Manicure Monday: Ally & Janel (Julep Maven April)

The month of April was all about brights for Julep Maven*, which meant my eyes were peeled to see what the color options would be for the month. I love bright colors! This month, I purchased ($19.99) the Bombshell subscription box. It included two polishes, Ally and Janel, and the Mighty Nail & Cuticle serum.

Ally is an electric blue shimmer polish that's absolutely beautiful and in your face. This polish will get noticed and might be a little too wild if your week involves spending time in a conservative office environment. But it's definitely fun and you can easily get away with it in a creative environment and during the weekends. My only complaint is that I found the formula for this particular polish to be a bit thick, which made application rather tricky. No matter how much I tried for a thin first coat, I didn't succeed, meaning the polish took long to dry and I had to redo a few of my nails several times because the second coat would move the first coat around (even after waiting) and make it look goopy.  Make sure you sit still and wait for this one to dry if you don't want to smudge.

Janel is a bright shimmery magenta. She's not nearly as loud and in your face as Ally, but still rather pretty. You can easily get away with wearing this color anywhere. The magenta hue makes it a much safer choice. Unlike Ally, Janel's formula was just the right consistency, applying smoothly and drying in normal time.

The Mighty Nail & Cuticle serum comes in a pen dispenser as you can see from the photo and you twist the bottom to release product out to the brush. According to the packaging, it has peptides in it to help build keratin for your nails and collagen for your cuticles. It's supposed to "transform dry and damaged cuticles almost overnight" and give you "visibly stronger, smoother nails with fewer ridges and less splitting and brittleness" in two to three weeks. Sadly, mine was having a bad hair day and came out of the packaging a bit frayed. It still works, but it looks sad. Doesn't it?

The serum is nice and thin and absorbs and dries quickly. The pen-like packaging makes it great to carry in your purse. I don't know about you, but I usually notice my dry cuticles when I'm not where near my cuticle oil. I'd normally just rub a little Carmex on them and voila, that would help. But I'm willing to keep this in my purse and give it a try to see how it affects the health and strength of my nails. As much as I like that my Carmex can multitask, moisturizing my lips and cuticles, it's probably not going to do much in the of strengthening my nails. The verdict is still out on how well it works, but so far, I like how it feels and moisturizes my cuticles.

Check out my video to see what else came in my Julep Maven subscription.




* Julep Maven is a nail polish subscription service. Each month you are given the option to purchase one of the various subscription boxes or skip the month altogether. The link provided within this post is a referral link. If you choose to sign up and make a purchase, I will be awarded Julep points that I can use toward the purchase of future Julep Maven boxes or add-on products.