Julep July 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! I’ve (finally) got another post out for you, which I really should have done a looonnnnngggg time ago. I apologize to all my readers for not posting as much as I wanted to in July (seriously, I only wrote like 3 posts last month…). Last month I was just all over the place physically and mentally because of my move, and I was in a pretty bad funk for the remainder of the month. Acclimating to a new way of living takes me an extremely long time; this time is especially difficult now that I have to adjust to having a much longer commute than before. It got to the point where doing anything felt like a chore – even things I wanted to do – so I postponed nail art for longer than I should have. I’m trying to force myself out of my “funk” by pushing myself to do more, and I think it’s working. It’ll just take some time, and then I’ll be back to normal. Anyways, again, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave my blog for this long, but I ended up feeling semi-crazed for pretty much the whole month.

This post is all about my Julep July 2015 Maven box (Drenched Collection), which I really should have gotten around to before it became over a week into August. The Drenched Collection was rather interesting because it had a huge variety of polish finishes – Julep said that this collection had the most different finishes out of all collections ever – and the colors were all quite lovely. I settled on four polishes from the collection, including two special finish polishes, which I used to create some super fun butterfly wing nail art. Read on!

SquareHue July 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Today I have the SquareHue July 2015 box (the 1960s) to show off on the blog! Finally, I’ve gotten around to the subscription box posts! About time, too – it’s almost the end of the month…oops…  Anyways, this is the box that I was most looking forward to for the entire year because I figured that there would be some pretty “out there” polish inside. I was totally psyched for the crazy stuff! Indeed, SquareHue did not disappoint: this is the grooviest bunch of colors I’ve gotten so far from them; it’s highly appropriate for the ’60s and the summer. Since the psychedelic influence of the colors and names was very obvious, I combined all three polishes into an electric daisy design for some flower power on my nails.

Also, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m trying to explore my new neighborhood more now that I’ve moved into a new apartment. Given how much I was digging the ’60s inspiration behind this SquareHue box, I took the opportunity to conduct some firsthand “research” on the decade by traveling to one of the hotspots of the hippie movement on my way home from work one day. I’ve got a bit about that trip, with a few pictures, at the end of the post!

Julep June 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! First up, I have an announcement: my giveaway to celebrate my one year blogiversary has ended and I have picked a winner! Congratulations, Cheri M!!! Thanks to everyone for reading my blog, and entering my giveaway – I really do appreciate all of you awesome readers ❤

Today I have my picks from the Julep Maven June 2015 Collection (The Deep End) to show off on the blog! This month’s collection, like the last two, was full of fun brights and mostly cremes, with a few other colors and finishes thrown in. While I loved the color palette and overall look of the collection, I limited myself to my three favorite polishes from the group, one of which has been my dream polish for a LOOONNNG time. As usual, I swatched the polishes, compared them, and did some fun summer nail art with all of them. Read on!

SquareHue June 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! I’m back with the new SquareHue box for June 2015, which was inspired by the 1950s! This is most definitely the nail polish box that is getting me 100% geared up for summer – you really can’t go wrong with fun, bright cremes like this. Just looking at these colors makes me want to sit down in the backyard and drink some ice cold, homemade lemonade (one of my favorite summer activities 😀 ). I got such an upbeat and fun vibe that I ended up using the three polishes to do some awesome tropical nail art, complete with palm fronds and flowers. A little Elvis in Hawaii, maybe?

With this latest installment of the Decades Collection, SquareHue has now reached the midway point of the year, so I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at my blog posts about the first half of the collection. At the end of this post, I have links to each of the posts, and a bunch of photo grids!

Julep April 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Today I have my Julep April 2015 box (Paradise Collection) to show off on the blog (even though I missed the end of the month…again…)! This month’s box was full of brights, and, given how much I love bright colors, I had a lot of fun with this collection. I ended up picking four polishes and, as usual, I swatched them, did a few comparisons, and made some nail art. Since two of the polishes I chose were shimmery blues, I went aquatic with my nail art and did a little seascape with brightly colored fish.

