Last week I had the outrageous honor of giving a first-time manicure to a friend and co-worker of mine, Theresa. Since she's a hair stylist, we definitely wanted to use Shellac so it lasted more than a few hours on her. I used Cityscape (light dove grey) and Silver Chrome to colorblock the nails randomly, then after curing, I added Rubble (stone taupe) in places and before curing, I engraved and dotted a little to make the above design. I finished it up with a nice coat of Shellac top coat and this is the end result. Very cool for the beginning of Autumn. 

I wanted to wear two of my favorite shades from the new OPI Germany collection at the same time, and a Ruffian-style reverse French seemed like a good idea. The blue is a really pretty teal-toned blue with some pearly shimmer, and the green is a dusty chartreuse with some silver ribbon-candy shimmer. Both are gorgeous in the bottle and on the nail. 

Products used:

• OPI Unfor-Greta-bly Blue
• OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me

I'm not sure how I neglected to post these up when I did them about a month ago, but here they are. I did an animal print mix using only polishes from the China Glaze On Safari collection. I did a mixture of leopard, giraffe and some colorblocking for this look. 

Products used: 

• China Glaze Desert Sun (caramel)
• China Glaze Exotic Encounters (marine green)
• China Glaze I Herd That (bronze glitter)
• China Glaze I'm Not Lion (blonde holo glitter)
• China Glaze Kalahari Kiss (khaki)

This month's box from Julep wowed me big time. I was happy to see a designer collaboration this time, and some really good shades. Some in the collection looked dupeable to me, but the ones I got were exceptional, and pretty unique. I went for the Bombshell box this time which included Alma (the greeny yellow) and Annie (the creamy electric blue) as well as a volumizing mascara which is a new product for Julep and which I will review seperately, though I will tell you now it's better than decent, but not anything heart-stopping. I also added on Otte, which is a weird-cool camel color. This month there was the opportunity to buy the whole collection (every box) for $50 as opposed to $20 for just one, which is a really good deal if you were interested in all the colors. I passed on this option as I have shades that look comparable to the rest that were available, but they all did look pretty solid and nice. 

Before I go on to the swatches, so you know, you can join Julep Maven and get a pretty sizable discount off their website/Sephora price by opting for the monthly subscription box. I have been a member for several months now and I like it a lot, myself. You can read my review on the service here, or you can view all my Julep swatches so far here. And if you're interested in joining, you can click this link which is my referral link, and I will get credit towards my subscription if you join (or just click to join at Julep.com if you'd rather.) Don't forget you can get your first box for one penny plus free shipping with the code COLOR 2012 or PENNY. Either one I believe works. 

Click to view the swatches...