Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Sparkles By Julie - Swatches, Swatches, & More Swatches!!!

I am thrilled to be able to share these polishes with you all! This order was such a pleasure from start to finish. I can not say enough good things about this brand. First and foremost, its not just a storm of glitter. This brand has it all. These polishes have a fantastic formula (all but one which was very problematic), they are one to two coaters and are just beautiful. 

First up is Murky Waters, Moon Dust and Nubula



Murky Waters is described as "A murky blue color with light silver shimmer, almost metallic!". Very accurate. It needs two thin coats to be opaque and is smooth and fantastic to use. All three of these first ones are more or less identical in formula. They all need two thin coats and are neither too thin nor too thick. Moon Dust is the only one that was a tiny bit streaky. But I did really fast coats and I do not honestly think it will be an issue as long as you take more than 4 seconds to paint the nail.


Moondust is described as a metallic grey or silver like in color. It dries on matte and looks like, well, moondust. This polish is really the grey version of the one above.


Nebula is pretty much a peachy red version of the above two, but instead of silver shimmer its holographic. Just like the other two it dries pretty much to a matte-ish metallic and was a dream to work with. It is described on the website as "a supergirly peachy-red, with a dash of rough holographic powder."


One thin coat of each:


Two thin coats of each. As you can see, I rushed with the Moon Dust and it shows. But even with the 4 second job, the brush strokes are not really visible. This is on macro mode and you can barely see the strokes in person!



Next up is Coco, Bubble Gum and Lost In Space. Just like the first three had very similar finishes and formulas, these three are very similar in formula and finish. All three are glitters in colour bases, all three are opaque in two thin coats and all three dry a little rough. My Dior top coat as well as my Cult Nails top coat all solve the issue and smooth them out but if you were to a use a very thin top coat you may need two coats!



Coco is not described in the store. All it says is "A cup of hot steaming coco(a), on you nails!! This nail polish is kinda inspired by my pet mouse Coco, and a bit inspired by a cup of cocoa". This polish is a brown base with what seems to small gold hex glitter and slightly larger holographic glitter.


Bubble Gum is described as "a sheer pink base packed with purple, pink and holographic glitter in different shapes and sizes". I know what you are all thinking. And no, I do not suddenly love pink. But my mom is still as in love with pink as I am in...... hate of it. So I thought I could share it with you and then give it to her.


Lost In Space is described as "packed with glitter in different colors, shapes and sizes; from tiny holographic, middlesized blue, to big holographic flakes that are submerged in a deep black base just waiting for you to put it on and get lost in its beauty". To my eyes this is really a black base packed with blue green and holographic glitter. It really looks more blue and green in black to me then anything else.


Each nail has one coat:


Two thin coats:



Milky Way, Water Lily and Dots n' Stripes. These were kind of the ones that did not go together. Milky Way and Dots n Stripes are basically glitter top coats. I can not even fathom how many coats one would need for opacity but basically it aint going to happen! Water Lily was maybe the largest surprise as its just gorgeous. So unique and different and just a work of art in a bottle.



Milky Way is meant to be a top coat according to the website. It is not intended to be a stand alone colour. "This nail polish is packed with glitter in different colors, shapes and sizes; from tiny holographic, to duochrome solar flares, to rainbow flakes that are submerged in a clear base"


Water Lily is described as "a beautiful gold shimmering white nail polish, kinda inspired by my pet mouse Lilly, and a bit inspired by the beautiful Water Lily's that magically float around on the murky waters of the world. This polish is packed with gorgeous glitters in gold, holographic, black and a little bit of blue for good measure, do I hear Wedding Bells?". This polish is a silvery blueish white base packed with gold and holographic glitter. The combo of the gold glitter along with the silvery blueish base sounds like an odd combination but it is just amazing in real life. If you get one polish from this line, this is the one to get!


And here is Dots n' Stripes. The one that I was most looking forward too and the one that just does not work. The glitter is too heavy, the base is to thin, and there seems to be too MUCH base. The glitter sinks to the bottom, wont mix in no matter how much I shake it and just wants to fall of the brush. I really had to fight to get the glitter on the brush.


I tried to show the bottle but its hard too see in the photographs. If you look closely you can see all the clear base sitting at the top and all the glitter sunk to the bottom.



One coat of each. Water Lily is more or less opaque after the one coat (middle swatch). The base dries to an almost metallic silvery blueish white back drop for the gorgeousness that is Water Lily.


One coat of Milky Way and Dots n' Stripes over Julep Jessica.


These polishes are 8.00 each or 4.00 for a mini bottle and can be purchased HERE! The communication, shipping, quality, and well just everything was absolutely AMAZING and I highly recommend this seller. I think the best thing is she does not just do glitter bombs. She really understands her formulas and has a variety of finishes.

EDIT:
Within about 10 minutes of posting this review I got the following message from Julie:

"Aloha Shayna! That does not sound right at all, I might have used the wrong base or messed up the ratio. Judging from the picture it seems I might have used the wrong base! I have three different bases, so I probably just grabbed the wrong one when mixing your order =/ 

So sorry about this!! I will send you a replacement bottle tomorrow =) 

Mahalo,
Julie"

Now if that is not AMAZING service, I don't know what is!!! Three thumbs up for Julie!!!

Thinking Of You!

So as you all have noticed I have been MIA the last two weeks. I am more or less back to normally scheduled programming and should be back to posting. I have a PILE (and I mean a pile!!) of bags and boxes of nail polishes that came in the last two week so get ready for a whole bombardment of polishes, both indie and higher end as well as some special deals and discounts just for my readers!

