Review: Ipsy 2014-06 (without pictures)

[Note: Okay, this is super late and without pictures - I took some, but I've just been busy / unmotivated with regard to posting anything. But I want to write something about July's products, and the text of this was already written, so here goes.]

This month's Ipsy brought me my first damaged/contaminated product! A few months ago, this happened with a lip gloss, but I received one that was fine... this time, though, I definitely got one of the bad ones. Ipsy responded to my email and told me they'd send out another product in its place - but then they sent me the same product again, and I couldn't bring myself to trust it, so that was a bit of a stupid resolution.

Other than that, things continue about as usual. The bag this month is from some designer (well, the pattern on it), and it's actually not bad. I expected to hate it, but the material doesn't feel awful and I'm actually using it to corral some things in my purse. If you're getting these and wondering what to do with them, I highly recommend it as a way to tuck away spare pads, bandaids, hair things, etc... I was always losing, crushing or just dirtying these things in my purse before, so this is way better and also make it easy to switch bags.

Here's what I got this month:

NYX - Butter gloss in "Crème Brulee" ($5, 6.5 g)

Everyone received this lip gloss in one of three colours - the one I got is very neutral. It's got a doe foot applicator and smells like vanilla. The smell isn't as noticeable once it's on. The description of butter gloss disturbs me as I feel it on my lips... who in the world would want to smear butter on their lips? Now I can't un-feel it. It's quite a sticky lip gloss when you put it on - despite the claim that it's "never sticky" from NYX.

Either the colour is very sheer or it's too close to my lip colour to be notable. It slightly lightens them, but anywhere that the product gathers looks like... you know when your lips have a raised bit of dead skin - not dry, just raised, like when your lips were stuck together too long? Yeah, kinda like that. Ick. It's glossy, but really not what I'd look for in a lip product.

The company also suggests layering it, but I can't imagine why I would want to make one of my lipsticks less attractive or pleasant feeling.

OFRA - Universal Eyebrow Pencil (0.4 g, $13)

I realize I am not the target audience of this product, since the only reason I would want to make my eyebrows more solid would be for a groucho Marx costume.

This feels like rubbing a soft pastel (my brain said "greasepaint") into my eyebrow. Perhaps I don't know how to apply it, but it gummed up my eyebrows something fierce and felt really weird. The colour seemed fine (lighter than my eyebrow, but coherent underneath it), and the pencil itself draws on my hand pleasantly and is soft and pigmented, but...



In this case, I would have preferred one of the alternates.

Alternatives:
Nicka K New York - Shimmer Eyeliner in "Blue" or "Green"
Jesse's Girl - Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner

Be a Bombshell - Lash Out Mascara ($15, 9 g)

Oh dear, here's the disaster product. I popped this open and immediately recoiled from the smell - acrid, like burning rubber, and strong enough to make your eyes sting even at a reasonable arm's length. I obviously did not try applying this to myself.
It's clear in retrospect that I would have preferred something I could use, but, looking at the list of alternates, the mascara really was the best choice for me. None of the rest are nearly as interesting - if the product hadn't had this problem, I would have been happy to try it.

Alternatives:
Ole Henriksen - Truth To Go Cleansing Wipes
Skinn - Olive & Enzyme Cleanser
Dermadoctor - DD Cream
Laneige - BB Cushion
clarisea - sea salt solutions face rapid detox charcoal exfoliant
MDSOLARSCIENCES - Mineral Tinted Crème Broad Spectrum SPF 30 UVA-UVB Sunscreen
Essence of Beauty - Wind Kissed perfume spray

Realtree - for Her [perfume] ($7, 0.34 oz)

Hey, do you know what the Realtree brand is? I didn't, but man... nothing says "try this perfume" like a website filled with dead animals (http://www.realtree.com/). It's a camouflage brand that apparently also wants to sell you perfume.

But hey - if your sample can't be useful, it should at least be amusing, right? So props for being the weirdest brand/product combination I've seen yet.

I don't like the smell of this perfume at all. It brings nothing to mind except that it smells like a children's perfume - it flashed me back to storing smelly toys in plastic milk bags to keep them from driving us all nuts. Good on Realtree for sending these out in tiny sealed ziploc bags, given that!

Same alternates list as above - these were "two of" options.

Alternatives:
Ole Henriksen - Truth To Go Cleansing Wipes
Skinn - Olive & Enzyme Cleanser
Dermadoctor - DD Cream
Laneige - BB Cushion
clarisea - sea salt solutions face rapid detox charcoal exfoliant
MDSOLARSCIENCES - Mineral Tinted Crème Broad Spectrum SPF 30 UVA-UVB Sunscreen
Essence of Beauty - Wind Kissed perfume spray

Marc Anthony - Dream Waves Beach Spray, ($3, 45 mL)

First things first, I looked up the video of what I was supposed to do with this product... and it is creepy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhEZat-xVQY

Stop... saying... sexy. Also, the look at the end of it is largely just disheveled to my eye, so I didn't have great expectations for it.

