November Julep Haul – swatched

I got another box of goodies from Julep a couple weeks ago, so I’ve swatched them all up for your viewing pleasure. There are more colours after the break!

First up is the unique Kiki. This is a denim blue shimmer/metallic. From some angles it looks metallic, and others it’s firmly a shimmer. This is 2 easy coats with top coat, and no application problems. I wore this as a full manicure for a few days, and let the colour grow on me. It’s just a little off for my skin tone, but I’ll keep wearing it anyway. It reminds me of the colour of thick sea ice, so it’s perfect for winter.

I’m loving Sawyer which comes across to me as a rose bronze duochrome. Much too dark for gold, but the pink shift livens it up. There is also a dull green shift at extreme angles on the nail, sadly nothing as bright as that brilliant green in the bottle. Two easy coats with topcoat, and you’re good to go.

I was really happy with most of my box this month, and Devon is no exception. This is a lovely steely grey shimmer, and there’s a subtle pink shimmer that the file-size reduction for the internet destroyed. It’s really subtle though, so even in my full resolution images you have to know it’s there, and then look really close to find it. Devon has a great formula, and this is two easy coats with top coat.

Fazia is a gorgeous blackened ruby shimmer that earned me a lot of compliments when I was doing errands while wearing it, and you are looking at one coat here. I also wore this one as a full manicure when I wanted to have a fresh manicure and I had the swatch on one hand and the other hand’s polish was utterly destroyed from removing swatch polish. I only had about 40 minutes before I had to leave the house, and I had to do a million other things, so I threw on this, and it looked excellent. Perfect for rushing out the door to all those holiday parties I never go to. I’m pretty sure I have a handful of dupes for this in my stash but I don’t think any of those are one coaters, so this one wins in my book!

This very dark navy is two effortless coats of Ilsa with top coat. If you are less of a skim-coater than I am, you can probably do one coat, and the clean-up was minimal on this one as well. Really easy application. It dries a little darker than the bottle at two coats, but it’ll be a little brighter if you can get away with one coat.

Bonnie is a nice champagne textured glitter, but the description on Julep’s site let me to believe it was a glitter top coat. It is absolutely not. At one coat on my ring finger, it almost entirely blocks out Ilsa, and it’s not even very manageable for glitter gradients on my thumb and little finger. It’s thick and hard to apply gently and evenly. The base is not clear, as you might think from looking at the Julep swatches; it’s a milky cement colour. It does shine as a textured glitter on its own, shown on my ring and index fingers with three coats. to cover most of the visible nail line. I might wear this over a nude polish for the holidays, but definitely never again over something dark, and not for something that needs finesse like these gradients. Pretty polish, bad advertising. Top coat was applied to the ring finger and the thumb in a failed attempt to smooth things out a bit.

As you may have figured out by now, I have no resistance to getting extra nail polish, and Julep sent along some freebies with my order. The first one is Nadia, a cheerful buttery yellow shimmer. I tried this three ways in this photo, though it’s hard to tell which is which. My camera just went “yellow! It’s all yellow!” So, the index finger is one coat of Nadia over one coat of my favorite white, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri OMGhost, the middle finger has two coats over Julep Catrina, and everything else is four coats over natural nails. Basically, you can get a  similar look to Catrina with varying levels of work. I’m probably going to stick with layering if over OMGhost or Catrina, and save myself time and polish. The only issue I had with this polish is that it didn’t play well with my NYC Grand Central Station fast-dry clear top coat, which is why there are weird dents on the tip of my ring fingernail.

And here is my seasonally inappropriate favorite from the whole box, the bright and cheerful Linden. I am so glad I got enough for my freebies this month, because it means I got Linden in the box, and it’s just wonderful. This is nearly one coat coverage, with a slightly thick formula (totally workable though), and it dries fast and shiny. It does go a shade darker than the bottle, but it’s nicely self-levelling. I like it so much that there is a little heart next to this polish in my notes. I can’t wait until the temperature warms up again and I can wear this gorgeous sky blue without feeling like I only have so much time to wear my usual beloved dark autumn shades. I expect this one might be good for stamping too.

A very good box this month, and lots of lovelies to add to my collection. My only disappointment was the misrepresentation of Bonnie but it’s still a lovely polish for what it is, and I am pleased to own it. If you’re thinking of any of these for add ons for the December box (if they make an appearance), I can definitely recommend any of them. None of them had a formula or colour that would make me tell you to skip it. What’s your favorite?