Julep Maven Program!

Hey you! 


Happy Tuesday. 


As promised, the contents (and a small review) of my intro box from the Julep Maven program. There is also a YouTube vid, here. Yes, I got my hair trimmed (thanks Penny!).


First of all, beyond impressed with shipping. For one, it was free and b) it was fast. I ordered on Saturday night, so they didn't actually get my order until Monday morning, and it got here Friday morning. From US to Canada. No border hassles! Love it. Apparently, this is not the case for everyone. Some people wait 3+ weeks, but I'm not sure what the issue is there. But I was very pleased!


Here's what was in it:

Glycolic Hand Scrub

Two bea-uti-ful polishes: "Michelle" & "Whitney"

Whitney: Described as "greige". Really? Is that a word now? 

English darling, we are better than that.

Michelle: a lovely navy. I would...

There were also two samples of hand cream in there, which are alright. I'm not a hand cream person, but they were nice. Not goopy or sticky, and absorbed well. I would definitely not purchase the full sizes of the hand creams, nor the scrub. Hella pricey.

Overall, the polishes are nice colours. Took about 24 hrs for the "greige" to grow on me. I'm still not sure if it suits my skin tone. Also it's more purple than brown, which is weird. Maybe that's just me? But it's like, tan with a touch of mauve. It freaks me out when I can't tell what colour something is. So obviously, I'm much better friends with the navy polish. Which, btw, looks fantastic. The polishes are REALLY super runny at first, but make sure you shake them very well. I think a lot of the solid particles settle in transit. 

As for the program in general, very pleased with the discount on the first box, very impressed with shipping, but I probably won't get the box (which is $19.99/month) every month. I already chose to skip the December box because it was only one nail polish (albeit, one that I wanted: "January"), a top coat and a body lotion. I can spend less than $20 on all of those things, and I would not use the scrub anyway. No point. Upside? You get 20% off all of your purchases from Julep.com, so if you don't order a box on a given month, you can just choose some polish you actually want, and it's 20% off! Good deal. 

And for those of you who have blogs/twitter/facebook/etc., you can ask for a referral link, and if you refer just one person, you get a $15 credit! Pretty nice. My referral link is in the sidebar, called "Julep Maven Program". 
Edit: Julep has changed the referral program. Now, if you refer two people, you get a free month (but you don't get to choose which month). Definitely not a fan of the change but...oh well! Hopefully if I get a free month, it'll be one I wouldn't skip anyway!

That's all for the program, but, just because I love ya and want you to be happy, I thought I'd share a cool find.

I got this Quo nail buffer at the drugstore for $4.50, and it is AMAZING. It has sides for contouring, smoothing, buffing and shining, and it makes your nails so shiny and smooth you can't even believe they're yours! So if you've been approached in a mall by some dude trying to sell you a nail buffer for $30...don't do it. Get this one that works just as well. :)

That's all yo! Have a great day. :)

Lush Legends Gift Box!

Hello again! 

You expected another 4-month hiatus didn't you. I don't blame you. 

So, I went to a party at a LUSH cosmetics store over the weekend. Standard procedure for a LUSH party. Popcorn, sparkling beverages, bubble bar/bath bomb demos, people rubbing good-smelling things all over your arms, prizes, etc. If you've never been...you really must.

At this particular party, they had a raffle for their largest gift box, which is around $200. 

Whaddya know. I won the darn thing. I'm pretty excited. I made a video of me opening it for YouTube purposes (still trying to edit it...I'm a newb). Anyhoo, just thought I'd put up photos of its contents and describe what's inside! It's a pretty awesome collection of goodies, most of which I actually use or really wanted to try! 

It's huge!

All of the contents:

Close-ups:

In the cover (haven't tried any of these): 

Comforter bubble bar

Floating Island bath melt

Fizzbanger bath bomb

Avobath bath bomb

Sex Bomb bath bomb

Not in the cover (from the top):

Wiccy Magic Muscles massage bar (love!)

Each Peach and Two's a Pair massage bar 

Karma soap (yum)

Buffy body butter (amazing)

Sample size of Mange Too massage bar (edible!)

Karma Komba shampoo (round, green thing. I use this!)

Starting at top, left to right:

Glorious Mud body mask/scrub (not a fan)

Olive Branch shower gel

American Cream conditioner

Lemony Flutter cuticle butter (love this!)

Mint Julips lip scrub (love this too!)

Fair Trade foot lotion (excited to have a full size of this!)

Ocean Salt (VERY excited about that)

Ultrabalm (basically vegan vasoline)

Dream Cream (yay!)

Honey Trap lip balm

Sorry if you get confused trying to match up the names in the photos to the description, a lot of the names in the photos are in French, and I translated them to the English names.

