Julep September Maven Box: Cheers to Five Years

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

This month marked Julep's five year birthday, and they had several sets we could chose from for our customized Maven boxes. I chose the mini pencil set, as I love Julep's gel pencil formula and I'm an eye pencil junkie.

I'm more than happy with my choice, as the colors are gorgeous and unique to my collection. Which is hard to believe, as I've got soooo many eye pencils.

The only color that was a little problematic is Ultraviolent, which could be due to purple pigment's somewhat difficult tendencies. You can see how it's a bit bunchy/patchy in the swatch above, and I'll be interested to see how it works on the eye. I'm seriously in love with Gilded Gold Shimmer, which applies like butter. Once I've worn all of these I'll post a review.

My other choice for September's box was the oxygen bonding base coat Stick It To Me.

I added Peggy using my points, which is described as a charcoal with rose shimmer. I'm currently wearing it on my toes and am not sure how I feel about it yet, although it's an interesting color. I was able to get away with one coat, although I'm guessing two will work better on my hands. However, I'm seeing a negative review on Julep from someone saying Peggy turned her nails blue, so perhaps it's good I tried it on my toes first. I rarely wear bare toes so if this does stain, I'll be able to cover it up.

I paid $19.99 for my box, as I was fortunate to be grandfathered in at a lower price, and continue to be a happy Julep subscriber!

Skip the Brush in Warm Bronze, Pink Flamingo Creme, and Sunset Gold Shimmer by Julep

Disclaimer:  I purchased these.

Yesterday I showed you my June Julep Maven box, and today I've got some looks created using the items I received. Let's start with the Warm Bronze Skip the Brush ($24) blush, which according to Julep is:

A one stick wonder made for luminous, dewy cheeks, but versatile on eyes and lips, too. This soft-focus powder has ultrafine color pearls that go on creamy then set to a long-lasting powder finish. Easy to apply, easy to blend (no brush needed!), easy to keep in your clutch for on-the-go beauty touch-ups.

What it does:
• Ultrafine pearls provide a dewy, luminous glow
• Soft focus formula gives a silky texture and ultra-smooth application
• Crème-to-powder easily blends, then sets to powder and stays put
• Four universal shades can blush, bronze, sculpt, or highlight

I found Warm Bronze easy to work with, and even though the color looks scarily intense when first applied directly to skin, it buffs out nicely with a brush or Beauty Blender.  The cream does indeed transform to a non-tacky satin finish and I did not have issues with it unsettling my foundation.  There are tiny gold flecks in the formula that are visible up close to the naked eye, although they are extremely subtle and do not look like obvious glitter on the skin.

I used this is all the usual places you would apply bronzer to on your face and though it did a pretty good job of warming my complexion with looking super obvious.  Yes, it leans fairly strong on the orange side of the color spectrum and I was concerned about looking to oompa loompa, but it seems to work well with my complexion.

Wear time on my oily skin is about 7 hours in my hot and humid climate, although I find topping it with a powder bronzer helps extend wear another hour or too. Nothing holds up too long in Mobile's brutal summer weather.  Nothing.

The It's Balm Lip Crayon in Flamingo Pink Creme ($20) is my least favorite of the 3 items in June's box, but only because the color is too cool toned with blue undertones to work well with my skin tone.  However, I've been topping it with Le Metier de Beaute's Burnished lipstick, which turns it to a gorgeous NARS Orgasm kind of color.  So pretty.  But first, here is Flamingo Pink on it's own:

It just doesn't suit me.  But topped with Burnished and a bit of By Terry's Baume de Rose balm, I like:

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The Sunset Gold Shimmer When Pencil Met Gel eye pencil is a shade that is both unique to my collection and works with my blue eyes (orange + blue = pop), so I'm happy to have this.

The finish is slightly more textured due to the shimmer factor and it does take a few passes and blending well to avoid patchiness, but nothing too laborious.

I skipped the July maven selections as nothing really stood out to me, but that just gives me more time to continuing playing with these before something new distracts my attention!

Lilac Lust 24/7 Color Tattoo Concentrated Crayon by Maybelline

Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

Lilac Lust is one of the two new purple hued Color Tattoo Concentrated Crayons by Maybelline, with Lavish Lavender being the second. Looking at online swatches prior to purchasing, one of them looked slightly warmer in tone and was the one I wanted, but I somehow picked the cooler toned Lilac Lust instead. Oh well, stuff happens. It's still pretty.

