March Julep Maven Review and Simple Dotted Nail Art

I got home Tuesday from a weeklong trip to fabulous Las Vegas! One of the only moments the whole trip when I wished I was home was when I found out that my Julep Maven box had arrived in my absence. This month I wasn't as excited about the beauty products as the polish, so I ended up with four polishes from the Pop! collection: Janet (a pale peach in their new soft focus finish), Ali (a mint green soft focus), Nayely (a peach/papaya creme), and Nedra (a denim creme). This month, I was all over variations of hues I've been passing over lately like peach, mint, and blue. Every month it seems like I go for a more unique shade and end up kicking myself for passing on something I know would look good in a staple shade...so this time I snatched them up. Take a look at how they look together.

First up, the soft focus finish. I'm not really sure what the difference is between "soft focus" and regular old matte pastels, but they do have a soft, hazy quality without topcoat (I used Julep Freedom Polymer topcoat in the pictures here). Both are very pretty, and I would say I got what I expected from them. Ali is very, very similar to the swatches on the Julep website, and Janet is a little paler than it looks on my monitor. Janet is the base color for my accent nails. Both are more matte in person than they appear on the website. As pastels tend to be, they're a touch uncooperative in application and required three coats for full, clean coverage.

Nedra and Nayely are well behaved cremes, opaque and shiny in two coats. I wondered if Nayely would be super similar to Princess Grace, a papaya shade I regretted passing on last year, but it appears to be lighter and more peachy. It's a great seasonal transition color for people like me who aren't nuts about most pastels but don't want to completely skip spring shades altogether. Nedra, the main color in this mani, is a great all season shade. "Denim creme" is an accurate descriptor. It's rich and cool with the tiniest hint of grey undertone, not a weird color, but also not like any of my other blues. Even though I liked all of these enough to recommend them, Nedra would be my must have from this box.

What did you get in your Maven box? I love how well all of the shades this month coordinate with each other. If you're not a Maven and decide to give it a try, do me a favor and click here or on the cute little "Classic With A Twist" button on your right to use my referral link.

How To: Easy Polka Dot Gradient Nail Art

It's no secret that I looove gradients, but I haven't quite found my stride yet with technique. Today's nail look was possibly the easiest. Gradient. EVER. It's such a simple technique that I almost didn't blog it, but I absolutely love the outcome, so here it is, complete with instructions on how to turn any polish into a perfect polka dot gradient.

I started with my base polish. This time it was Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Peach of Cake. Pretty, huh? I think I needed something bright and cheerful. This and a Sally Hansen french tip white polish are the only polishes I used. FYI, the photo above is a much better representation of the actual color than the tutorial pics below (yay natural lighting!).


Once I had a nice clean base, I made my next color- still Peach of Cake, but one shade lighter by adding a drop of white. I mixed that and dotted on two lines of dots at the base of the nail.

Then I did it again.

 And one more time.

And I was done! I gave it a few minutes to dry, then topped liberally with Julep Oxygen Performance Topcoat (I used Oxygen Basecoat here, too). One more look at the finished result:

Oooh! Ahhh!

I kid you not, this is so gorgeous. This polish is one that I have a weird love/hate relationship with depending on the lighting and my mood, but I haven't had anything but mad adoration for this mani. You could easily use this technique to create progressively lighter dots with almost any polish, or with a darker color instead of white to create a reversed effect on a light polish. Don't use black to darken the shade-I learned the hard way that it just creates an ugly, muddy version of your polish. Instead, choose a darker version of the same color and mix it in one drop at a time (for example, if your base color was baby pink, add a magenta polish to it for your dots). I did two layers of dots in each shade, but you could adjust that to your nail length and the preferred size and distance between your dots. I used a small/medium dotting tool, but a toothpick or bobby pin would work fine as well.

I already have ideas on other colors that would go well with this easy nail art look, perfect for all skill levels. You gotta try this!

Grandma Cleo's Leopard Print

My great grandmother, Cleo, passed away last week. Grandma Cleo was one of those women you would call a 'character.' I didn't meet her until I was an older teenager, and she was a personality that could fill the room. Even as she crept toward her 90's (and eventually crashed through them), she maintained a life on her own terms. For her funeral today, I have decided to honor her in a way she would surely appreciate: a nail art tribute to my favorite memory of her.

One of the first times I ever heard anyone talk about Grandma Cleo was the scandalous gossip that she wore head to toe leopard print to the funeral of my other much loved great grandmother, Minnie. At the time, this was an outrage, but as I got to know Grandma Cleo over the subsequent years, it became clear that no disrespect was intended, that was just kind of how she rolled. Eventually, it became a symbol in my mind of her big personality and 'do what feels right' attitude. I combined my existing mani with a leopard accent in the same colors: Revlon Copper Penny as the base, Colors By Llarowe Human Nature for the inside of the spots, and outlined the spots, appropriately, with Julep Cleopatra. I let the latex finish on Cleopatra stay this time by topcoating before outlining the spots. The combination of the classy plastic wrap mani and the playful leopard print is a perfect representation of the woman it symbolizes.

