Julep January 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Today I have a ginormous post about my picks from the Julep January 2015 Collection (Chrysalis), so get ready! This time around, I went with the It Girl box and added on two polishes – Luna (the featured add-on) and Phyllis (Classic with a Twist) – plus I got one of the metamorphic topcoats (Tyra, the pink one) they put in if you signed up to get one. That’s six polishes in total that I’m going to write about in this post, which is a new record for me! As usual, I’ve swatched all the colors, done a few comparisons, and used four of the colors to make “chrysalis”-inspired nail art!

This month, Julep decided to do something new in line with their increasing emphasis on beauty products, which was to put two products and one polish in three of the main boxes (Boho Glam, Bombshell, and Classic with a Twist) this month instead of two polishes and one product. Since I subscribe to Julep mainly for the nail polish, and I’m not in the My Maven customization program, this new way of doing things isn’t what I want at all. It’s pretty clear that, by making it less attractive to stay in the original program, this move is probably part of Julep’s push towards getting everyone into My Maven. I must say, it is working; I’m seriously thinking about switching over to the program. We’ll see! Anyways, read on to see all the polishes!

SquareHue January 2015 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Today I have the SquareHue January 2015 box to share on the blog, complete with swatches, color comparisons, and some nail art! This year, SquareHue is going with a “decades” theme, with each month’s colors representing a decade from the 1900s to the 2010s, and I’m pretty excited for the whole thing. The colors I’ve gotten from SquareHue in the past two months have really inspired me in terms of nail art; it’s a fun challenge for me to take the colors and figure out a good way to combine them, especially since they’re totally random. Given my excitement about the upcoming SquareHue Decades Collection, I’ve decided to continue with them for the indefinite future, and my SquareHue box will be a monthly installment on the blog.

January’s box was inspired by the 1900s and contains some really lovely polishes. Unlike the previous two months’ boxes, which contained some rather offbeat colors, this collection is rather conservative and demure in terms of both colors and finishes. Although I initially subscribed to SquareHue for their unconventionality, I absolutely adore the toned-down elegance of this bunch of polishes, and I’m really happy with this box. With the 1900s as the theme of the collection, I used the three polishes to create some classic-looking floral nail art – inspired by Robin Moses – that reminds me of flowery Victorian era patterns.

SquareHue November 2014 Swatches, Comparisons, and Nail Art

Hi everyone! Sorry for not posting for over a week – I’ve been really preoccupied with work, and will continue to be until mid-December. Consequently, I don’t have much time for nail art and may post infrequently until January. I do have some more posts in the works, though, so I’ll still have stuff going on, no worries!

Today I have the November 2014 collection from SquareHue to show off! SquareHue is a monthly nail polish subscription box service that I enrolled in to see if I would like it, since I’ve had a lot of luck with the Julep Maven program. While the service differs from Julep in several ways, what intrigued me the most about it – and led me to enroll – was that the stated intent of SquareHue is to guide you towards colors you may not pick yourself. They do this by not allowing you to choose the three colors in the monthly box, and you just have to hope that you’ll like what’s inside. Based on my assessment of the website, I assumed this would mean really unconventional, but tasteful, colors with a variety of finishes. Since I am not picky in terms of colors I like, I thought it might be worth a shot for at least one month. I was curious to see if the monthly box did indeed contain unconventional colors that I would not pick myself, and having no choice over the colors would mean a bunch of dupes for me.

I took the plunge, and just received my first box through SquareHue containing the November 2014 collection, inspired by Prague. They went with a very muted, medium-dark color palette that gives an overall “urban” look to me. The three colors are very fall- and winter-appropriate, and I’m sure that they’ll go great with a lot of the cold weather accessories that people are starting to pull out of their closets. Plus, each polish has a different finish to make things interesting. I’ve got swatches and nail art to show you all, so let’s go!

