#nailartapr

I Bought This 

Sorry for the lack of posts!  I lost my camera battery and charger. :(  I've been looking everywhere, but I can't remember where I might have left it.  I'm going to borrow someone's camera or use my phone, until I find it (or maybe buy a new battery...).  But for now, here's the nail art I did in April for @californails' challenge:

Click for the nail art!

Julep Maven: April 2013 Classic with a Twist (Avery, Jackie) Swatches

I Bought This

I veered away from It Girl this month because I only liked 2 out of 3 of the colors.  Instead, I opted for Classic with a Twist, because I liked both colors and I wanted to try the cuticle serum.  And then I added on the 2 colors from It Girl that I did like, haha.  I'm quite happy with these colors because I don't really have brights and these will be great for the summer season. 

Classic with a Twist came with 2 polishes and the Nail and Cuticle Serum, plus a rock candy lollipop as an extra little something.  The 2 polishes in my box are Avery and Jackie, both cremes and both seem perfect for the upcoming summer!

Click for swatches.

SWATCH: Julep - Joy

Just a short little post about my add-on from my March Julep Maven box today!  This is Joy, a dusty mauve creme polish, and she was part of the Boho Glam box for March.  I loved this color after seeing Julep's swatches, but didn't love the other color in Boho Glam, so I passed on that box.  But I couldn't pass on Joy, so here she is!

  

in the shade & in the sun

And with a matte top coat on middle and pinky fingers:

  

in the shade & in the sun

I used 2 coats of polish for the swatches above.  I also used a glossy top coat for the first two pictures.  This one applied really well with no streaks!  I'm very happy with it, and it will be a great work-safe addition to my collection. :)

Julep Maven: March 2013 It Girl (Shenae, Simone, Teri) Swatches

I finally received my Julep box for March!  It was delayed due to an error in their system, according to an email Julep sent me on March 8th.  I was quite annoyed because they waited so long to let me know, all the while I was waiting and thinking it got lost.  Anyway, I'm glad they fixed it and that the box finally got here!

I almost skipped this one, but in the end, my love of pastels overcame my willpower.  Julep also advertised this collection with a matte top coat, saying that it made the polishes look like sidewalk chalk from our childhood.  I really liked the look of it with the matte top coat, so that was another point in favor of getting it, haha. 

Click through for hand swatches.

Julep Maven: February 2013 It Girl (Joan, Marion, Rebel) Swatches

The amount of photos I have from London/Paris is quite intimidating, so I haven't taken the time to sort through them just yet.  While I'm procrastinating on that, I thought I'd share with you my February Julep Maven box.  This came while I was away, so it was nice surprise when I got home.

I actually debated getting the full collection this month because I liked quite a few of the colors AND there were several holographic polishes.  Also, I kind of wanted to try that Oxygen base coat thing.  But in the end, I decided on the It Girl box because it had the color I really wanted (Joan) and the holographic color that I really wanted (Rebel), and also because an upgrade wasn't quite in the budget for me.

(Side note: my profile is supposed to be Boho Glam, but I can't even remember the last time I got that one. I'm really glad they let you choose which box you want, and also that they let you skip.)

Anyway, on to the pictures!

All the February boxes came with the Freedom top coat which is supposed to be like a gel top coat without all the hassle.  I think all the boxes also came with an eyelash curler (in the pouch) and some chocolate (hidden under the eyelash curler, lol).

I think these Swatch Me stickers are quite handy, but you can't really tell from the swatch that Rebel is holographic.  You can't really see the pretty gold flecks in Joan either...But I still like the idea of these stickers. :)

And this time around, I actually had time to swatch all of the colors.  I feel so proud that I'm really working on swatching more now.

First up is Rebel.  I had a hard time photographing this one.  It's a silver holographic polish, but I find the holo-ness to be quite subtle compared to other holo polishes I've seen.  Still very pretty though!

Click through for more swatches of Rebel, plus swatches of Joan and Marion!

SWATCH: Julep - Lisa

I'm going to IMATS LA today, and this polish is what I'm wearing.  It's Julep Lisa, which is a green-based gray.  This polish is a bit of a chameleon in color, changing depending on the light.  Sometimes, it looks olive green, other times it looks taupe-y. Either way, it's a pretty neutral creme!

The formula for this was kind of watery, but it still applied pretty well.  It was smooth going on, and I used two coats to achieve the opacity in the pictures above.

I'm hoping to catch up on a bunch of swatches this long weekend, so expect a bunch of posts coming up! :)  Also, look forward to an IMATS haul post.  I love seeing other people's, so I thought I would do one too.  Stay tuned!

