Julep is what I would call a boutique mainstream polish and cosmetics maker located in Washington State. The company was founded by women and is run by women. Rock on, Julep! Their products are toxin free.
Julep's polishes come in tall thin rectangular glass bottles with black caps. It's an innovative shape, but it's kind of scary to dip polish out of a bottle with such a small footprint to volume ratio if you know what I mean. I look at the bottle and think, hmm I wonder what would happen if that polish tipped over.
I have a handful of Juleps in my collection and before today I'd only tried one, Charlotte, a lovely one-coater medium purple creme polish, which I loved. So it felt right and good to grab a couple of other Juleps and give them a go.
Donna is described on Julep's website as a "smoky peacock blue creme." It's a medium dark teal blue with a bit of a navy undertone. This is another well-pigmented nicely formulated creme polish from Julep with excellent coverage. Carefully applied, it's fully opaque in one coat. Nice! The consistency is quite liquid but easy to control and it dries fairly quickly to a glossy finish.
Aside: I've added a dedicated base coat to my manicure routine. I begin as I have been with a coat of the nail strengthening treatment du jour (that's French, btw ;->). Over that and before any color, I apply a coat of Essie First Base, a dedicated basecoat. I tried this combo on a whim after reading some nail care info online and discovered that my polish did indeed apply differently over Essie's dedicated basecoat than it did over the treatment product by itself. Differently as in mo' bettah. It applied more smoothly and operator errors (dragging, doinks, smudges...) were easier to overcome. So my basecoat now is really a combo basecoat, a layer of treatment and a layer of First Base.
I'm just sayin'. You know, for accuracy and all.
ANYWAY. The photos show two coats of Donna over basecoat (quote, unquote) topped with Seche Vite. I love Seche Vite (film at eleven).
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| Julep Donna, with long skinny bottle |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna |
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| at the window... |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna |
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| Julep Donna, matchy matchy with my top |
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| the claw, modified |
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| Julep Donna |
It was profoundly overcast today with periodic thunderboomers so consequently the photos are a little dark, but they're still pretty true to how Donna looks on the nail in person. I think it's kind of an earthy look. The color is dark and strong and has a certain foresty weightiness to it. I love having this color in my collection.
Melanie couldn't be more different. Julep describes it as "a pastel indigo metallic chrome," which I find extremely confusing. First of all, although it's a light blue to me it isn't a pastel. Indigo? NOT! I'd say it's a shimmery melange (French, ha!) of cornflower, periwinkle and sky blues. I actually found it hard to pin this down. Fuzzy saw it and said, ooo Carolina blue. She would! Carolina blue is more saturated and leans green a skosh more than Melanie.
I was freaking out as I applied this polish. The consistency of the formula was ok I thought but there was all kinds of other bad polish behavior going on: brush strokiness, reluctance to dry or even set well, inclinations to smudge and dent, bubbling out the butt, you name it. I had two coats on and was about to throw in the towel, but I didn't. I looked at that polish and said, fine, be that way. I added one more coat, grabbed the Seche Vite and slathered it on there.
To my utter joy, the Seche Vite soothed that savage beast but good. It smoothed out the irregularities and the brushstrokes and somehow (magic) made the bubbling much much less noticeable. The stuff is godlike, I tell you.
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| Julep Melanie, with bottle |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| at the window... |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| remnants of the battle for application... |
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| ditto |
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| Julep Melanie |
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| *lol* because I could, that's why! |
Loveliness, no? It has a faerie-like glow, like my finger nails have cool magical powers now. Victory is sweet and creamy, sayeth the Seche Vite! Hard won, all the more so.
To me, Melanie is more of a pearl than it is a metallic or a chrome. I associate metallics and chromes with high reflectivity and Melanie isn't reflective. It does have a beautiful soft glow, though, the way pearly polishes do. I wasn't sure I'd be all that fond of the pearliness because I'm less attracted to this kind of look than I am to other polish types. But Melanie's combination of the blue with the pearl won me over.
Photo addendum, just to show you how charming the weather's been here...
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| humidity condensing on the window panes |
That was taken at 4:30 in the afternoon. Look how dark it is outside! And wet, good lord. John found a BABY SNAPPING TURTLE in the yard and little peeper frogs are camping out on the front porch. We've never ever had summer precip like this.
I see from online radar mapping that Charlottesville's getting rain too. Are you all back from the beach now? What are you up to on these rainy days? Inquiring minds want to know!
love,
Aunt Liz
We are back from the beach. It rained terribly one day but I looked on the radar and saw that you were getting hammered. Love this glowy treatment.
ReplyDeleteKate like my mom said we are back from the
beach,and the nail polish is soooooooooooooo pretty! TDF!!!!!!!!,right now the weather is fine,the sun is shining,clear sky :D Eleanor
Thank you, ladies, I'm so glad you like it! We had some sun today, finally... until late in the afternoon when it clouded up and poured rain. Again. The moss is just going to town in the pen, Eleanor, you'll be able to build more fairy houses when you come visit next month.... love, Aunt Liz
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