Unboxing Video May 2014 Boho Glam Julep Maven Box

This is my last Maven box.  I cancelled after I received the the May box.  After spending $171.19 on nail polish in 3 months, I've finally quit, it's an addiction.  Yes, it was absolutely great fun and has provided me hours of entertainment.  I decided it was ridiculous to spend that much money on nail polish.  I'll have to give myself manicures every week to recoup my investment in Julep. - Miranda

Very exciting updates on things

Oh man, Julep was on top of it this month - my April box got here on March 31! It was very exciting, even though I didn't particularly care for either of the colors I got: bluey-purpley iridescent and bright sparklish green. And peach blush. And they sent candy again!

Unfortunately, the bluey-purpley polish leaked into its lid a little. Not much, not a huge mess, but enough to make me feel sad and persecuted. But not enough to make me want to notify Julep about it.

I didn't think I would, but I actually like the bluey-purpley color. I refuse to post pictures, so you'll just have to imagine. The first coat is very light and if you can make it go on without being all streaky and dumb, one coat is really nice, a subtle barely-there iridescent pale blue. Two coats looks like poo, don't do that. For the finest results, you have to do three coats and a topcoat. (Someone on the internet was putting a white coat on the bottom and that looked nice. Who would have thought? Should I buy some opaque white polish in order to do that? Would Wite-Out work?)

I've decided to wear the bright green polish on race days because I think it will make me faster. I can't imagine wearing bright green fingernail polish at any other time. I will never, ever use this bottle up.

The blush is packaged very fancily, as are all Julep products. I'm sure it's nice but I haven't tried it and won't try it for another 50 years, not until I've used up all the other blushes I have.

The candy was delicious and is all gone.

OTHER EXCITING NEWS

The April Blush Mystery Beauty Box is on its way to me! I'm very excited about it, as usual, because Blush was the first beauty box I subscribed to and I am fiercely, doggedly loyal, even when my loyalty is undeserved, which it is not in the case of the Blush Mystery Beauty Box. Best mystery beauty box!

I decided to keep my Birchbox subscription for another month because I didn't dislike it soooo much last month. It was soooo okay. I don't know why everyone on the internet hates Birchbox so much. I believe I'll be getting something in this Birchbox that I got in the Blush box last month, but my face seems to like it so that's good. Blush wins! And Birchbox is fine.

Last week the internet was abuzz with talk of the ModCloth Stylish Surprise - ten bucks, a surprise. You could choose from shoes, clothing, or apartment fodder. Everyone was posting pictures of their clothing surprises, and I didn't like anything that anyone got, but I was overcome by it all and ordered one myself. I will probably get either a tenty shirt designed for an 18th century peasant or a short short dress that's so short I wouldn't even have worn it when I was 13. But who cares! It will be a stylish surprise!

It's so dumb, I told myself I wouldn't get sucked into this crap, but I ordered a Secret Surprise from Julep. I am a sucker for the words "mystery" and "surprise", it would seem. This needs to stop, guys. If you haven't yet gotten sucked into the world of beauty boxes, please try to resist. It does bring immeasurable joy, glamour, and fame, yes - but at what price? At what price???

April 2014 Julep Maven It Girl Box

Unboxing of the April 2014 Julep Maven It Girl Box.  April is the Vivid collection.

First Box Free (pay only $3.99 shipping) at this link with code FREEBOX http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/673877/

Maven madness is spreading at my office.  We have four subscribers because Julep is AWESOME and contagious.  In the video I'm wearing Malala,which is great for a professional office setting.  Malala is a dusty pink mauve creme and is part of the Classic with a Twist collection.  100% of the proceeds from Malala benefits The Malala Fund.

Colors in the April It Girl Box
Bailey - Hyped Cobalt Sheer (It Girl)
Maren - Electric Bubblegum Sheer with Blue Sheen (It Girl)
Flora - Exotic Dragonfruit with Blue Shimmer (It Girl)

My birthday is in May and I'm considering upgrading to get all the May polishes.  What am I going to do with all this nail polish you ask?  Line it up in my bathroom into a nice display!!!

Julep Haul - Moral of the Story - Never pay full price for anything at Julep

I used my 50% Welcome to Julep to purchase quite a few items.  It reduced the price of some nail polishes to $3.33 and $2.50 a bottle when ordered in sets.

My only issue with Julep is the wasteful packaging.  Each bottle of nail polish comes in a tiny box.

My entire collection.

Julep It Girl Welcome Box

Julep Maven $19.99 per month with Free Shipping

First Box Free at this Link with code FREEBOX, Only Pay Shipping $3.99

It Girls get three polishes every month

In the Welcome Box

• Libby - It Girl: Rich teal crème
• Elle - It Girl: Plum frost
• Bunny - It Girl: Crisp white linen with fine gold shimmer

Julep Maven Box - Jan 2014 Classic with a Twist & Boho Glam Intro Box

http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/673877/
Use Code FREEBOX to pay only $3.99 shipping for your first box.  Cancel anytime.

