Julep Maven Box March 2013

So my March Julep Maven Box came today in the mail. And it came with adventure. Here's a picture of it:

You may noticed that my box is a little more disheveled than usual. That's the adventure part. When we went to get it from the mailbox the mail man, instead of leaving us a key and putting in a slightly larger mailbox (we live at an apartment complex), just shoved it in the small mailbox. While this was easy enough on his side-- there are little ledges that make it virtually impossible to get it out on our side. We tried pulling it out. No dice. We tried moving it around and wiggling. Still nothing. We tried squishing parts of the box. Nada. Finally Andy, my knight in shining armor, had to get a knife and cut it open, take the contents out and then viciously fight the box out of the mailbox. 

On to the actual review. As you may or may not know, I decided to give Julep a try last month and it worked out pretty great for me, so I decided to give it another go. Julep's Maven box is a subscription box that sends you two nail polishes, a full sized hand and nail product and then samples for $19.99 a month. It comes with a special price for all products in the store and free shipping on all items. The assign you a "style" (mine's Classic with a Twist) through a "fun" quiz to insure that you'll like what you get, but you also get sent an email, with all of the combinations early in the previous month which allows you to change it if you like. I didn't.

Each month has a theme and this month's was "Get ready to play!" 

Julep sends these super helpful info cards that tell you things like "this is a Julep Maven box" and "Your style is 'Classic with a Twist" and "It's Julep in March". In case you forget what you ordered, or that it's March. I do not exaggerate. 

Two such helpful cards. The above reminds me that it's March the
lower reminds me that it's a Julep Box and what my personal style is. 

The reverse of these two cards. The top comes with a helpful quote
about fun and happiness and... food? (How does that even fit with nail polish?
This blog does not support you eating or tasting nail polish.) The lower tells you
about a challenge they've got going on this month. 

As redundant and irritating as these info cards seem, they actually do serve a purpose (I suppose). You can send your box to a friend and if they've never received one-- these cards might come in handy.

The colors I received this month are Debra (left) and Simone (right). The Debra is a nice taupe color and the Simone is a pretty lavender purple. They go with this month's pastel theme. I just did my nails last night-- and I'm running low on polish remover and I didn't want to redo them, so I used the polish on Andy's toes. I was going to show the world what they looked like on, but she fought me and refused to have her feet on the internet. So here's the color from last time so you can see the quality. 

The gray is the color I received last time. Also-- why I didn't
want to re-paint my nails.

Last time, my nail polish was relatively thin, as such they required multiple coats. These two did not. They covered well the first go and were smooth and not droopy and gross-- that's the sign of quality. Only downside, they take a while to dry-- more than most polishes. Each of these is $17.00 (or $14.00 for Mavens).

This is "Rock Star Hand Creme". This is an anti-aging moisturizer. I tried it on and it's super thick. Like a tiny dollop will work. I imagine these 3 oz will last me a small lifetime-- at least for a few months and I use a lot of moisturizer. And it feels nice and is mostly non-irritating (I have really sensitive skin and eczema, also this has sweet almond oil and I'm allergic-- so there). It received the Andy seal of approval. She said it didn't smell like "old lady", which is what most hand cremes smell like to her. 

Side Bar:

This top fascinated me. It looks like a twist off, but it's a squirt top, you just turn it until it clicks and then squirt it out, turn it back and it locks. I know it's a really weird thing to be mesmerized by, but for real. I like this. I'm not sure how well it will avoid squirting out all over the inside of my bag-- we'll find out. 

This creme is worth $20.00 (Maven Price $16.00).

Here's Julep's Strawberry-Mint Lip Balm. It was pretty tasty and actually made my lips nice and soft-- so there's that. It's the sample for this time around. I can't price this, because it's not on their website. Which is odd. You think they would send you samples of things they want to sell you. The only other lip balm they have on their site is $6.00 ($4.80 for Mavens) but the site also doesn't include the size on that. I'm just going to assume it's the same price and same size (it looks full size). 

Overall the price of the box goes like this:

17.00+17.00+20.00=$54.00

14.00+14.00+16.00= $44.00

If you include the lip balm, you get a box for $60 (or MP $48.80).

Compared to the price you pay for the box, that's at least a 40% savings. Pretty good overall for something that cost $19.99.

If you'd like one, here's a referral link. If you want to make sure I get some credit (and some free stuff PLEASE), then be sure to include this code during sign up: 9021705.