products per bag, some are full-size, some are deluxe size, some are sample size. You also get a cute makeup bag every month. Your matches are based on a quiz, and they match your products based on a profile. I find Ipsy tends to send better products for me, than other services.

The bag was pink and Valentine's Day friendly, this month. I don't like pink. I was pretty sure it was going to be filled with pink and red and purple girly makeup. So I didn't really know what to expect... But Ipsy spoiled me this month.

My first sampler was Überliss RituOil, which is supposed to help with damaged hair. February seems to be the month of hair oil. A full-size is $19.50, I got a sample, which is worth about $9.25, because it's about a half of a regular size. So I guess this can technically be considered a deluxe sample. I have horribly dry hair with awful split-ends, so any product that will make my hair slightly less awful, is worth a gander in my book.

A 9 Pan Shadow Compact in Behind Blue Eyes from Jessie's Girl, full-size, worth $3.99.

I'm very excited that my entire palette is ice blue colors, medium blue, and silver and gray colors. These are all colors that I would wear. I am so happy I didn't get the Tickled Pink one, or another color combination. This combination is so me. I've never tried Jessie's Girl products before, but I always love eye shadow, so I'm very happy with this. I didn't swatch all the colors because I'm lazy though. 

 

Mally eyeliner in Starshine. Mine is full-size. It's worth $15.00... 

It has a nice tip, similar to the Urban Decay 24/7 eyeliner crayon tips. It's also waterproof like 24/7 is.

The color is a beautiful sparkly silver... I CANNOT WAIT TO WEAR IT, I LOVE SILVEREYELINER!!! It comes out nice and thick too, which is awesome :)

A full-size Zoya Nailpolish in Odette. Worth $9.00. It's an orchid color. It's a light pink purple color. I've heard lots of good things about their nailpolish, and I love purple polishes, so I'm excited to try this one out.

A Pop Beauty Plump Pout in Peony Petal. I think mine is full-size, which retails it at $15.00. I'm meh about lip color.

It's also a very dark and thick pink color and not something that I think I would wear. But I really can't complain... It's the one product I wasn't excited about in my bag, and it's only one product.

Math time. My February Ipsy bag was worth: $52.24 AND THAT'S WAY MORE THAN I PAID FOR IT!!!

I really really really liked my Ipsy bag this month. It wasn't all pink and girly... YAY!!! And I'll use most of the products, minus the lip product. 

For $10.00, Ipsy is really worth checking out :)

 

Julep: February, the DRAMATIC collection

It's that time of the month again, when a big pink box appears in my mailbox:

Julep  is primarily a nailpolish company, although for the past year, they've been branching out and creating other types of makeup. For $20.00, you can become a Maven, which means you get a box of nailpoilish and/or makeup sent to you every month. They have a style quiz, where you can find your style profile, but every 20th of the month, you can see what you're getting, change styles if you want something else, or get a full upgrade and get it all. You can also skip a box for no charge. 

February was The Dramatic Collection, and I really really loved every single product featured, so for the first time ever, I did a complete upgrade, which included all the nailpolish colors and all the makeup products.

Julep introduced a shimmery eye sheen his month, which I was interested in since I really liked the swatches of colors on their website, and I also really like eye makeup. This was every eye product that came with the upgrade. It's four colors and one gel eyeliner.

Gel eyeliner in Jet Black. 

It's a very dark black color. This was only one swatch of it. I like how black it is. In my opinion, you can never have too much black eyeliner. I'm not very familiar with gel eyeliner, I tend to use a pencil eyeliner, sometimes liquid, so I'm interested in seeing what gel eyeliner does.

Deep Bronze Shimmer and Dusty Taupe  eye shimmer.

Here they are next to each other on my fingers. The Dusty Taupe is a very pale shimmery sand color, and the Bronze shimmer is the goldish brown color. I like both these colors. They're both nude enough for every day wear and will be good neutral colors.

Pale Nude Shimmer. 

Here is is next to the deep bronze shimmer. It's a very pale color, it reminds me of a very pale cream color with a slight shimmer. It's a also a very good every day color.

Warm Fig Shimmer is a purple pink darker shimmer.

 It looks more brown than purple on me, but it's still a nice color. This one may be a little too dramatic for every day wear, but it's still a color that I would wear. I tend to like purple shadows.

It also came with two brushes, an eyeliner brush and a shimmer brush. I haven't tried the brushes out, but since I tend to use Q-tips to put on eye-makeup, it will be a nice treat to use a brush. 

This is Love, the special bonus colors that ll Maven's received with their February boxes. It's a gold shimmer with red glitter in it. It's not as purple as my picture makes it look, it's more pink bronze.

Diamond Theory, Glam Roc, and Roc Solid, all IT GIRL  colors. 

