Julep Maven Promo Code & Referral Information

Want to become a Julep Maven?  Here is a Promo Code to get your first box free & my referral code!

Referral Link:  http://www.julep.com/rewardsref/index/refer/id/535869/
Promo Code:  FREEBOX
Referral Code:  41261913 (should populate automatically when you check out)

If you sign up they will also email you other code options for different types of first box deals if you want more options. 

All you pay is shipping, but if you get $10 in add-ons when you check out, shipping is free!

Also, if you subscribe to a Monthly "My Maven" subscription, the free box discount is $24.99.  If you sign up for the 3 month plan, the discount comes out to be $19.99.

Happy Polishing!

e.l.f. Beauty Bundle - Naturally Beautiful! (March 2014)

The latest Beauty Bundle has arrived!  This box's theme is "Naturally Beautiful!"   I subscribed to the e.l.f. (eyeslipsface) beauty bundle for 1 year (they let you prepay), and I was curious if I had timed it right so that I would get the next bundle and not the previous one.  Even the day I ordered it I saw people with new youtube videos of the previous bundle.  But I went for it and hoped I would be one of the first with the new bundle so I would be surprised when I dug into my little black drawstring bag.  I posted about all of that here.  Anyway, I timed it will and I got the latest beauty bundle yesterday!  :)  Time for my $40 worth of full sized beauty products!!

It came in the beauty bundle box with their beauty bundle bag wrapped in hot pink tissue paper (the bag is under the products here):

Very exciting!  Here is what the bundle contained:

• 6-Piece Geometric Eyeshadow Palette ($3)
• Eyeshadwo Primer in Sheer ($3)
• Mineral Eye Liner in Ash ($3)
• Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear Mascara ($1)
• Natural Volumizing Mascara ($5)
• Mineral Lipstick in Natural Nymph ($5)
• Mineral Infused Face Primer ($6)
• 22-Piece Mini On the Go Palette ($10)
• Eye Shadow Brush ($1)
• Lotion Wipes ($3)

If you add the total up, it comes out to exactly $40, just as advertised!

Additional Pictures of the Beauty Bundle as it came:

This image has the Naturally Beautiful card in it, too.  Each Beauty Bundle comes with a card describing the theme and each of the items and their value.

The mineral lipstick, eyeshadow primer, volumizing mascara, and eye liner in their boxes:

I am really looking forward to trying more of the items from the mineral line.  I typically buy the essential items when I am traveling and need something quick because I forgot it or it I am bored and want to entertain myself by trying something new (in the hotel where I can immediately wash it off if it looks bad).

The two $1 items from the essential line:

I have never tried the clear mascara and brow mascara, but it will be fun to play with.  I typically like dark mascara though although playing with makeup is always fun so who knows what i will do with this one - translation:  I will probably try it!  I have a bunch of elf brushes.  I have one of these essential eyeshadow brushes that I use when I travel because I like the sleeve they come in and I won't mind messing it up or losing it although at home I use brushes from the studio line.

I have geometric eyeshadow palettes from elf and one is actually in my regular rotation for eyeshadow.  I will probably make this one a travel one though since it's smaller.  I tried the lotion wipes and they actually did a pretty decent job of moisturizing.  I might take these to work and use them if I feel dry at the office.  I have a lot of lotion at home so I feel like i wouldn't use them if I kept them there.

Since I travel a lot, I previously purchased one of these palettes because I thought it would be fun to play with when I travel.  It has 10 eyeshadow shades, 5 lip colors, and 3 blushes.  There is also a tiny mascara.  I used it this past week when I was out of town and used the pink eyeshadows and the blush.  I used the lip colors in the airport and ended up mixing them to get a custom color.  I didn't really like the tiny brush, but it worked and was conventient in the palette.  I have not tried the mascara, but I can imagine that it would be good on the go.  Now that I have two of these, I might take the new one to work.

And a couple of shots of the overall set:

Julep March Lucky Mystery Box - March 2014

After the March boxes were sent out, Julep offered mystery boxes for the month of March with the Lucky theme.  Three boxes came with green themed special colors, and one box was a total mystery - for $24.99 you would get $100 worth of product.  Apparently I am a sucker for the surprise and decided to go for it.  :)

This box came with 8 bottles of nail lacquer in 3 different bundles.  Here is the overall set:

The first, second, and sixth have the plastic wrap on them still.  The rest were in boxes.  The ones in the plastic wrap instead of boxes are the ones you can get onsale on the website, too.

