Julep Golden Mystery Box Review

On the first of the month, if you have bought one of the monthly Julep boxes, the Julep Secret Store opens up for Mavens, containing discounted polishes, products, and sets. I normally don't end up buying anything, but I noticed there was a mystery box this month, so I caved. It was $29.99 and I unfortunately didn't notice that there was a 30% off coupon floating around, so I missed out on that. :( It shipped out on the 5th and arrived on the 9th. I got version 2 (I don't think I'll ever get the super awesome big box).

Opening the box - pretty full!

Well, what do we see, right on top? ARGH!! More twist-band hair ties!! Why?? I can't even give you their value of these because those bands aren't for sale anywhere on the Belina website - they just sell jewelry. So, $1 is it.

Belina hair ties

My other small bonus was 3 pieces of Dolles salt-water taffy ($0.50?). I got these in a previous mystery box a few months ago and they're pretty good, so no complaints here.

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Onto the Julep products! First, I got an Oxygen Nail Treatment ($14.40 - I'm going on subscriber prices). I already have this, but it's awesome, so I'm happy to get a backup. It's a nail treatment to strengthen and protect your nails. My nails get pretty thin painting them every 3 days, so it's good to take a couple days off every once in a while and put a treatment on.

Julep's Oxygen Nail Treatment

Next up was a full-size tube of Everyday SPF Hand Cream SPF 30 (currently on sale for $12.99). Initially, I was excited to see this because I didn't already have it and I can always use a new SPF product, but then I noticed it contains oxybenzone. There's nothing conclusive yet, since studies are using ridiculously high concentrations of it, but at those high concentrations, oxybenzone has been found to cause cancer and hormone disruption. I just don't want to risk it.

Julep's Everyday SPF Hand Cream

I also got 4 polishes ($11.20 each), which seemed a bit low for the price point of this mystery box. I got:

• Fina - This one doesn't seem to be sold on it's own anymore. Looks like they're retiring it. It is new to me though! It's a pretty metallic light blue.
• January - Classic red. It's awfully close to their Jackie. I'm not sure I see a difference - in the bottle, Jackie looks a bit brighter, but on nails, that slight difference pretty much disappears. I initially thought it looked pretty close to Claudette, too, but Claudette is definitely browner.
• Alfre - Pretty metallic grayish purple. Sadly, a dupe for me, though.
• Coco - Julep calls this "oxblood creme". Very dark brownish red. I'm glad I swatched it on a nail because I actually like it a bit more than I thought I would based on the color in the bottle. But, I got in it another box (I can't remember if it was a monthly box or a mystery box), so this was another dupe for me.

Julep's Fina, January, Alfre, and Coco

Swatches of Fina, January, Alfre, and Coco. (I also just got in a bunch of swatch sticks that look like nails, so I'll probably start adding pictures of those for the next monthly box.)

Julep's Claudette, January, and Jackie. Claudette is a bit darker in the bottle and definitely browner on the nail, but January and Jackie are basically dupes of each other, I thought.

Julep Golden Mystery Box from the August Secret Store

Overall, I think if this had been my first ever mystery box and I was new to Julep, this would have been pretty great. Awesome if it had been $20 instead (or if I had seen the coupon code, bah!). But as a seasoned Julep subscriber, this box had 3 dupes for me (granted, one will probably be used, the treatment), a product I won't use, and a bonus I won't use - that leaves me with 2 polishes and some candy. Definitely not worth the $30 I spent. This is the first mystery box I'm really underwhelmed with. Had I spent $20 for this, I might have been a bit happier. It did have an approximate value of $73.69, but that's not the $100-200 they promised. I guess they're going off of non-subscriber prices (total of about $103.50 - probably more if they value those twist-bands a bit too high like most places), but since you couldn't access this mystery box without being a subscriber AND purchasing the monthly box last month, it's not really a fair comparison in my opinion. I still like Julep, though, so I did get another mystery box about a week later, their Picnic mystery box, so a review for that will be next!

If you'd like to sign up for Julep's monthly box, I'd love it if you'd sign up with my link! AND! If you use promo code, FREEBOX, you can get your first box free! You just pay shipping! I started my subscription with a similar deal! :) As usual, the link at the top is a non-referral link if you'd prefer (but I'd be soo thankful if you used mine!). Did anyone else get this box - did you get different stuff? Were you lucky and got the awesome big box?

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own. The final link is a referral link, but I also included a non-referral link at the top.)