Julep Keira

Tonight I have the first polish from my October Maven Box-- Julep Keira. This is a Julep polish that has been available for some time, but I conveniently didn't have it already. Plus, Keira is a perfect fall polish and definitely fits in with ongoing oxblood trend that seems to be big every fall. Keira is described as a "deep merlot red creme." Definitely an accurate description, so I won't quibble!

Keira is called a creme polish, but seems to be a little bit of a creme/jelly hybrid, and surprisingly it leaves something to be desired. The polish is definitely well-pigmented, but goes on streaky. While it's not necessarily difficult to apply, you do have to be careful about pressing too hard with the brush (or making too many brush strokes) because it thins out the polish, leaving streaks. It could be worse-- using slightly thicker coats and light brush strokes definitely helped even this out. I used three coats here and no top coat.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

The flash pictures are probably most accurate in terms of color-- the other photos tend to make Keira too brown or too purple.

I wish the formula was a little easier to work with, but Keira is gorgeous and totally satisfies my craving for a deep vampy red polish. However, I think that this polish is pretty dupeable and available at a much cheaper price