Week 1 Review

I've had my polish on for six days now and done some good camping in the meantime. Time to look back and see how the polish held up! I can say just after putting it on that something is a keeper, but it takes the time spent wearing the polish that really determines it.

To review how I had my nails done:

Thumb: Julep Rosa
Pointer finger: Julep Billie Jean as the base, Julep Maggie for the music note
Middle finger: Julep Paulette
Ring finger: Julep Maggie for the base, Julep Paulette for the music note
Pinkie finger: Julep Billie Jean

Rosa:

How did it wear? Whoo, this one did not turn out so well. It's a lovely polish, true, but clean-up was a pain in the ass. You may be able to see it in the photo, but a good bit of the polish ended up creeping over my cuticle. This is normally something I do on purpose because I'm a messy painter anyway and overdoing it a bit lets me perfect it during clean-up, but Rosa was not a polish that wanted to be cleaned up and trying to do so caused me problems.

So yesterday, I decided to use a cleanup tool to try and get rid of some of that excess. It's nothing abnormal; with the average polish, I can do it within the same day to remove excess polish from the sides of my nails and the cuticle line and make it all look more polished (excuse the pun). Five days in and when I tried to get rid of everything of Rosa that was on my cuticles, the entire three layers of polish came off instead in one semi-solid chip. Noooooo. This happened on both my thumb nails.

Also, the site lies about Rosa being holographic glitter. UTTER LIES, which is especially egregious since holographic polishes are my favorites. So very disappointed.

Will I wear it again? Almost certainly not. I don't like to fight with my nail polish to get it cleaned up post-manicure and Rosa wanted to fight like it meant winning the championship match against her heavily-favored opponent. This presents a problem because I have two other polishes from the same line (not just brand, but line because Julep is releasing one birthstone polish per month) that are made the same way as Rosa but are in different colors (Betty and Priscilla). Betty gave me a similar problem but wasn't so bad that the entire polish chip just came off my nail like with Rosa.

Will I keep it? Yes. It sounds stupid, but c'mon, it's part of Julep's special birthstone collection. I know I'm not going to own all of them because the presence of diamond dust in their April polish Coretta bothers me too much for me to buy it (problems within the diamond industry and all), but I'd like to own most of them. Time will tell if I change my mind and throw it out anyway.

Billie Jean:

How did it wear? Billie Jean didn't do so well either. I put it on the pinkie toes as well as pinkie fingers and on one of the toes, half of it is just gone. That part of the toenail didn't chip. The polish didn't get rubbed off on accident when it was still wet because I would remember that. It's just gone like it faded off. On the fingers, it has an extraordinary amount of tip wear compared to the other polishes. I know I put my top coat of choice Seche Vite on later than I was supposed to and would have greater-than-normal tip wear because of it, but Billie Jean goes beyond what is on the other nails.

Will I wear it again? No. The matte look of it is nice and all even though the glossy top coat on my nails covered it up (the matte was perfectly visible on my toes, but you're never going to get a picture of my feet on this blog), but I have a near-dupe of it from the same brand (Flora) and I'm not going to re-wear something I have problems with.

Will I keep it? No. Like I said, I have a near-dupe of it and this one doesn't wear as well, so away it goes. It annoys me I'm getting rid of it after I just redid my color wheels so I have one wheel per color group and have Billie Jean smack dab in the middle of the purple wheel, but it's not like that problem hasn't happened before.

Paulette:

How did it wear? Paulette wore great. The golden shimmer I see in it whenever light flashed over my nails kept me entertained like I was ten again and peeling apart pieces of grass in a field. Hey, when you're stuck at your local YMCA for the summer and don't want to play soccer, you find something else to do. ANYWAY, minimal tip wear, lovely color, and smooth application make it a good one.

Will I wear it again? Yes! I've already got a few other ideas in mind for future manicures and Paulette is involved in at least two of them.

Will I keep it? Yes! I would sure hope this would be the answer since I just got it from being a Julep Maven, but it's good to actually put it on and see that yes, it's a good polish worth keeping.

Maggie:

How did it wear? Pretty well! It had tip wear made more obvious by the fact it's a dark color, but I didn't have any problems with it during clean-up or application. It's also one of three polishes that fondly remind me of space (the other two being Reece and Estelle). The contrast of Paulette against it made it darker and took away its galactic sparkle, but that's something easy to remedy in future uses.

Will I wear it again? Yes! I'll wear it on its own instead of using as the base when doing a nail design, but yeah, I'll happily wear Maggie again.

Will I keep it? Yes! I'd be sad if I didn't have my bottle of Maggie to pick up and stare at because of all the spaciness I see when the bottle is in the light.

In summary:

• Rosa is a keeper solely because it comes from a special collection and I won't wear it again
• Au revoir, Billie Jean
• Paulette and Maggie are awesome purples and awesome polishes