So, basic application, spray it on hair and then heat and scrunch to get waves. After attempting to use this product, I think it's not really useful for someone with long, unlayered hair. It does actually curl up the ends rather amusingly, but only the bottom 10 inches or so, which looks weirdly inconsistent on me. Sorry I didn't take pictures, but I found the texture unpleasantly like having horribly messy hair and had to brush it out. It gummed up my brush with white residue too, bleah.

It will give you volume by way of having slightly sticky product and it will make your hair smell somewhat of coconut. If you're more effective with a hairdryer and have shorter, layered hair, you may get some amusing curls... or you may get a scruffy mess, per the video.

I'm may give it another shot with curlers or something, but mostly it's a novelty for me.

Alternatives:
Dove - Pure Care Dry Oil Shampoo
Carol’s Daughter - Sacred Tiare Styling Cream

Summary:

- Date received: 2014-06-12
- Cost: $14.95 + conversion
- Value: $43 - except without the mascara, really only $28.

Well, the horrible Be a Bombshell mascara sort of crushed my enthusiasm to do anything about this bag. When I finally did try the rest, they were all pretty mediocre for me... nothing in there that I see getting a lot (or in some cases, any) use.

Book reviews

Another quick post, before I forget everything.

Inferno by Dan Brown

I haven't read any other Dan Brown novels. His use of ellipses and italics is hilarious - M and I read this out loud to each other for a while and it was awesome and probably entirely inappropriate for the book. Although I enjoyed it well enough, the oddity of this book was that the main character was utterly unimportant to me: if he'd been replaced with an art history textbook or an internet connection for the secondary character to figure out the "mystery", I'd have been just as pleased.

Also, I was utterly pleased with the twist / resolution of the book, except that it kinda messed up everything that happened before. Spoiler: it really screws up your narrative if it turns out that the crazy guy who was releasing a plague to reduce human population is actually a pretty sane guy with a really reasonable solution considering his ideals and talents. I got to the end and was like "huh, that's the best way he could have handled this" and then went "wait, so why did he make this crazy art treasure map thing and commit suicide? Dude had a legit solution and could even have just lived on as normal."

It didn't sit right in retrospect, 'cause I'm pretty sure the guy had to be sane. I need an explanation for why he did this nutty thing, and I can't resolve it in my brain. If you have one, I would like to hear it and stop thinking about it myself - all I've got is "ego", but ego doesn't usually commit suicide.

Promise of Blood by Ian McClellan

This is an industrial age fantasy series, which was pleasantly unusual: although there are traditional mages in it, the main characters are powder mages - mages who use gunpowder and guns. It's the first in the series (and only, at the moment), and I liked it surprisingly. You know I'm not much for series where I don't like the characters as people, but this one didn't bother me. They seemed like legitimate people doing what seemed reasonable in their situations, and the setting and writing were quite good.

The plot started strong as a political drama - the cover of the book itself will tell you that it starts with a coup - and stayed well paced despite having to introduce me to new magic concepts. It honestly gets a bit weird, with gods and big magic... but the characters also think it's weird, so I stayed in the zone while reading it. Looking forward to another in the series.

Hexed [short story anthology] by Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James and Jeanne C. Stein

This book was a set of four tie-in novellas for urban fantasy (/romance) series. Two of the series I have read (highly recommend Ilona Andrews series, would not generally recommend Yasmine Galenorn's because I'm uncomfortable recommending heavily romance series to people, but it's there if you want it). Here's my thoughts on the stories:

Magic dreams / Ilona Andrews

I really thought I'd read this one before, but it turned out I hadn't! It follows a weretiger (who I didn't remember, but was probably there in passing in the main series) and also the werecat Alpha (who has been a prominent, if still secondary character). I didn't love it the way I do the main series. It felt too much like it was just a tossed off story because the authors wanted to hook up the Alpha and I didn't really feel like the relationship was genuine since I had no impression of them having previous interactions. This was not a story from that universe that I cared about.

Ice shards / Yasmine Galenorn

This was why I actually picked up the anthology: this novella went before the last book I read in this series, and it was seriously annoying not having its back story. It resolves the story of Iris, who has always been a secondary but interesting character in the main series. Predictable (maybe because I'd read the book after it... but I think regardless), but pleasant.

Double hexed / Allyson James

Oh my god. This was a tragic look into what appears to be a terrible series. Half mystic indian / half goddess (literally) main character! Sexy weredragon boyfriend! Reformed vampire! Sexy Coyote (yes, the trickster god) who hits on her as well! Magic mirror who also hits on her / is a super perv! Big magic curse making them all lose control at the same time!

Yeah, it was bad. I can only imagine the series is the same, but probably with more sex scenes.

Blood debt / Jeanne C. Stein.

Vampire bounty hunter, who has human partner bounty hunters (who she is not sleeping with and who also don't know she's a vampire). Still some gratuitous moments, but overall pretty enjoyable. I'm going to try one of the books in the series and see if it's any good - seems like there's some potential, at least.