I am really excited about this. Almost everything is stuff I'm going to use, and the other things I'm going to either give away as Christmas presents or give them away here. I haven't decided yet. We'll see how poor I am when it's gift-buying time. :S

The link to the YouTube vid is here, if you guys are interested in seeing the items one by one. It's not a very good quality video, I just used my webcam. I seem to move a lot haha, I'll have to work on sitting still! It was hard though, since I had to keep digging around the box. 

What a day! I had the day off work today so I decided to go pick up the box. I ended up running into a friend on the bus and going to Costco with her! Nice! Now I have BIG hot chocolate and BIG lunch meat and BIG tofu and BIG cereal. :D 

That's it for now! Hope that was interesting for you! If you have any questions about any of the products, just leave a comment. I already know what they're for, and if they work, etc. :)

PS I now have links in the side bar for my Beso sales and for the Julep Maven program (which I'll be writing about later in the week). They are referral links, so you're helping me out when you click them. I'm not pressuring you, I just feel like it's dishonest to put links up that benefit me without telling you what they are. It's a trap! :P But they are there, so if you're genuinely interested in the content, click away! I'd really appreciate it! 

Have an awesome rest of the week guys. We're over the hump!

Gina

The semester that almost did me in.

Today's pre-quiz, fall-inspired manicure.

Essie's "Sew Psyched" colour from Fall 2010 (still available!)

Oh hey readers!

Did you know I've been completely and shamelessly AWOL for like...4 months? 

I guess there was that post about shaving my head, but I'm not going to pretend I was blogging regularly until then. I was working. Working lots. 

And since then? Studying and working. Studying and working LOTS. 

Basically, this term has kicked me up, down and sideways. 

I'm also working 3-4 times per week. I wish that meant I had money. Truth? Not so much.

I'm not trying to feed you excuses, just explaining where I've been. In case you missed me.

I'm kicking off the re-commencement of my blogging with a few exciting tidbits! 

1. I am REALLY into YouTube. I mean, well you'll see. I'm just hinting, that that might be a new media format for me, quite soon. If I can manage to figure it out...

2. I recently won a large gift box from LUSH cosmetics. You remember that I'm obsessed, right? Of course you do. Well, I will be doing a post/video on the contents of that box on YT. 

Edit: here's the link!

3. Despite my lack of funds, I recently signed up to be a Julep Maven, which is a monthly subscription to nail products by mail. Now, I'm not a beauty product fanatic, but I DO love giving/getting mani/pedis and I'm darn good at doing them myself (see above photo!). Bonus: it keeps me from biting my nails. So, aside from an attempt to pamper myself in the midst of all this stress, I figured that paying $20 for awesome nail care/polish goodies once a month (value of >$40!) was pretty good incentive to stop the biting. Other amazing perks of the program?

• free shipping (even to Canada! And as far as they know, no tax or border fees. Only       US/CDN exchange rate! Hollaaa)
• 20% off all products on the Julep website (and they have frequent deals too)
• You can skip a month, no charge! (I will likely skip every other month and use my 20% off to get a single polish if I really love it)
• You can gift your Maven box to someone else, no charge! Awesome gift for the lady-pals!
• If you don't like your polish colours for the month, you can choose different ones!
• There are codes floating around YouTube and the interwebz for a discount off your first box! I was stupid and used an old code, so I got mine for $10, but you can get yours for $5! Only during November though I believe.
• If you refer friends, you get a $15 credit for each one! That's a pretty amazing deal. (It's actually way better than the Glymm beauty box program which uses points, and you essentially have to refer two friends to get 10%(?) off of a product...not as good a deal)

If you're interested in this at all, check it out here! I'm currently waiting for my first box to get here. The colours look amazing. I'm probably going to make a video about the contents of that box too. I will definitely make a post, video or no video.

3b. I just learned, TODAY, how to NOT get nail polish on the skin around my nails. It was a huge epiphany, and it actually worked (see above photo! Again!) I will demonstrate soon!

4. This is really random, but if any of you bought an iPod nano 1st Gen between Sept 2005 and Dec 2006, they're actually recalling them, and if you send yours back, they're sending out replacements. Just go here to find out more. Definitely worth it!

Honestly? Apple has just leaped LIGHTYEARS ahead of other companies in customer service. Wow. 

So, just thought I'd get the word out, it's a pretty awesome thing they're doing.

I think that's it for now. It's hard when you don't have time to blog but you have SO MUCH TO SAY! I feel like I'm trying to remember 4 months of news! Oy. 

Anyhoo, let me know what you think of 

a) Making YouTube vids 

b) Julep/Julep Maven program

c) LUSH cosmetics

d) Anything else! I want to hear from you guys again! I miss reading comments. :)

Night night for now!