Julep September 2013 Review

Well, the kiddo was sick all week (typical - Emily enters the cesspool of toddler germs and gets sick immediately! I just feel bad she had to miss school already since she actually seems to like it.), so I haven't had much time to sit and blog, but she's on the mend now, so here goes!

I always look forward to Julep arriving. As I mentioned in my Julep selection post, I went with the Bombshell box from the Cityscape collection. It appears last month's pretty box was a one time only thing, as they're back to the black boxes now. The inner packing was pretty though!

Opening the box

Monthly quote and bonus item

I'm a little bummed with the bonus item. In previous months, we've gotten bonuses that were a bit bigger than one polish remover pad. Don't get me wrong, I love these pads, but I feel like I remember a month where we got 3 or 5 of these as the bonus. Oh well.

The beauty item of the month was their new Bare Face Cleansing Oil ($28 retail, $22.40 member). I'm actually kind of glad I didn't get this post out right after my box arrived, since I've gotten to use this for the past week or so. I REALLY like this. It feels weird to wash my face with oil, but it doesn't leave my face oily at all. In fact, my face looks clearer and smoother than it has in a while. I don't typically have huge acne problems, but lately, I've had a few bumps here and there, and this took care of it! Smells nice, too!

Julep Bare Face Cleansing Oil

My polish colors this month were Daria and Karmen (both $14 retail, $11.20 member). Daria is a lovely dark gray which I'm actually wearing now and probably about to change, since it's starting to chip a bit. Karmen is gorgeous. Red with tons of gold (and red?) shimmer. I love it.

Julep Daria and Karmen

 For my add-ons this month, I chose Candace, Reece, and Tatiana (all $14 retail, $11.20 member). I saw all the microglitters and the holo and I couldn't not add them on, since the add-on prices are only $4.99 for single polishes. They don't disappoint. Candace (microglitter brown and gold) and Tatiana (microglitter orange and gold) are awesome for fall (so is Karmen), which was what I was really looking forward to! Reece is beautiful too. I love purple and I love holo sparkle! It's not quite the holo I think of with like a silver holo polish that is super shiny and almost seems to bend based on how you look at it, but I love all the multi-colored sparkles!

Julep Candace, Reece, and Tatiana

All the polishes together

Julep swatches in indoor light - a bit blurry, but I think it shows the shimmer well

Julep swatches in sunlight

They also started up some new packaging this month, so I'll touch on that now. I'm not sure what prompted the change, but suddenly, instead of the plastic shrink wrap, they're now using boxes. Here's my problem with this. 1) It's sooooo much more trash. So much. 2) No shrink wrap means less holding the bottle together and somewhat contained in the event of a break/spill. I'm foreseeing polish all over the box. 3) Since they're no longer shrink wrapped, I imagine they'll be harder to trade/add to giveaways since you can't assure anyone they haven't been opened. Now, it's nice looking packaging, but I didn't see a problem with the old packaging.

My main 2 colors packaged up

There's an outer sleeve and the individual polish boxes. Also, "Julep Color Treat"? Who thought that one up?

All of the box trash (not including the actual shipping box and it's packing confetti). That just seems excessive to me.

September 2013 Julep maven box (plus my add-ons)

Apart from the whole packaging thing, this is probably one of my favorite boxes! If it had been all microglitters and holos, I would absolutely have upgraded to the full collection. I'm happy to be seeing some different stuff though. That makes me feel like I won't necessarily be seeing a lot of near-dupes just yet. Also, I'm thrilled to like the beauty product. Usually, I'm somewhere between dislike and neutral on the beauty product and I just make my box choice based solely on the polish colors.

If you'd like to sign up, 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!). If you already get Julep, which box and add-ons, if any, did you pick this month?

(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.)