Thanks for letting me share my tribute to Grandma Cleo with you. I know she would absolutely love it.

Repurposed Nail Art

I hate to wear the same nail art design for more than a day or two. It's just not my style, plus my nails tend to chip easily. This means my manis don't last very long, but the constant un-polishing and re-polishing is not kind to my nails and cuticles. Repurposing nail art is a good way to buy a break for my cuticles without looking at boring, chipped three day old nail art. This week I repurposed two looks.

Over the weekend I laid down my St. Patrick's Day mani, released as a Facebook Exclusive look on Monday. This simple, fun mani had Sally Hansen Jade Jump as the base, with a layer of Glitter Gal Turbulence to make it all holo-y, then basic shamrock details, a little one on the top right of each thumb and a larger one slightly off center on each ring finger. For those I used A England Dragon, which is holo-y in itself.

After the holiday had passed, I repurposed it by striping Dragon to create a jade triangle. I did go ahead and remove the polish on the accent nails, but the others I just added the design over the existing polish.

On Tuesday I had a bad day, so I wanted bright, cheerful nails to help lift my spirits. I chose some of my recent Julep Maven polishes, Harriet and Octavia. I've seen a lot of coral and navy lately, and I think they look gorgeous together. Guava and indigo are a nice play on that idea. I did a dotted nail paired with a super thin french tip. For day 2, I thickened the french tip and reversed the dot design.

 For this one I didn't remove any polish, and the dotted accent nail is untouched. At first attempt I ended up with smudging on my bright, cheerful polish, so I tried it again with a coat of Wet n' Wild topcoat (which is an great topcoat at a scary low price) before topping with my usual MegaShine. This reduced the smudging tremendously. I decided not to redo the accent nails- we'll call the smudging on those an unintentional gradient...

I repurpose with a quick swipe of glitter polish on the tips or a sponge gradient all the time when I'm in a hurry, but this more intentional repurposing is so much more fun.

Reinvention sneak peek, and new polish!

This month I'm trying The Lacquer Legion, a Facebook page designed to give nail inspiration to the masses. Some of the best nail bloggers out there have teamed up to come up with a theme each month, and anyone from seasoned professional nail techs to armchair artists like us can post an interpretation of the theme. January's theme is Reinvention. I was initially thinking I'd do a Phoenix inspired black tipped fire gradient. I still may sometime, but that idea was derailed by something much more exciting...

NEW POLISH!!!

So this year I entered the Adventures in Polishland New Year's Eve manicure contest, and was absolutely delighted to be awarded the judge's choice award. This meant two polishes of my choice from Beautometry and a special mystery prize from Christina, all of which arrived this week.

The judge's choice design

Christina's gift was the first to arrive, a trio of adorable little polishes from Physician's Formula. I hadn't tried any of their polishes before, so I was happy to try them out. The colors were brights that I wouldn't have bought myself, and they were just the pick me up I needed for this blah Midwest winter weather. The formula seemed unspectacular at first, but they dried crazy fast-I've never had polish that dried so well that fast. I barely had time to topcoat them, and they had good lasting power.The candy colors were lots of fun, too. Here's what I came up with:

Physician's Formula California Goddess trio

Now back around to the Lacquer Legion: The two polishes I selected from Beautometry were A England Dragon from the Legends collection and Turbulence by Glitter Gal, two holo polishes. I had ooh and ah'd over the Legends polishes, and Dragon seemed different from the other greens in my collection. I chose Turbulence because I didn't have a silver linear holo, and I'm obsessed with the look. That's also why I chose them for my Reinvention mani. The holo trend brought glitter back from being a staple for little girl princess polish to something you can wear to work. It's serious polish that feels luxe, but has a fun and unique finish that you can't help but notice. Holo glitter is glitter for grown-ups, and nothing makes me happier than being able to wear glitter whenever I want!

As for the polishes themselves, both are ah-mazing. I can't stop staring at them! Everything you've heard online about A England is true! Both brands are a little pricy and have to be ordered online if you live in the States, which you can do here through Beautometry. Dragon is a pretty, pretty, pretty moss green infused with fine, sparkly holo glitter- nice in one coat, perfect in two. It's mesmerizing. Turbulence is a pure holo that looks whitish on. I was a little nervous that it wouldn't be opaque based on the online reviews I found, and it is thin enough to layer over just about anything, but in three coats I got full coverage. I had trouble getting a nice photo (finally resorted to nail selfies with my phone-I'll try again when there's sunshine), but you can definitely see the shimmer in the pics below. For the stripe on the accent nails, I  laid down a layer of Sephora for OPI Frankly I Don't Give A-Dam, a pale grey, with my striper before going over it with Turbulence to use as few swipes as possible. Fewer swipes=cleaner stripes. ('Frankly' with a matte topcoat is also the base color I used in the contest entry at the beginning of this post.)

Here's a sneak peek of my ode to holo. If you want to get in on the Lacquer Legion fun, reinvent your favorite nail look and post it on Facebook or Twitter on January 27th with the hashtag #LLreinvention.

Dragon and Turbulence