REVIEW of Julep nail polishes: Amy, Miranda, and Gloria

Overall...not a fan. Let me explain...

This was recommended by a beauty blogger and though I tried to resist, I couldn't help but whip out my credit card for such pretty summer shades, especially with $1 donated from each purchase to organizations that support women, a $15 discount, and no shipping and handling.

Here are pictures from the website...

                                                                            Miranda

Gloria

Amy

Come on, how cute are they?

Packaging

These are pictures of the bottles in person...

The colors don't "pop" in the same way and they're a little darker.

So, how did they apply?

I started with Miranda. The first coats applied a little streaky. It takes a considerable amount of polish to apply smooth but the formula is somehow both liquid and thick so it's hard to find a balance. If you put too little polish, the brush drags and it doesn't apply evenly. But then, it's thick so when you go in to correct little mistakes, you've got a very apparent swipe of polish. To me, the final effect is still a little streaky and looks too thick on my nails. Also, the polish was very sticky and tacky in the bottle, so much so that when I pulled out the brush, the wand was dripping with polish and the polish created "threads". The brush definitely made applying the polish more difficult. From a distance, though, it is a very pretty sea-foam green. It is a little darker than the picture on the website. It took about 2-3 coats with basecoat and topcoat. Seche-Vite is so wonderul that it smoothed out a lot of the streaks and gave it a polished look.

Overall: Love the color, pain to apply, so-so results. I would look for this color in another polish.

First Coat

First coat

2-3 coats

Natural light

With top coat

I had my pedicure done with Gloria. The verdict from the nail salon was that the Miranda polish was indeed very thick and sticky and was "too dry". She said Gloria was a little better though I think it seemed like an average polish and the brush still applied the polish in streaks. When I did my mom's nails in Gloria it was admittedly a little better than Miranda but it was still so thick and gloppy. Imagine a little person (Lilliputian, homunculus, take your pick) loading up a catapult with globs of paint and that's basically how I was forced to use it, just slapping it on the nail and fixing the edges with nail polish remover and finishing with top coat. That it ended up looking nice is a testament to my skill and not the quality of this nail polish.

Gloria looks a little pink in the pictures but looks light a light peachy-red in the bottle. On my nails it is somewhere between a bright coral and a shocking orange depending what light I'm in.