BUT... Before I get into all of them, I just wanted to share with you the most exciting package that was in the pile. I have lots of exciting polishes but this package surprised and touched me and I am just so happy and touched by it I wanted to post it FIRST!!!


Now I am not sure if I have mentioned it before on the blog but I LOVE monkeys. And not just real monkeys. I love love love cartoon monkeys. No idea if she knew this or if it was coincidence but I LOVE IT!!!


Nail-Venturous Floam which she knew I was wanting, and a POP beauty colour because she had heard me say I wanted to try  more of them!!





A MASSIVE thank you to Lauri! You completely made my day!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Secret Flower & Snowflake Exchange Take ONE

So as you all know by now I organize worldwide nail polish swaps on a fairly consistent basis. This time around instead of playing twice like normal I had to play a third time when someone refused to send to the person she was given. I was not going to allow a wonderful sweet girl go without a gift (and this girl was is one of the sweetest) so thus I had to play a third time to make sure she was not without a gift.

So today I got the first gift in this exchange. Now we do give wishlists, likes and dislikes, along with a list of what we already have when getting matches. So I found this gift very big surprise.


Now I was surprised when I opened it to find it was all in one piece as I could here things banging around in the box and assumed something broke. How in the world did everything arrive in one piece? She must have known what she was doing! Everything safe and sound



First up three bright reds. I am not sure I can pull off reds of this tone since I am so pink skinned but we will see. They all look identical in the photo but the PASTEL one is slightly different than the other two as it has shimmer in it.


Next up three Catherine Arley polishes. I already have the first two so feel free to click on the Catherine Arley tag to see swatches of those two. The other one is a bright red. Similar to those above but a tad darker.


Another pink. By a brand called PASTEL which I have never heard of)


Lastly an almost black Catrice (called Back To Black)


And the card.




Friday, July 20, 2012

Julep August Maven Preview - And A Breakdown On What Is New And What Is Not!

So its that time of the month again! Julep Maven Preview time!!! I am actually really excited to get this months NON polish item. I might actually switch profiles this time! A nail polish remover in a pump! Even if I don't love the polish, I need to get a new pump anyways! So yay for that! It Girl, Boho Glam or American Beauty....... So not sure which one I am getting. I will for sure get Boho Glam or American Beauty even if I wait until they show up in the maven boutique. BAH!!! Descisions!!! Which are you getting??

The circled polishes are ones that are not new. They have already been in the Julep Boutique already. I have Kim, Alfre and Sienna already swatched on this blog! Just click the Julep tag!
Stefani was already in the boutique as a frosty metallic olive colour. So I am unsure if this is a new Stefani or not! I will let you know when I find out! 








Another BIG change: You can add THREE add ons instead of two!!


EDIT - I just spoke with the lovely ladies at Julep and Stefani is indeed a NEW colour. It is NOT the olive colour with the same name. And since I now know that I can add on 3 add ons for the price of 2 I added Stefani, Piper and the remover!! So its basically, by one box, get the second box for 10.00!!!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

WIN The Snow White Glitter Top Coats!


If you re like me and have been DYING to get your hands on these essence polishes you are in luck! The wonderful blog What Larry Loves  is giving away these polishes in a contest!!

Hurry, the contest ends
on the 27th!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Wonder Beauty Products Cherry Parade & Crotch Rocket



I was very excited when I got to choose two polishes from Wonder Beauty Products to test drive for this blog! I couldn't decide between just two of the polishes made by this brand and gave her my short list for which ANY two would be great. So it was a bit of a surprise even though I got to choose!

The packaging was very cute. It came wrapped in paper, in a mesh bag, wrapped in more paper in the box!


Are you as excited as I am? I couuldn't wait to see what colours I was getting!


Crotch Rocket is described as an opaque medium gray cream base with flashes of yellow, blue, green, purple and orange glitter effects. The yellow is the smallest glitter, the blue being the largest. The polish I got was NOT opaque. It is quite sheer. But it took 4 coats to get a semi-opaque coat and there would be considerable visible nail line at that. I gave up at 6 coats but guess 8 would make it opaque.




Cherry Parade is described as a trendy mixture in a translucent base with dashes and splashes of various sizes of white hex and bars, patriot blue, large purple hexes with fine red glitters and bars. It is a sheer base with white bar and small and large hex glitters, medium purple hex glitters, and red square glitter.



And here is one coat of each over black, followed by one coat of each on its own. As you can see, Crotch Rocket is NOT opaque by ANY MEANS.

Here is two coats of each


Three coats of each  ( I finally got a purple glitter out!!)


Four coats of each


5 Coats of Crotch rocket


6 Coats of Crotch Rocket (at this point I got really sloppy as you can see)


I wish I could rave about these. I really do. But they did disappoint. The Crotch Rocket is great over black, but it is far too sheer to do on its own. I think it might work well as one coat over something such as Illamasqua DWS (I think thats the light grey one?!) but for something described as opaque, it couldn't have been further from it! Cherry Parade was sadly an even larger disappointment. The suspension base was far too thin and you have to fight and scoop to try to get out any of the glitter. If you have ever experienced Rococo Nail Apparel in Gold Leaf, this is the same experience. But unlike the Rococo one I could not get the hang of this one. It took at least 5 pulls out of the bottle each swipe to get any of the hex glitter out. And then half the time it fell back in the bottle.

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