SquareHue April 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Today I (finally) have my SquareHue April 2015 box to show off on the blog! Things on my blog have been a bit backlogged for me these past few months, but this month I’m hoping to cram both subscription box posts in like I want to, rather than dropping the ball like last month…eventually I’ll get back on track with my blog posts…eventually…

Anyways, back to SquareHue! This April box full of bright, happy colors is supposed to represent the next installment in the Decades Collection: the 1930s. Never in my mind would I have associated the era of the Great Depression with bright, happy colors, but I don’t mind whatsoever because I love this box! These are my kind of colors for sure – I love brights!

Julep Blues Mod Ombre

Hi everyone! First, I’m very sorry about my delays in posting; I didn’t mean to leave my blog without new posts for this long. Due to lots of stuff going on, it’s just been a little crazy these past two weeks. Thanks so much for being patient with me.

Today I have some fun, geometric-ish ombre nail art using some blue polishes from Julep, which was prompted by the Instagram #JulepRainbow contest! The gist of the contest was that Julep picks a different color every day for 10 days, and other people tagged Instagram pics that were predominantly that color with #JulepRainbow for a chance to win some Julep goodies. Doing a special mani for one of the rainbow days sounded fun to me, so I came up with this mod design for the blue day! Just like the polishes that inspired it, this design is quite gorgeous.

Julep InstaGrim Part III: Chevron Candy Corn

Hi everyone! I’ve got the third installment of my Julep InstaGrim series, which completes my Halloween manicures! As I’ve described before, I created a series of Halloween nail art designs for Julep in order to help them promote their contest on Instagram, and am dedicating a blog post to each one; you can read more about it in my first post of the series. This latest one is about my version of candy corn nail art, which is to make a “Chevron Candy Corn” manicure. In total, the designs are:

1. Haunted Hollow
2. Ghastly Gradient
3. Chevron Candy Corn

The chevron candy corn design was inspired by some chevron decals that Julep sold in the October Maven window, which I picked up. When I was thinking of nail art to do for the InstaGrim contest, I thought of candy corn nail art because I love candy corn, but then I thought – nah, that’s been done to death. But then I thought: well, what about candy corn with a twist? And then these chevron decals came to mind, and I was sold on the idea! Chevrons are a great graphic pattern (quite suitable for bright colors) and they’re very of-the-moment. Plus decals/stencils are so easy to use to create clean lines. I didn’t end up using the Julep decals because I thought my friend Kimi might like them, so I came up with a DIY alternative for those of you who are not in possession of chevron decals. They work, but you can probably get better results with the professional ones. Read on to learn how to do them and see the tutorial!

Rainbow Honey Sea Star and 488nm (August Mystery Bag)

Hi everyone! I’m excited to show off some indie nail polish by Rainbow Honey today, including a brand-new polish from the August mystery bag! This is my first post with indie polish, actually. I’m sure that I’ll have many more to come 🙂

I’ve had my eyes on Rainbow Honey for quite some time, and I finally sprang for some polish earlier this month. My order arrived yesterday, and I was so excited about it that I had to do some nail art! This simple design features Sea Star (the June 2014 LE) on top of a new Rainbow Honey polish from this month’s mystery bag: 488nm. I really like how fun and cute the two polishes look together. Definitely the aquatic look I was going for.

Rainbow Honey Sea Star and 488nm

From the second I saw Sea Star, I knew I wanted to own a bottle. What can I say…love at first sight? I don’t know why I find it so compelling, since I usually am not into glitter bombs. I guess I’m drawn to its color combination of aqua, coral, and yellow, and the fact that it’s adorable without being too precious for me. The problem was finding a polish worthy of putting underneath it. Luckily, my search was over when I opened the August mystery bag and fished out 488nm (swatches are below).

Orange and Cream Vertical Stripes

Hi everyone! I have some pretty basic nail art today: vertical stripes in different shades of orange on a cream-colored background. This idea has been sitting on my nail art to-do list for quite some time, so I’m glad I finally got around to it. It’s pretty fun and summery, and the brightness of the orange makes me happy 🙂