A little glare on Ursula and Audrey in this pic, but it shows the names for each color.

Here is the collection from this box (clicking on each name will open the link to the color on Julep's website in a new window):

• Ursula (on sale for $2.99) - blackest black crème crackle
• Audrey (on sale for $7.99) - Soft light pink microshimmer
• Jodie ($14/$11.20 Maven) - Rosy mauve with gold shimmer
• Missy ($14/$11.20) - Titanium metallic
• Reece ($14/$11.20 Maven) - Holographic shimmer
• Diane (on sale for $6.99) - Dark forest green crème
• Olivia ($14/$11.20 Maven) - Rich and graceful, dark chocolate truffle crème
• Shenae ($14/$11.20 Maven) - Pastel mint green opalescent shimmer

Maven total:  $73.97 for all of the items.  Non Maven total to just buy all of these items would be $87.97.  While it definitely is a good deal, the fact that it is advertised as $100 in product is misleading to me when sale items are being offered.  I would expect the Non Maven prices to buy the items to total $100, but as we have seen before, it's the original retail prices that they count in the mystery boxes.  Still, it was a great deal!!  I do not regret this purchase!!


More pictures from the unboxing:

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Also, I have to admit that I am pretty excited about the April "It Girl" box!  Check back for pics of that one!  Here is the preview:

I am curious what Maren will look like - Electric bubblegum sheer with blue sheen...can't wait to swatch that one!!!

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Julep promo code and referral information HERE!

Kleancolor Matte Collection

I fell in love with a fun color (a bright blue matte called Slumber Party) in the Kleancolor Matte Collection, and when I started looking at the collection as a whole, I decided I had to have it.  The collection has 12 opaque colors, 17 metallics, and 13 glitters.

When I opened the box to take out all of these polishes, the first thing I noticed is that they changed the caps on this collection to look matte!  I know it was not a permanent change because they have other colors (the scented) in a later collection that have the original caps.  Very nice touch to make matte caps, if you ask me.

OPAQUES

The colors shown here:

265 Madly Black
262 Lush Blue
260 Sensual Lagoon
261 Slumber Party
263 Berry Twist
255 Savvy Pink
256 Fashion District
257 Oh So Hot
258 Lime Tickle
254 Winter Waltz
259 Mellow Khaki
264 Cherry Mocha

Here are some swatches of these colors.

METALLICS

The order of the colors shown in these images:

267 Simply Charcoal
279 Daring Creation
278 Reflection Teal
280 Blue Mist
281 Cosmic Blue
282 My My Sapphire
277 Bright & Breezy
276 Just Like Juliet
271 Be Wild with Class
275 Cast a Love Spell
270 Flower Botique
269 Whisper Pink
268 Dolly Pink
266 Happy New Phase!
272 Life in Gold Castle
273 Oh So Teasing
274 Smile Now, Cry Later

Here are the swatches in that order.  You can kind of see here, but Just Like Juliet is the only one that has a different sheen to the metallic.  The microglitter in that one is different than the others.

GLITTER

Here is the order I have these colors:

294 Beyond Time & Space
290 Score High, Spend Low
292 Decades of Bond
295 Yogurt Raisins
293 I Do, Romeo
286 Tangy Lemon
287 On-Off Relationship
288 Coastal Cruising
285 Playful Lavender
284 Dancing Pink
283 Blush Pink
289 Poppy Field
291 Everyday is My Birthday

Here are the swatches on these.  As you can see, the Yogurt Raisins color is more like a gray jelly with black & white glitter.  My favorite is Everyday is My Birthday which is mostly gold glitter with a little bit of white in it.  The white, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, other pink, and orangish red glitters are all the same type and size of glitter just in different colors.  The first three are black, black + silver, and black + silver + white.

Overall a good collection, but I need to see what happens if you put this glitter over regular polish - will it mattify that polish?

OTHER

The set I bought also included the following polishes from Kleancolor so I figured I would share what they are.

1 Clear
3 Calcium
4 White
5 Black
90 Madly Matte
108 Top Coat

The matte top coat from Kleancolor has already been around for a while.  I already owned it before I bought this set.

I need to spend some time comparing these colors with some of my other kleancolor colors and also seeing what happens if you add regular topcoat to these or if you add matte glitter to regular polish.  So, I have some experimentation to do going forward.  I will share when I do!!

e.l.f. beauty bundle...on the way!