Diamond Theory is a dark gold champagne color glitter. 

Glam Roc is a dark purple glitter with flecks of yellow and red in it, and it has a Stardust finish, and it does sort of look like a starry sky in outer space or something. 

Roc Solid is kind of a cross between green and gray. 

Rooney, Kristen, and Cameron, all Boho Glam, except for Kristen, which is a bombshell color. 

Rooney is sort of a gray pink color. 

Kristen is awesome. It's basically a turquoise and silver shimmer glitter color.

Cameron is a very light pink gray mix, that is more pink than gray and has specks of pink glitter. 

Greta, Judi, and Octavia. Greta and Octavia are classic with a twist, which is my usual style profile, and Judi bombshell.

Greta is a rare red color that I like. It's shimmery red with pink and pale blue glitter.

Judi  is a deep purple color.

Octavia is a bright blue color.

I very much liked every single color this month, I loved the color choices and I liked all the glitter. I can't wait to wear all those colors.

So if you love nailpolish, and have twenty dollars to spare, I would recommend checking Julep out.

Starlooks Starbox January 2014

So, my first Starbox finally came, and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed.

First of all Starbox comes from Starlooks. It's a makeup subscription that consists entirely of Starlooks products. One of the pros is that it's very affordable when compared to Wantable or some of the more expensive makeup subscription boxes, it's only about $15.00 per month, and you get 4 full-size makeup products, and a makeup tool.

This month, Starlooks did something different with their Starbox.  They sent every subscriber different products. Up until this month, every subscriber had gotten the same thing.

This was my first ever Starbox.

It comes in a white envelope, and it's the perfect size to fit into my tiny apartment mailbox, which is always a plus. The box itself is cute too, it looks like a present. My orange tabby Ajani immediately stole that silver string from the box and started playing with it.

It comes with a sheet that describes this month's theme. January's theme was "Surprise Yourself." It's all about not being afraid to take risks, which is a major girl power theme, so props for that.

This was the unboxing, four mystery products, a tool, and tiny quartz crystal.

This was one of the products I really liked that I received in my box. It's Starlooks Infinity Eyeliner in Milky Way, worth $13.00, as all products in a Starbox are full-size makeup products.

It's a creme based eyeliner, that can probably be used as a shadow, as well. It's silvery white, which is totally one of my wedding colors, so I approve. I've also always loved silver/white eye-products because I feel like they make me look more awake than I actually am, and they blend very nicely with other colors.

A Mascara Comb, price unknown, so I'll go with $8.00 based on a similar type product I found via a google search.

Not gonna lie, at first I had no idea what it was, but it made the perfect brush for my Rainbow Dash. Then I actually looked at the information card and realized what it was.

It's supposed to separate your lashes after you apply mascara and get rid of clumps. This has happened to me before, so I'm eager to see if it really does what it says it does.

Now, THIS IS WHAT DISAPPOINTED ME, I GOT THREE LIP PRODUCTS!!!

I don't do lipstick, I don't like lipstick. This is the same problem I had with my Wantable this month, I don't like lip products, yet they sent me two of them. 

Why three lip products? Why not one lip product, maybe an eyeshadow or a mascara or even an eyeliner. I was very sad I didn't get a pencil eyeliner. 

Oh this is the handy dandy information card that told me what the lash brush was.

My first Infinity Lipstick in Endless Satin, worth $15.000

And my second Infinity Lipstick in Eons Matte, also worth $15.00

Endless Satin is on top. Eons Matte is the bottom color.

I don't like lipstick, I won't wear lipstick. I only used the lipstick to make these swatches for anyone, who reads this. I want to give away these lipsticks, FREE OF CHARGE, so somebody can get a use from them. If you read this, and you're interested, please comment, and I can pick somebody to send both of these lipsticks to. 

My third lip product, Tender Gloss in Puzzy, worth $13.00

That very slight shimmery color in the bottom left corner of my hand is the color. I had to swatch a lot even to get that much to shimmer. This is the only lip product that I got that I have any interest in, and that's only because it's more a gloss than lipstick. It will just give my lips a slight shimmer, and I'm okay with that. I do like lip gloss and lip gloss like products.

My tiny crystal, every box comes with a crystal since they sparkle like stars.

I spent $15.00 and maybe two something for shipping, and I got products worth $64.00.

So yes, the Starbox is definitely worth its price.

My biggest qualm with it is just that I got a lot of lip products and not much of a variety. I'm sure a lip lover would have LOVED this box, I am just not a lip lover.

It's only their first month, they still have a chance with me. I just hope there's more of a variety of product for the February box. 

Again, I have two lipstick colors that are just going to sit and gather dust. If you read this, and want them, FREE OF CHARGE, please comment, and I will pick somebody to receive them.