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 4 - Candy Cane Nails!

I was on track with this challenge and meant to post my Candy Cane nails yesterday, but I went to a family birthday party and the day just got away from me, haha.  So here they are now!

To create this manicure, I used two coats of Julep Kate as my base.  Then I used striping tape to create the lines.  I had to double up the tape to create the thicker lines, but I didn't put them close enough on several of my nails, as you can see, and some of the red bled through. :/  It was my first time using striping tape, so I'm learning from this.  But still, I like how it turned out!  The red I used was Butter London Knees Up, and I finished it off with one coat of Seche Vite.  First time doing Candy Cane nails, and I'd say it's a success!  :)

Also, please check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty

12 Days of Christmas Nail Art Challenge: Day 3 - Snowflakes

Today I have for you my first attempt at nail art with a brush.  This was what I got after three tries of trying to make snowflakes, lol.  I'm not super happy with it, but I figured snowflakes are not always perfect and they never look the same, so this was okay.  I guess with more practice I may get better.

I used two coats of Julep Eloise as my base and then used Julep Kate for the snowflakes.  As you can see, the snowflakes are not super opaque.  There are some transparent spots, that now that I look at it, kind of gives a shading effect, haha.  Oh well.  I think I'll take this as a learning experience and keep practicing with my nail art brushes!  Also, sorry for the state of my cuticles and lack of cleanup!  I was rushing a bit to try and get this up before the day was out, which didn't happen, gahhh~  

Let me know if you have any tips for nail art/using brushes!  Or is it just a keep practicing kind of thing? :)

Also, please check out the other participants of this challenge:
XOXO Alexis Leigh
Purple Castle
It's All About the Polish
A Ginger's Nail
The Polished Mommy
Robyn Loves Nails
Teen Polish Junkie
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Mari522 (on Instagram)
nailzbyroro (on Instagram)
Artigo Beauty

Julep Maven: October 2012

I'm back with my October Julep Maven box.  I almost skipped this month, because most of the boxes came with crackle, and I didn't like the 1 box that didn't have crackle.   The crackle trend is pretty much dead, IMO, and I think many people felt the same way because Julep came out with another option this month and that is the Maven's Choice box.  It came with 3 creme polishes from the October boxes, but no drops.  I really wanted to try the drops, so I debated whether to get the American Beauty box or the Maven's Choice box.  The American Beauty box came with a dusty indigo creme polish named Eloise and an orange crackle named Sabrina, which I thought was a pretty unique color for a crackle and was the reason I was thinking of getting it.  But then I decided it would be better to just get Maven's Choice and add on the drops, since I was also going to add on Sofia anyway.  And ta-da:

l-r: lisa, eloise, keira, sofia, quick dry drops

Julep included several extras this month.  As you can see in the last picture, there's glitter!  I got orange and black, which is perfectly fine with me because it's October and those will be great for Halloween.  But I know some people got white and silver, which would have been nice and more versatile.  The other extra was candy corn, which is a Halloween staple, but I'm not a fan of it.  I'll probably give it away.  Anyway, I hope to do swatches soon!  At the very least, I will do skittle swatches if I can't do full hand swatches right away.

Also, I was playing with lighting and angles and stuff today, so that I can try to be better about swatching and photographing for this little blog.  (Maybe you can tell, by some of the over-brightness of the photos, lol.)  That's one of the main reasons my blogging schedule is so wonky.  By the time I get home from school and/or interning, it's already dark.  And that'll be even more so with winter coming up.  Can't believe it's already October!!

Until next time~

SWATCH: Julep - O Canada!

Today I have a swatch of Julep's O Canada! polish, which I added on to my Julep Maven box this month.  It is a glitter polish, with mostly small round opalescent glitter and sparse red hexagon glitter in a clear base.  You definitely need a base color for this polish, I think. For these swatches, I used Julep Kate as my base.  I started with 4 coats of that and then applied 2 coats of O Canada!  

in the shade

in the sun

in the sun, a better view of the glitter

in the shade

in the sun

I'm not in love with it...I think layering it over white doesn't really do the opalescent glitter justice, since you can't really see it.  Also, the white polish doesn't look so great on my nails, to begin with.  I'll have to try it with other base colors and see if it grows on me...As far as application goes, I think it's pretty hard to mess up glitter polish.  It's very forgiving in application, and I've never had a problem with applying a glitter polish.  This is no exception!  It applied really well, so no problems there.

IN THE RING: Julep Daphne vs. Julep Miranda

As I mentioned in my last post, I've already found a dupe for Julep Daphne!  It just so happens that I had Julep Miranda, from my introductory Julep Maven box from August of last year.  These two polishes are almost identical!

julep miranda vs julep daphne

You can already tell just by looking at the bottles that these two polishes are very similar.  I think Miranda, on the left, is just a tad bit greener, but maybe that's just me.

