You see, this past Friday, at the end of the business day, Julep dropped this bombshell on all of its Mavens:
I don't even know where to start talking about this.
Julep's decision to drop its subscription program came as a shock to a lot of people. Julep, at least with founder Jane Park at its helm, always seemed very honest and customer-focused. Now, the company was dropping their key program out of the blue and they were also erasing everyone's points (Jules)!
I'm sure that somewhere in the terms we agreed to when we signed up for the Maven subscription there was a clause stating that the whole program could be discontinued at any time. But still...it sucks, you know? Everyone lost something in terms of Jules. The biggest loss that I've seen so far has been 14,000 Jules. That's 7 boxes that someone could have gotten for free!
To give some context to this mess, I think this GeekWire article gives a good background as to what has been going on with Julep in the last little while. Some key points from the article:
- 2016: Jane Park took a step back from Julep's day-to-day activities as Glansaol acquired her company
- December 2018: Glansaol declared bankruptcy and Julep laid off 102 employees
- January 31, 2019: two brick-and-mortar Washington locations closed
- Julep is now in the process of being sold to AS Beauty
Julep's email came as a surprise, but I'll be honest - I haven't been as invested in the company in recent years as I had been when I first found out about it in October 2013.
In the 6 years since I have accumulated so much Julep nail polish that I don't know what to do with it all (I don't paint my nails very often these days). I have found a number of products that I love, but I have also found replacement for them which I can get locally. Plus, I started to feel less inclined to buy from Julep when they started charging Canadians a shipping fee last year.
In terms of Jules, I had 1,900 when Julep sent the email. The Jule Box page was still up (and is currently up as I write this), so I quickly redeemed my points for Lock Down Your Brows. I actually got a shipment notification today, so hopefully it comes in! (Edit: on February 25th - less than a week since I ordered it - I received the brow gel! Hopefully more of you got to take advantage of what was left in the Jule Box!)
I guess we'll see how this situation unfolds and what happens to Julep, but so far things aren't looking good.
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"You get to keep your Maven perks" - What were those again??
How do you guys feel about this situation?
Please let me know in the comments below!
Thank you for reading! 💙