The formula of the pencils feels thinner than the pot Color Tattoos, but they are easy to apply color and smudge out. Lilac Lust looks a bit uneven to me but nothing to the point that it was problematic.

I like these for an easy one and done eye look, which is all I have the time for (or energy) on some mornings. Over primer I get a good 8 hours of wear and find them to be fairly smudge proof.

It seems like eye pencil formulas have just been getting better and better, and I'm thrilled to see drugstore versions right there in the midst when it comes to quality. At about $7, I'm liking these quite a bit!

Grey Crystal Color Tattoo Concentrated Crayon by Maybelline

Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

I was excited to see Maybelline's new Color Tattoo Concentrated Crayons ($6.99) and picked up the five out of ten shades that interested me a few weeks back. Today I have Grey Crystal to show you.

Grey Crystal is a medium gray shimmer with an ever so slight mossy green cast. The formula glides on easily and I found applying the first coat, smudging with my finger, and then applying a second coat sans smudging was the best way to get smooth but shimmery color.

This is the first of the five pencils I've tried, and I'm crossing my fingers that the formula is consistent across the spectrum. Grey Crystal did not crease on me over primer but did start to fade a bit after 7-8 hours.

Green cast is more evident here

I loved the original Color Tattoo pot shadows, but they do dry out and I just had to repurchaseone of my favorites, Bold Gold, for that reason.  So, while you are getting less product with the Concentrated Crayons, hopefully they will not dry out like the pots do. We shall see.

Grey Crystal is most obvious on the center of the lid and on the lower inner eye. Love the shimmer.

Here I'm wearing Grey Crystal all over the lid with several Estee Lauder shadows: Wild Sable (a matte taupe) in the outer crease, Amazing Grey above the liquid liner and on the lower lash line, and Polished Platinum on the inner corner into the crease.

Blush is Estee Lauder's Alluring Rose and on my lips I'm wearing Estee Lauder's Bois de Rose mattified with a layer of Smashbox's Photo Finish Foundation Primer on top. Learned that tip this weekend watching a YouTube tutorial, and it works pretty well!

I've got today off as a holiday for Martin Luther King day, hope everyone is having a happy Monday!

All Night Long and All Done Up: Julep December Maven Box

All Done Up

I'm still on the $19.99 Julep subscription plan, which means I don't have the ability to customize my box as much as those who opted for the $24.99 plan.  In general I don't mind, although occasionally I waver regarding which box to select.  This month I opted for the "All Done Up" box, which featured new makeup as opposed to nail polish. The overall theme for December is "All Night Long", a la Lionel Ritchie.  Yep, there were a few snippets of the lyrics on an enclosed card.

The featured makeup item this month is a new matte lip mousse, and I was able to chose the color I wanted.  I went back and forth before deciding on the fuschia pink hued Pucker Up ($20), which is described as a "Violet Verve" on Julep's site.  I'm wondering if it darkens on the lips, as the Julep site pictures make it look darker.  Regardless, I think I made a good choice, and I'm super impressed with the container.  It has nice heft and feels and looks like a high end product.  The cap clicks shut, another nice detail.  Now, I just need to try it out:-)

Pucker Up

There were 4 new shades of the Multidimensional Orbital eyeshadow, but they are all new to me as I skipped these when they first came out.  I chose the pale gold Luna ($18), thinking it was be a nice eye brightener/inner eye highlighter.  After swatching it I'm also wondering how Luna would look as a cheek/face highlighter.  We shall see.

Last, but not least is a new Gel Eye Glider called Smoky Taupe Shimmer ($16).  Julep has really nice gel pencils - as good as any I've tried.  And I've got quite the eye pencil stash.

Here are swatches of all three products, and I think the colors really work well together.  I'll be playing with these pronto.

Using my points, I chose one add on this month, a box of the One-Step Polish Remover pads ($8).  That brought the total value of my box to $62, and considering I only paid $20, quite the value. There was also a cinnamon candy stick in the box, which you'll never hear me saying no to.  I see I had a smudge of Pucker Up on my fingers which transferred to the box top.  Side note:  Pucker Up smudges out beautifully, which has got me thinking it could be a nice cheek tint....

Lastly, my apologies for the pictures only post up earlier.  I've been swamped at work (end of semester stuff plus wrapping things up before my 2 week (!!!) Christmas break, and thought I'd have time to write up the post last night.  But I forgot, including that I'd already scheduled the post. Whoops.