Julep InstaGrim Part I: Haunted Hollow

Hi everyone! I have some exciting news today – something SO incredible that I can’t believe it’s even real! In short (more details after the cut!), Julep asked me to create Halloween-themed nail art for their ongoing “InstaGrim” contest, and I accepted! WOOHOO!!! I was given free reign over the design I chose to do, so I went wild and made, not one, but THREE designs because I couldn’t choose just one idea! Julep makes some fantastic polishes and products that inspired me in different ways, and that’s how I ended up with three good ideas. So I’m writing about each in a separate blog post!

This post is about my first design in the three-part InstaGrim series: the Haunted Hollow. It’s the hardest design I did out of the three, and the one that Julep used as the featured picture for their page (and my personal favorite!). You know how in some movies, there are those creepy trees whose bark patterns kind of look like faces? Yeah, that’s what I was going for. I wanted to put those trees in a spooky forest with mysterious, glowing eyes coming out of the darkness. In order make this design extra-awesome, I used a black light reflective white polish (Julep Dana) to make the eyes really glow in the dark!

Pumpkin Patch Nail Art with Julep

Hi everyone! I am back with exciting nail art…finally! This month’s outrageous workload may be wearing me down a lot, and we’re only one week in, but I still really wanted to do nail art so I made it happen.

Today I’ve got another seasonal design to add to my fall nail art catalog: a pumpkin patch! The idea for this design came about when I shopped at Julep’s secret store this month and picked up the “Pumpkin Patch” duo (Mariska and Lizanne). When I thought about the two colors together, I went with the obvious and decided to use both polishes, plus a whole bunch of others, to paint a pumpkin patch on my nails. Since this idea was pretty heavily related to Julep’s “Pumpkin Patch” duo, I decided to go with Julep polishes for the whole thing. Besides, so many Julep polishes are sitting in my box of untrieds – just waiting to have their moment to shine – so I thought I’d give a bunch of them a go. I have a mini-tutorial at the end for anyone interested in seeing the process!

There really have been quite a few fall designs that I’ve done recently. Autumn is definitely nail art season for me.

Modern Shiny/Matte French Manicure with Wet n Wild Roadwork

Hi everyone! I have some simple nail art today because this month is CRAAAAZY for me…and we’re only two days in! For work, I have a whole bunch of projects to finish, or significantly work on, by the end of the month and I’m quite anxious about getting everything done. And these are not small projects – these are really big and REALLY IMPORTANT. Therefore, I’m going to warn all of you readers in advance that my nail art this month may be a little underwhelming, and will be on the simpler/easier side. Most likely, I will also be posting less frequently (the last time I posted was over a week ago), so don’t expect too much from me this month. I was really looking forward to doing some really fabulous landscapes soon, but now I may have to postpone that until the somewhat less busy months of November and December.

Anyways, my manicure today is a modern French manicure that uses a brand new color from the Wet n Wild Megalast line called “Roadwork”. By “modern”, I mean that the colors I chose are not sheer pink or white, and that I played with shiny and matte topcoats on the different regions of my manicure. My idea for this manicure actually came from a set of fake nails at a drugstore that I saw and loved, so I decided it would be fun to do something similar on my real nails. Once I saw Roadwork from the new Wet n Wild Halloween collection, I knew I wanted it to be the base color and everything fell into place.

My Favorite Things Series – Red and Gray Poppy Bedding

Hi everyone! I have a new post in the “My Favorite Things” series today (nail art inspired by my stuff). Design #1 was based off of a starry scarf and Design #2 was meant to look like a pair of dichroic glass earrings. This time, I’m showing off some nail art that looks like my bedding! A little over a year ago, I bought an awesome duvet cover from Bed Bath & Beyond by a brand named notNeutral that has some bright red poppy-like flowers and light gray leaves on top of a darker gray background. I really love home decor like this because it has everything I like: florals, bright colors, and graphic print. Also, the family dog’s name is Poppy, and so – not gonna lie – I was partly drawn to it because it has poppies on it. The bedding is actually still available to look at on the Bed Bath & Beyond website, but it is no longer for sale online. You can find it on Wayfair, if you’re interested in buying it (it’s $80 I think).