Fancy Schmancy Nail Subscription!  It's unlikely I will use most of this stuff but getting this box at work made my day.  $19.99 per box (free shipping) and you get $40 worth of products.  Usually 2 Nail Polishes and a nail tool or 3 Nail Polishes.

Boho Glam Welcome Box 

• Michelle-Boho Glam: Midnight, inky blue

• Aisha-Boho Glam: Wildberry crème

• Mighty Nail & Cuticle Serum: This peptide-fueled treatment quickly transforms dry, damaged cuticles and encourages strong, healthy nail growth

January Classic with a Twist box
Ta Da! Quick Dry Drops: These nourishing drops will leave your mani touchably smudge-free in just a few minutes.

Mona: Storm cloud grey creme

Abigail: Light peony pink silk

If you are like me and paint your own nails like a 12 year old.  I can't wait for the Julep Plie Wand coming in the May boxes.  Video here!

Gaspillage d'argent? Mais non.

My first real Julep Maven box came yesterday! Julep Maven boxes are packed and packaged very nicely. Everything is very shiny and special, and everything is in English and French, which is muy importante for modern, sophisticated ladies like me. I was only going to subscribe to this box for three months but mayyyyybe I'll subscribe for four months. Or five, maybe.

Right now I'm wearing the Oxygen Nail Treatment that I got. Did you know that the French word for 'fingernail' is ongle? I didn't either! Mis ongles look tres chic without being all scary and bright. And they are being oxygenated, and my teeth haven't bitten them once today. Success!

I also got a bottle of top coat, which is very, you know, toppy and coaty, and I got the cleanup tool, which will come in handy, and I got the two bottles of nail polish - blue and creamy white. The blue, a light periwinkle, is very nice. The creamy white polish in the bottle looks like something unmentionable. Never mind about that.

Julep nail polishes are very nice, even if they are only 4-free. They cover nicely and dry nicely and stuff. And there are so many, many colors. Mucho gusto, Julep, you jerk. I want so much nail polish now.

This month's Julep box also came with: a candy stick! I ate that immediately.

Blush Mystery Beauty Box news: Well, Blush is still ignoring me because they again haven't sent me an email about the March box. But it's okay, Blush Mystery Beauty Box is still the best mystery beauty box.

This month's Blush Mystery Beauty Box is curated by a BOY. His chosen product is hydrating gel for your face, your décolleté, and the backs of your hands. A 1 oz. bottle of the stuff is $74. Given my newly acquired refined tastes for stupid expensive face crap, I will probably start buying it.

FINGERNAIL NEWS FLASH

The Julep March Maven Reveal ends today! I just changed my box again! I decided I'm not a Modern Beauty. I switched to the Core Classics Box, which includes a cleanup tool, top coat, and oxygen nail treatment. The cleanup tool is this little thing that's supposed to clean under nails and fix polish mistakes. It's kind of like a jackknife but fancier, and for ladies. Hooray! I'm still adding on the cloudy clear polish and the light periwinkle polish. I'm not getting the lippy stuff. This is a fingernail subscription, who cares about lips right now, am I right? Right? Am I? I have a few more hours to change my mind again. Did I do the right thing? Maybe I should switch back! What if I chose the wrong thing!

I decided I wanted the cleanup tool because I put on the coral pinky Butter London polish over the weekend and there's no way to put it on without looking like a 5-year-old. Impossible. I even took it off and put it back on as carefully as possible, but it's still embarrassing. Somehow you can't stop it from leaking into your cuticles, and it's so bright that any mistake like that is quite blatant.

In contrast, the purple LVX polish goes on like a champ - no smudging, no weird cuticle leaks, no streaky bad spots. LVX nail polish makes you look like an elegant professional, a competent and graceful gentlewoman whose apartment is not a disaster, a put-together grown-up who gets up in the morning without hitting the snooze button five times. I really like the LVX stuff. I try to like the Butter London stuff but just haven't been able to.

Fingernails, man. It's so complicated.

Julep boxes start shipping on the 27th. They come from Seattle so it'll only take a couple days to get here. I am very excited for this box and in preparation am growing out my fingernails with all my might.

Julep March Mavel Reveal, and important updates

It's the 20th of the month! That means that the March Maven Reveal is open! For a few days during the Reveal you get to look at the products you'll get in your Julep Maven box, and if you don't like them you can switch to a different box. You can also add single products from other boxes, or you can add every single thing possible. All these things.

