NOTD: Julep's Claudette

It's finally September!!! I took the first day in September to be the appropriate time to start wearing fall nail colors. I've been waiting for this day for months. There's something about deep, rich, dark colors that I just can't get over. I'm unbelievably sick of pastels and even of bright nail colors.

So yesterday, I painted my first fall nail: Julep's Claudette.

Claudette is this beautiful deep red color, but it almost feels like it has a little bit of a burnt brown going on. Basically, ever since I received this color in like March in my first Julep Maven box, I've been waiting to try it. And I'm in love. I also love the consistency of Julep polishes: they always apply evenly, but the polish is also thick and opaque. And except for the occasional struggle: I'm looking at you, Julep Peyton, their polishes are consistently in my good graces. 

In the background, you can see a new base coat I'm trying out: Essie's Protein Base Coat. My nails have been looking a little raggedy lately when I take a polish off, so I'm trying to strengthen them up. I'll do a review of this base coat once I've been using it long enough that I should logically be able to see a difference.