Julep Maven Mystery Box

Happy Belated New Year to everyone!!!! Last week, I got an email from Julep Maven with an offer for a 'Mystery Box' for $20. After seeing how much some other bloggers got in their boxes, I decided to check it out!

 I'm definitely glad that I did as I got way more than $20 worth of products! I got:

                                 *Julep Nail Appliques- similar to Sally Hansen Salon Effects

                                                 *Glycolic Hand Scrub and Hand Brightener

                                                                 *Lip gloss in Arousal

                                                    *Julep polishes in Holly, Stella and Diane

                                                                      *Julep nail file

I definitely can't wait to try everything out! To find out more about the Julep Maven program, you can check out their website here.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

I was pleasantly surprised on Black Friday to FINALLY find the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Houndstooth at Wal-Mart! I had been looking for a few months to try them out, but everytime I looked they only had the ugly ones left!

The instructions are fairly simple and straightforward:

In reality, it's a bit more difficult than they make it out to be (isn't it always though?!) I had a really hard time getting the backing off without messing the strip up. I found that you just kind of have to play with it to get it to come off.

Placement was a little difficult too- I had to peel it off once or twice to get it in the best position. I was a little concerned that the adhesive would be not as good, but it has stayed on fine. Just to give it a little more shine and stay power, I put a coat of Julep Topcoat on it.

This is how the end result looked though:

Overall, I was pleased with them and will definitely try another design. It was not extremely difficult and as I am not very good with doing designs, it definitely is much better than anything I could do myself!

I took them off 8 days later, but they could have lasted much longer. There were minimal chips, but they held up much better than regular nail polish. To get them off, I soaked my nails in polish remover for a minute and scrubbed them off.

Be sure to check out my NARS Danmari cheek palette giveaway!

Holiday NOTD Using my new Konad!

As it is nearing Christmas, I thought it would be fun to do something a little festive for my NOTD:

 This was my first try with my new Konad stamper! I used Sephora by OPI Charge It! for the pattern on my middle fingers.

I also used the glitter I got with my December Julep Box on my thumbs

                       For the base color, I used Wocka Wocka by OPI's  Muppet Collection

It's kind of sloppy because I was in a hurry, and the color is much more of a deep red than the pictures show :{

Overall, I like the Konad. It takes some getting used to and practice, but seems like it will be a lot of fun in the future!

December Julep Maven Box

So, right after I got the Julep Maven Introductory box I got the December box! Everything was wrapped and festive looking for the holidays!

It came with Pomegranate Body Creme, the Julep Fast Dry Topcoat and Helena a fuschia color polish.

I have a NOTD coming soon using Helena, but this is what the color looks like. The clear topcoat I was actually pretty impressed with as well. It dried quickly and left a nice shine. The only bad thing was that it smelled really bad- much worse than normal polish.

I did like the Pomegranate body creme as well. It has a nice smell to it without being overwhelming.

It's thicker and very moisturizing, but can leave a greasy feeling...

And for the holidays, they included an extra!

This month I was definitely more impressed than with my November box! I can't wait now to see what will be in my next month's box!

For anyone who is interested in finding out about the pregram, you can check it out here: http://www.julep.com/AP.aspx?ID=520&EID=16053501

Julep Maven Introductory Box

So I FINALLY got my introductory Julep Maven box last week! Unfortunately, the last one got lost in the mail and I had to call them to get a new one sent out which took FOREVER to get to me! Everything came in this cute little bag:

With 2 letters:

For around $9 with tax and shipping, I got 2 nail polishes, a full size Glycolic Hand Scrub and a sample of the hand scrub as well as a lotion sample.

The Glycolic Hand Scrub is amazing and a life saver for me because my clinicals dry my hands out like crazy! I will definitely buy a new one once I'm out of this one! It has a nice smell and isn't too rough on my hands, but still leaves them softer.

The 2 nail polishes that I got were Cameron (the pink) and Alfre (the purpleish one). I haven't got a chance to try out Alfre. I tried Cameron, but forgot to take a picture - It is MUCH more bright and hot pink than it looks in the bottle!

Overall, I was much more pleased with this box than the monthly box that they sent me.

If you are interested, you can check out their introductory offer here: http://www.julep.com/AP.aspx?ID=520&EID=16053501

Nicole by OPI Hard-Kourt Fashionista

After the whole Kim Kardashian 72 day wedding ordeal, I had wholly planned on boycotting anything that they put out. However, they recently released a nail polish collection with Nicole by OPI and caught me at a weak moment when I was grocery shopping at Wal-Mart!

I got two polishes- Disco Dolls and Hard-Kourt Fashionista. I haven't had a chance to try out Disco Dolls yet, but I think it's gonna be my favorite!

I tried the other one, Hard-Kourt Fashionista today and like it as a nice fall color. It is kind of a dark, almost black burgundy-purple color:

All of the nail blogs that I've been looking at lately have gotten me to want to improve on my nail skills, so I ordered a Konad stamping kit today and am looking forward to trying it out. If anyone has any good tips for using it, I would love to hear them as I have NEVER tried anything like that!

Julep Maven November box

Recently I signed up for the Julep Maven program. Basically it's like a polish of the month type of thing. The intro box is $5 and comes with 2 polishes and their glycolic hand scrub which I was really excited about, but it got lost in the mail and they had to resend it :(   I did receive the November box though and this is what it came with:

                        *A sample size Age Defying Hand Brightener, Hand Cream and Glycolic Hand Scrub

                                                     *Theme Card (Kind of like in Birchbox)

                            *Lipgloss in a coppery shade and nail polish in Selena, a light green shade

                                                                *A cute makeup bag

This is the website if anyone is interested in checking it out: http://www.julep.com/AP.aspx?ID=520&EID=16053501
The code I used to get the first box for $5 was WELCOMEMV5 - or you can just google Julep coupon codes because they always have them!

Nails Inc. Magnetic Polish Review

So, for some exciting news- I now have my very own Youtube channel!! Yay!!! Also Yikes- Me in full on video format for the world to see is a little scary!! But my channel is called BeautyHolic88 and you can check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/user/BeautyHolic88

In other news, I have finally gotten around to trying out my magnetic polish and I really like it! So I will include my video review as well as just my regular review. I check out blogs while I'm at work (I know- shame on me!!) and can't watch videos, so I like to be able to see what's going on in text!

 I got the Nails Inc. Magnetic Polish in Houses of Parliament from Sephora for $16. That's kind of steep for a polish, but it has a magnet on the lid and the magnetic flecks inside and I just really wanted to try a magnetic polish, so I paid it anyway...

The process for the magnetic polish is slightly different from normal polishes. You first put a light coat on each nail and let it dry.

After that coat is completely dry, you put a heavy coat and immediately take the magnet part and hold it over the wet polish while wiggling it slightly and go nail by nail.

The magnet makes cute little wiggly designs on the nail. One problem though is that it sometimes just kind of makes a blotch on the nail if you don't do the magnet just right.



Overall, I really like the polish and would probably buy it again in a different shade. I do hope that the price gradually goes down though!