Ipsy January 2014

The Overall: The products were a bit of a snore.  I got two full-size products (though I consider a pocket-pack size to be as good as a sample, so.) I was a leetle disappointed this month.  Granted, not every bag can be a winner, but this was a thumbs-down from me.  Mostly, I just felt like the shades were a miss for me and I really detest one of the products.  Two of the products are going to be part of my daily routine until they’re used up, so I’m not crying.

If you’d like to try ipsy yourself, you can use my referral link: http://www.ipsy.com/r/3ljv

Elizabeth Mott Smooth Shadow in Pearl – The shade is pretty close to my skin tone.  Applied on me, it looks like my eyelids are just greasy, with just a hint of frost.  It’s an okay highlighter (a bit TOO shiny for that, in my opinion), but this definitely didn’t sell me on a full-size product. I originally had a rant written up about how small this pencil is, but someone on the ipsy site mentioned that this was meant to be sharpened.  Um, why don’t we ever get told this stuff?

Apothederm Bright Skin Serum – These products are so eye-rolly for me. The product claims are never terrifically specific about what the product actually does: “refines, brightens, hydrates”.  The trial size dispenser sucks and it was a nightmare to get even a little bit of this product out.  I put it on and my skin now feels sticky and gross. The full size is $70, but I can’t get past the crappy sample or the sticky feel to tell you whether this pays off over the long term.

Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Tri-Wheat Leave-In Conditioner – I love leave-in conditioners and this didn’t disappoint.  Smells okay but feels really nice in my hair.  I’m always happy with the size of Sexy Hair samples, but I think I’ve gotten one of their samples every time they’ve been in the bags.

MicaBeauty Tinted Lip Balm in #5 Natural – In the pot, this looks like a brownish mauve.  I used my fingertip as an applicator and it looked pretty dark on my fingertip.  When I put it on my lips… I felt nothing.  It looks like nothing was on.  I piled it on twice more and I could detect a little bit of mineraly graininess, but no real moisture.  The colour didn’t really deepen.  I feel like this would be a nice product for cold days when my lips go pale, but that’s about it.  Apparently, this comes with a very different applicator normally, so maybe that makes a difference?  Either way, for $30, that’s a nope.

Absolute! Makeup Cleaning Tissue with Pomegranate Extract – I always like these products and the smell was generally nice, though there was a whiff of weirdness in the background.  Still, these did a nice job and left my face feeling clean.  For $2.50, I think they’re right on as far as price.

7 responses to “Ipsy January 2014”

  1. Nothing really jumped out at me in this bag. Well I take that back: the bag itself jump out at me but not in a good way. It smelled very strongly of moth balls and I had to throw it away. ( And I mean in the garbage cans outside. )

    Smooth Shadow in Pearl : I might have been excited about this if I didn’t buy a whole 5-pack of NYX jumbo pencils from Ulta 2 months ago. This doesn’t seem to compare well. I don’t understand the sharpen comment… do you mean it gets THICKER?? Oh holy shit did they ever screw that up.

    Lip balm : Very blah. Toss.

    Cleansing tissue : I chucked these into my travel bag so I haven’t used them yet. Traditionally I don’t care much how these type of items perform. By that same token I won’t go out of my way to purchase them because whatever else I stumble across is fine.

    I got a few different things….

    Pure Marula Facial Oil by Marula : I’m over the oil thing. If you’re interested in it, I’ll put it aside in the Dootsie Pile. 🙂

    Nourish Organic
    Lightweight Moisturizing Face Lotion : More meh.

    1. Re: sharpening I initially thought that the pencil was a twist-up, mostly because of the thick plastic end (tpyically, they’re just shorter on actual pencils) and the plasticy feel. Apparently, a LOT of people on ipsy.com thought so, too. I just wish they’d tell us important information about products.
      Did you get the bag with the palette of five glitters that had eyeshadow applicators with it? In tiny letters on the ipsy site, they said it wasn’t eye safe. EVERYONE was either confused or outraged that we weren’t told this. We kind of get these products out of context, so we don’t really know much about some of these products. I started off on this long-winded rant that the shadow pencil was a terrible sample because it was all packaging and like three applications of shadow before I found out that–no, it’s actually a sharpenable pencil, so there’s more product there.
      ANYWAY. Thanks for sharing this Ipsy experience with me. 😀 It’s so fun to compare notes.

      1. NOT EYE SAFE?!? WHA..???
        I didn’t get that palette but for the sake of my eyes — whew!

  2. Off topic: how come you didn’t add your blog URL to your OBB post??

    1. That “post” was actually a comment I left on another post (which is actually linked in the article). Ariel just grabbed it and made it a post.

      1. No way!! LOL.. she’s a sly minx.

  3. I love ipsy! I loved how they used a local artist to design the March 2014 bag! For my March bag I received the BareMinerals lipstick, Chella eyeliner, Bora eyeshadow quad, and a luxury tan. For $10 per month with free shipping you get 4-5 high end cosmetics with a cute reusable makeup bag! A fun way to treat yourself every month on a budget. You can become part of the ipsy community here: http://www.ipsy.com/r/73vu

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