Julep Helena

 I'm finally getting around to wearing my new Julep polishes from the aforementioned Maven boxes, and I'm featuring Helena tonight. First, let me say this color is AMAZING. I love me some pink. This pink is hot. Fuchsia or magenta would be more accurate, I guess. Surprisingly, I think it could be pretty wearable for most people, too.

 The formula, like the other Julep polishes I've tried so far, applied smoothly. Like buttah. Flawless in two coats. I used three, just to see if it made a difference. It didn't. You're good in two. For this mani, I used a base of the Julep Nail Therapy followed by Julep's Base Coat, which seem to be a good combination. One interesting note: Helena dried on the matte side (see above photo). I don't know if it was the base coats or the polish, but I added a coat of Barielle Matte-inee, which isn't SUPER matte, but I thought might change it up. Didn't see a difference. The picture above is the most accurate representation of the color. It's almost dead on with my monitor.

 As pretty as Helena is by herself, I REALLY wanted to make her glossy, and a plain magenta mani seemed a little boring, so I busted out some more Nail Art Decals from Cina. This set is Garden Glam, which is a couple of little fairy-looking things and cute sparkly daisies.

 The bright pink flowers were a little hard to see unless in direct lighting, but I'm pretty happy overall. To get my glassy, glossy look, I used a coat of Julep's Fast Dry Topcoat, followed by the Beauty Secrets Top Coat I've been using for years. A lot of bloggers use Seche Vite and swear by it, but the big ole' bottle of Beauty Secrets is about $6 at Sally, which is a steal. It dries really quickly and is really good for sealing in nail art decals and stripes and the like. It's also free of formaldehyde and toluene, which makes me happy.

Helena dried like a sheet of glass. I've been wearing this mani for about 72 hours, and I chipped my index finger because I sometimes forget fingernails are not screwdrivers, but otherwise the wear has been fab. I was able to patch my finger, and you'd never know the difference. That's one sign of a great polish.