Sometimes polishes may look differently when applied, even though they look similar in the bottle, so I decided to swatch them side by side:

pinky+middle = miranda & ring+index = daphne

You can see there is a slight difference in this photo.  Miranda is slightly lighter, and still looks a tad more green to me here.

index+ring = daphne & middle+pinky = miranda

pinky+middle = miranda & ring+index = daphne

But as seen in the last two pictures, the difference is really hardly noticeable.  It's definitely not a big enough difference to need both these polishes in your collection.  I'm kind of disappointed, since these are both Julep polishes and they are SO alike.  It's almost like they took Miranda and slapped another name on it, and then called it a new polish.  So if you have one, skip the other!

SWATCH: Julep Daphne

Ok, let's start swatching my July Julep Maven polishes! :)  First up is Julep Daphne which is a pretty dusty teal color with a creme finish, but it's not very unique.  I've already found a dupe for it in my collection, and it's a polish from Julep too!  Post on that coming soon~  But for now, here's is Daphne:

This applied very well!  It took two coats to reach this opacity, and the formula was neither too thick or too thin.  I like it, but it's not a must have for me, especially because I already have a polish like it.

Julep Maven: July 2012

Hello there!  It's been a while hasn't it?  I got caught up in school and my internship and just let this little ol' blog go.  Basically, I got lazy.  All I pretty much wanted to do was bum, when I wasn't at school or my internship, lol.  But I'm back!!  Summer is here, and I've got quite a bit of time to swatch and take pictures.  Yayy!

To start off, here's my Julep Maven box for July!

I usually get Boho Glam, but this time I decided to go for It Girl.  I didn't want the lip gloss the other boxes came with, but I wanted the America polish, so it kinda seemed like my only option, haha.  I wasn't thrilled with the polish colors, since I'm not a big fan of white polish (usually streaky) and I already have several colors like the dusty teal that Daphne is, but I could live with them.

l-r: Daphne, Kate, Mila, America

If you notice, America looks like it's not filled to the top.  It seems like the polish settled, but I think it's like that because it's a very thick polish.  It doesn't move at all when I shake the bottle!  And when I opened the bottle, it was goopy and you can hardly tell there are any stars in it.  I was quite disappointed by this, since this was the polish I was most looking forward to.  Also, I was hoping to wear it for 4th of July, but it arrived this past Friday, the 6th of July.  Bummer.  I've contacted Julep about it, to see if it's truly supposed to be like this.  We'll see what they say!  Maybe when I swatch it I'll like it better.  But for now, I'm sure there are better star glitter polishes out there...

add ons: O Canada! and Chelsea

I decided to add on O Canada! and Chelsea because I really liked the look of them.  I liked all the glitters this month, so it was tough to choose which ones to add on.  This was my best solution. xD  I'll just have to get Yumi some other time, I guess!

Swatches coming soon.  And lots of other things I want to post about, like my IMATS haul!  I'm going to try posting at least twice a week, starting now!  Stay tuned~! :]

Julep Maven: October 2011

I'm back with another Julep Maven box!  If you don't know what Julep Maven is, you can check out my other post on it, from when I got my first box.  It's basically a nail polish version of Birchbox.

I skipped last month's box because it didn't appeal to me...the polish color looked too much like Miranda, which I had gotten in my first box.  This month's box came with 2 polishes and a hand care product, and oh yeah, it was free!  Julep decided to comp this month's box for those who signed up during a certain period due to a mistake on their part during that time.  It was very generous of them!  Thank you Julep!  Now onto the unboxing:

it came in a bag again, though a smaller one this time...

with a cute maroon bow tied on top...

the polishes still all wrapped up...

the 2 polishes: gayle & malin and age defying hand brightener

top: gayle (eggplant purple), bottom: malin (frosty light pink)

I was really excited for Gayle!  It's definitely my kind of color and a perfect color for fall.  I have yet to try Olivia from my last box, as I was saving it for fall (should be swatching it soon ;]), but can't wait to try Gayle too!  Malin is not really my color...I like light pinks, but am not a fan of frosty polishes.  I'll have to see how I like it after I swatch it...

Speaking of swatches, no new ones just yet.  That manicure I got with the red polish?  It stained my nails, even though she used a base coat. =.=;;  I'm waiting for the stain to disappear before swatching again...probably another day or so.

P.S. If you're interested in signing up for Julep Maven, please consider using my link.  I get $15 in referral credit if you do. ^^