Julep Maven Destination Mystery Box: Miami Review

This post has been put off for a while now, probably because I just wasn’t all that excited about the contents of my box. A while ago Julep was offering mystery boxes, which they do every once in a while, but this time, they had three themed boxes to choose from: Miami, Laguna Beach, and the Hamptons. I picked Miami, because the description seemed to suggest bright and glittery colours, and I was hoping for lots of polishes for the $70-$200 worth of product promised in each box.

Technically, I wasn’t wrong to expect glitter and brightness, but I was still a little underwhelmed by my box, and I am even less impressed after having tried all the of the products. Here’s a quick look at my box before I move on:

Since they are the products I’m least impressed with, I’ll show you the two non-polish items first.

Julep Invisible Dry Shampoo: (worth $22 for non-subscribers)

I was actually pretty happy to see this in my box when I first opened it, as I’ve really only recently started trying dry shampoos, and have yet to find a really good one. The first time I tried this it was good; the product smelled nice and it wasn’t heavy in my hair, and it helped my hair look clean. However, that was the only use I got out of this bottle. For a product that costs $22, you’d expect that you might get more than one use out of the bottle. It isn’t even like the bottle is empty, there’s plenty more product in there sloshing around, but it doesn’t mist out anymore. I can get it to spray erratically out of the bottle and all over everything in my room, but that’s it. It’s like all the aerosol is gone. I don’t understand, and I would never recommend this product to anyone.

Julep Strawberry-Mint Lip Balm: (worth $8 to non-subscribers)

I was a bit disappointed when I opened the box and one of my things was a lip balm for a couple reasons:

1. Strawberry-Mint? Weird (Actually, if anything, it tastes/smells like licorice, which isn’t great either).
2. Lipbalms are cheap, easy to find, and I have tons of them.
3. Lip products aren’t Julep’s niche… they should stick to nail stuff.

But I tried to keep and open mind and tried it out. I don’t like it. It’s too soft, and its hard to get only a small coat on my lips, especially if they’re a little dry, since the rough skin scrapes up even more product leaving my lips slimey and covered in a white/pink film that I eventually have to wipe off. Also, $8?! For this sad little lip product? Complete waste of money.

Let’s get on to the polishes, shall we?

Julep Polish in Isla: (worth $14 to non-subscribers)

At least it’s nail polish… I mean, it’s not that bad, but I do have a polish very similar to this one already, and I never use it, so it’s likely that this polish will kick around in my drawer for a long time. It isn’t even great for layering over other polishes for a milky metallic colour, as it goes on very unevenly with one coat. I found I need at least three coats of this on my bare nail to look even, as well. So I’m not super impress with this polish.

Julep Polish in Lauren: (worth $14 to non-subscribers)

Now, you can’t go wrong with bright pink, so despite the fact that I have a couple different bright and neon pink polishes already, I’m pretty happy with this. It does act like a neon polish, which means it’s a bit sheer, and would probably benefit from a white base coat, but it is just opaque enough after three coats that I haven’t bothered to try layering it over white yet. So I’m not ecstatic, and I wish my bright colour had been green, blue, orange, coral… something that wasn’t pink… but at least it’s something I’ll use and love.

Julep Polish in Paris: (worth $14 to non-subscribers)

This was the best thing in the entire box. It’s got big, chunky, gold-ish holographic glitters and a bunch of little holo glitter as well. The swatch above is only one coat, but I have a feeling that three coats would almost be an opaque glitter-bomb nail! I’m in love with this glitter, and I’m glad I received it.

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In total, this box, which I paid $29 for including shipping to Canada, is technically worth $72, so, in all technicality, this lived up to the promise that the mystery box would be worth at least $70… technically…

However, that said, my dry shampoo, even if I had liked it was defective, so I don’t think it counts towards the total of this box, bringing it down to only $50. Assuming I accept the insanely priced $8 lip balm. Still, even if I just include the nail polishes at $14 a pop, this box was worth $42… which is more than I paid for it.

That said, though, I’m pretty unimpressed with this company as a whole. Their polishes are an alright quality, no better than Essie or OPI, though, which cost around $10 compared to Julep’s $14. Additionally, Julep’s polishes are only 8ml, whereas most other brands of polish—including OPI and Essie—are 15ml… that’s almost half the size of a regular polish and a fair bit more money!

In the end, I think this purchase from Julep will mark the end of business with them. I just don’t think they’re worth the hype or the prices that they charge.

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What do you think of Julep? Do you think I’m being too harsh? Did you get a mystery box? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!