This month, the Julep Bombshell box contains: yellow fingernail polish, blue fingernail polish, and peachy lip gloss. Everything obviously has fancier names than that. But I decided to switch to the Modern Beauty box, which contains lip conditioning treatment and lip scrub (LIP SCRUB), and I added a light periwinkle nail polish and a cloudy clear nail polish. I think the cloudy clear stuff might help me ease back into the world of clear nail polish, which I currently cannot handle. Colored polishes help trick my teeth into thinking my fingernails are not fingernails. If my teeth can see the whites of my fingernails, they know that they're fingernails and cannot be stopped from biting them.

Who am I? Am I still a Bombshell? Am I a confident frill seeker with magnetic appeal? Do I still adore bold, glam colors and anything that sparkles? Modern Beauties are savvy tastemakers obsessed with the art and science of beauty. Is that me? I don't know. We'll see which box I choose next month.

UPDATES ON PREVIOUS BLUSH MYSTERY BEAUTY BOX PRODUCTS

A month or so ago I decided that, like a cat, I do not like to get wet. I experimented with taking waterless showers, but those experiments failed. Luckily I subscribe to the Blush Mystery Beauty Box! We've gotten dry shampoo twice, and we got that SweetSpot wipette for your sweet spot. With the Blush Mystery Beauty Box, I'll never have to get wet again! I've used the Klorane Dry Shampoo with Nettle a few times, and it's great! It works well, even after TRX. I don't know if other dry shampoos work like this or not, but this is quite good. If you need a dry shampoo, I do recommend this. I also still really like the Klorane Leave-In Cream. And Miranda likes the Klorane hair mask that she got. This blog gives Klorane four thumbs up.

I've used up the Osmosis Skincare Harmonized H20. Guys, I do not recommend this product. Since I started using this harmonized water, my shoulder started hurting, I discovered a gray hair right in the center of my hairline, and my house developed a mysterious drip. Beware.

I've put on the Elizabeth Arden UNTOLD parfum twice and was nearly asphyxiated both times. After you put this on, the smell becomes increasingly more powdery and intense. Unless you like cloying powderiness, I recommend using only one dot of this stuff, maybe just in your elbow pits. The problem here is that I don't like most perfumes. People who like perfume might like this perfume more than I do. I'm keeping this because the bottle is so fancy and cute.

NCLA Designer Nail Wraps. Only use these nail wraps for some fancy occasion, guys, because they scare people. I put them on over the weekend to try them out. I went to a coffee shop and as I was handing the barista my money she saw my horrifying fingernails and jumped. These are okay but not for everyday use.

I am STILL using the SmartLash Eyelash Enhancer from November. Whether it enhances your eyelashes or not, I don't know, but it sure lasts a long time. Man, how much longer can this bottle last. Definitely worth either $30 or $125, if that's how much you want to spend on stuff like this.

I recently had the opportunity to use the NYX Love in Paris eye shadow and the Mirabella Mineral Highlighting Powder when I went out for an evening. I also wore mascara. Nothing happened.

Mid-month lull

It's the 21st of the month. These are dark days. No beauty box is on the horizon. I usually get my Blush Mystery Beauty Box around the 10th, which means I just got one, which means I have a few weeks until the next one. Which means it's time to sign up for another box!

So... now I'm signed up for the Julep Maven subscription box. It comes with fingernail polish! A few months ago I never would have signed up for a fingernail polish subscription box. But I have to wear colored fingernail polish for medical purposes now, and since I've been wearing the fancy nail lacquer I got from the Blush box I can't possibly go back to the cheap stuff. The pictures on the Julep website look mighty, mighty fancy. It's okay though! I'll unsubscribe after one or three months, depending on the level of awesome that arrives. When will it get here! I'm dying.

I can't really tell what's going on with Julep. You answer questions (such as "Which of these shoes would you wear for an evening out?" and my answer is none of them, I don't wear heels, you can't run in heels) (you never know when you might need to run, it could happen on an evening out), they assign you a profile, and you get certain items based on your profile, but you can change which box you get even if it's not the one you're supposed to get, and then you can add add-ons, and so basically I don't have any idea what I'll be getting. Also, Jules. It's so complex. I like that Blush just sends you whatever the crap they decide to send you. No customization at all! So simple.

If you are a fine lady who is subscribed to unnecessary beauty boxes and who has too much bathroom stuff, a strategy you might want to consider is to call your landlords and tell them the knob in your bathtub is leaking. A few days later you will come home to a new shower and a new wall in your bathroom, and a fine coating of construction dust on everything. You will then have to go through every single thing in your bathroom and dust it off. And you will find that a lot of the bathroom items you've had for years are super crappy compared to the fancy new items you've been receiving in your Blush Mystery Beauty Box and why do you even still have this crap, and you will get rid of a lot of stuff. You're welcome!