I have a lot of products from eyeslipsface.com (e.l.f. cosmetics, or elf for short), and I find that the brand is a good mix of quality and low price that you can try new things without a huge financial commitment.  As someone who does her makeup for fun rather than vanity, the value or low priced fun things to try is accentuated.  Needless to say, I like to make purchases from elf.

When you are on their website or just scouring the internet (youtube, in particular), you can see that elf cosmetics has started a subscription service called the beauty bundle.  It gets high reviews because it includes full sized products, and I love the option to pre-pay a one year (6 box) or six month (3 box) subscription (which I ended up doing because I hate people just taking money from me when I might not expect it...and I think it's in the nature of being a transactor instead of a revolver).  You can look at reviews on youtube to see what previous boxes have offered.  It looks fun.  Sure, there are things that you wouldn't typically buy, but the fun of the surprise is one of the appeals to a subscription box.  Plus, it might get you to try something new!

The thing is, I wanted to know when the boxes came out.  I know they come out every 8 weeks, but do they send all of the boxes at once?  Do they keep rolling subscriptions over an 8 week period until the next one and send out a new box?  I wanted to know what the timing of the boxes was - when is a new box released.  In particular, if I subscribe now (March 13), will I be getting a box that I have seen two months of youtube reviews on or will I get something new?

Even today I saw a youtube video POSTED TODAY of the New Year New You box from January.  I actually like the box, but the surplus of videos I have seen on the box means that there would be no surprise if I received it in the mail.  I want to time it so that I am one of the first to get a new box!  Especially if me signing up later in an 8 week cycle means that I will have seen tons of reviews showing me exactly what is in my box before i ever get mine.

Here is an image of the New Year New You bundle (although recent reviews show a couple of substitutions):

So, I took the chance and placed the order today for a new one year elf beauty bundle subscription.  I tried to look at youtube videos and see when people changed from posting about the holiday bundle and started posting about the new year new you bundle.  Shipping is supposed to take 10 days so we will see 10 days from now what I end up getting.  I really hope I timed it will and will get the next box in the line-up.  Based on the website where they show previous bundles, the New Year New You bundle is one of the previous ones.  Wish me luck!!  I will post which one I got when it arrives!



UPDATE:  on my elf account it shows that my current edition is "Naturally Beautiful Beauty" so I think the next edition is Naturally Beautiful, and that's what I am getting!  It doesn't show any shipping information, but all signs point to me getting the next edition!  So excited!!  I will post pics no matter what!

UPDATE 2:  IT ARRIVED!  Click here to see what I got!!  :)

Julep Cupid's Mystery Boxes - February 2014

In February, Julep offered 3 versions of the mystery box you could choose from.  Each box was $24.99 and promised to have $75 worth of product in it.

1)  Mani Lover
2)  Pedi Lover
3)  Makeup Lover

They also offered a $10 add-on worth >$40.  When I read the description it made it sound like there would be no dupicates so why not order all of the boxes.  I was curious and decided to order all of them, two with the mystery add-on, and one with an add-on for a color I just thought was pretty when the add-on page popped up.

Here is what I got (in the order I received them)...

BOX 1:  MAKEUP LOVER

This box's included color was Lindy.  This box was pretty small, but it did not

Included Polish:  Blank Canvas Mattifying Eye Primer  ($22.00/$17.60)
Sweep Eyeshadow Palette - Neutrals ($24.00/$19.20)
1 oz. Rock Star Hand Cream
Julep Lengthening Mascara - Brown (on sale $12.99)

Polish in addition to Lindy:
America the Beautiful (on sale $2.99)
Nan (on sale $2.99)

With Maven prices, the mani box comes out to $66.97 plus what the 1 oz. Rock Star hand cream would be (I am assuming 1/4 of the full price so $4 for Mavens making the total $70.97).  Non-maven prices gets you to $78.97 plus the value of the hand cream (and assuming it's $5 that puts the total to $83.97).  Sale prices are used to calculate value not original prices which you will obviously see that used to calculate the value of add-ons.

BOX 2:  PEDI LOVER

This box's included color was Aphrodite.  Description:  "This Cupid's Mystery Box is packed with $75 of pedi-themed polish and product, including a bottle of Aphrodite - Classic with a Twist, a rose with silver metallic micro glitter."