Review: Ipsy 2014-07 (with no pictures)

Okay, no pictures again. Maybe later?

This month had a pink pseudo suede bag with scalloped edges. Although I kinda like it, it doesn't feel durable at all... I'm pretty sure I'm going to punch a hole it in by accident if I use it for anything.

Here's what I got:

bareMineral - READY 2.0 Eyeshadow in "The Inspiration" (1 g, $6)

This is a tiny but really cute double eyeshadow. One shade is a light pink colour that goes on really nicely - a tiny bit of shine, but not much at all, and it truly brightens my eyelid without seeming like clown makeup. I was really quite impressed with it.

The second colour I had a bit more trouble with. In the pan, it looks pretty neat: a dark purple with gold flecks. But the fallout of gold flecks was pretty bad. The colour of the purple worked fine, but I didn't find it as easy to use as the lighter one.

Quite glad I got this set.

Alternate:
bareMineral - 5-in-1 BB Advanced Performance Cream Eyeshadow Broad Spectrum SPF 15 in "Divine Wine" or "Barely Nude"

Hang Ten - Dark Tanning Oil (1 fl oz., $1.50)

Uh. SPF 8 tanning oil... I don't think I understand the concept. Wouldn't I tan more without it, in that case? Anyway, I don't see myself putting oil on my body. People posting about it have commented that it might work as a hair oil or cuticle oil. I did rub a tester patch onto the top of my foot and it was indeed a lightly scented oil with no notable features to me.

In this case, the alternate would probably have had more use (although I don't need moisturizer in the summer either).

Alternate:
Pur-lisse - Essential Daily Moisturizer

Elizabeth Mott - Tints & Sass Lip Tint in "Cherry" (10g, $23)

Okay, here's the thing. I put this product on and thought it was pretty good - the colour was appropriate to my tone (a somewhat sheer red), the scent wasn't oppressively bad, it was easy to apply neatly before allowing it to dry, and it dried down okay. My one complaint was going to be that it stained the inner part of my mouth a little more strongly, so if I sneered (totally what you do to check makeup, right?), it looked like I'd bit someone. But otherwise I thought it was okay.

Then I thought "hey, I'll clean it off some and see if the stain part is really true", so I put some water on my lips and wiped it off... and got some in my mouth.

Holy mother of god, does that taste horrible. Like, "here class, put these strips of paper in your mouth" supertaster horrible. I was spitting and rinsing my mouth with water and it still felt like the bitter taste was crawling backwards along my tongue and sticking in my throat. Disgusting.

This was seriously why I wrote this post. To tell you to avoid tasting this product at all cost. I'm afraid to try it again now.

Alternates:
Pixi - Tinted Brilliance Balm in "Pretty Pink" or "Unique Pink"
benefit - They're Real! beyond mascara deluxe sample
Pürminerals - Big Look Waterproof Mascara
Lord & Berry - Kajal Stick
POP Beauty - Sunkissed Bronzer
Model Own - Nail polish in "Red Sea"
Nailtini - Nail polish in "Mango Rita"

wHet Nails - Nail polish in "Facetious" (10mL, $10)

I'm going to admit, I haven't given this nailpolish a real chance. All I did was apply it to one finger and then take it off, because I didn't feel like spending the time to do my nails today but I wanted to review it on Ipsy's website before next month's bags start being packed.

It went on super streaky - I wasn't impressed with the formulation at all. I think I'll probably use it (and I like dark blue just fine, and who doesn't like something called "Facetious"?), but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this brand. Maybe if it turned out to have amazing wear time... though perhaps I don't even want that from a streaky polish.

Same alternate list as the last one, this was a "two of the following" deal.

Alternates:
Pixi - Tinted Brilliance Balm in "Pretty Pink" or "Unique Pink"
benefit - They're Real! beyond mascara deluxe sample
Pürminerals - Big Look Waterproof Mascara
Lord & Berry - Kajal Stick
POP Beauty - Sunkissed Bronzer
Model Own - Nail polish in "Red Sea"
Nailtini - Nail polish in "Mango Rita"

Marrakesh Hair Care - Marrakesh Endz Split End Mender & Preventer (1 oz, $6)

This made my dry ends somewhat more pleasant with little effort. M says it smells like a 13 year old girl's locker.

Alternates:
Derma-e - BB Cream with SPF 25
Befine - Food Skin Care Daily Moisturizer SPF 15
Faith Aromatherapy - Citrus Ginger lotion
Sexy Hair - Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Renewal Beach Spray
Sexy Hair - Get Layered Flash Dry Thickening Hairspray
Lavilin - Jojoba Gel Cream
Clear Clinic Laboratories - Vanished Clear Spot Treatment

Summary:

- Received: 2014-07-14
- Cost: $14.95 + conversion
- Value $46

Not the worst, but it's a pity that lip stain tastes so horrible.