The add-ons were on the top:

Products:
Double Step ($22.00/$17.60 Maven)
Mint Condition Pedi Creme ($20.00/$16.00 Maven)
Foot File ($6.00/$4.80 Maven)

Polish in addition to Aphrodite (which I am assuming $14.00/$11.20 Maven):
Claudette (on sale $4.99)
Karen (on sale $2.99)

Add-on:
Stefani (on sale $6.99)
Angela  (on sale$6.99)
Kennedy (on sale $3.99)
The sum of these add-ons is only $17.97 so I wouldn't consider this to be over $40 worth of product.

MY ADD ON:  Karen (on sale $2.99)

The value of the pedi box came out to be $57.58 for maven prices (including sale prices).  For non-mavens (and including sale prices), the total comes out to $69.98.  Not $75 either way - just like the add-on.

BOX 3:  MANI LOVER

This box came with Venus as the included color.

Add-on colors pulled out from top of box...they look familiar...

The layer underneath with the mani goods:

The beauty items in this box:
1 oz. Rock Star hand cream
Nail file
Freedom Polymer Topcoat ($18.00/$14.40 Maven)
Mighty Cuticle & Nail Serum ($28.00/$22.40 Maven)

The other colors (besides Venus which is assumed to be $14.00/$11.20 Maven) in this box:
America the Beautiful ($2.99 sale)
Bette ($6.99 sale)
Madison ($14.00/$11.20 Maven)

The value of this box comes out to $69.18 plus the value of the hand cream and nail file.  The value using non-maven prices comes out to $83.98 plus the value of the nail file and hand cream.  Makes the duplicates from the make-up box more forgivable when you look at it from that point of view.

SUMMARY 

There were a few things that annoyed me about the Cupid's Mystery Boxes:
1.  There were duplicates in the Makeup & Mani boxes of America the Beautiful & the Rock Star hand cream.
2.  The $10 mystery add-on was the same for two different boxes.   I was hoping they would be more box unique.  I was also hoping that they would be worth $40 as advertised.  The sale prices mean I could have just gone out and purchased the add-ons for $17.97.  Furthermore, since I got two identical sets, I paid more than that and now have polish to give away.
3.  I feel like they just got rid of a bunch of old polish that was already on sale.  If this is the case, I think the sale prices should be accounted for in the value of boxes although only one box fell short of that if you looked at non-maven prices (just like monthly boxes are valued at over $40 for 3 polishes because non-maven prices is $14 even though maven prices are $11.20).
4.  I had the option to add on Karen when I got my pedi lover box and did but then it was included in the box.  It was irritating to get two of the same polish in my box.  If they knew they were offering that color I with they could not include it in available add-ons.

Would I recommend a mystery box?  Probably if you didn't have many Julep products, liked taking chances, and/or especially if you liked a special color like they did in these boxes (and have again in March).  I have not ordered a March mystery box yet.  March boxes have a value of $100 for $24.99 with a $9.99 add-on worth $42 or a $14.99 add-on worth $63.  Tempting, isn't it??  Yeah...there is a good chance I will go there.  Just checked - the $14.99 add-on at checkout is out of stock!

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If you aren't a Julep Maven and want to become one, use this link to take the style quiz and the promo code FREEBOX to get your first box for free!  You just have to pay shipping or buy $10 in their great deal add-ons to get free shipping.

Julep Maven - February 2014 "Classic With a Twist" Box

Since February is the month of love, I decided to go for the Julep Maven box that had the most Valentine's Day themed colors I could find.  I was not disappointed when I selected Classic With a Twist even though I am normally an It Girl.   (If you want to become a Maven, take the style quiz here and use the promo code FREEBOX to get your first box free - just pay shipping.)

It came with:
Greta (loganberry multidimensional microglitter) - http://www.julep.com/greta.html
Octavia (smoky indigo crème) - http://www.julep.com/octavia.html
Love - a special gold/multicolor glitter this month from Jane, the CEO & founder of Julep!

You also were able to select a shade of the eye sheen.  I love eye makeup so I thought this would be fun, too!  The color I selected was "Warm Fig Shimmer."

You can see from the pictures below that the eye shimmer came in a very small jar. 

Overall, it was a great box, and I was very pleased with what I got in it.  In fact, I was so pleased, I got another box from February!

...sorry my February posts are a little late...but better late than never...