Review: Ipsy 2014-08 and 2014-09

Yeah, I thought I'd do pictures for these and I never did, so here's the brief written description of what I got from Ipsy from the last couple months. The internet has been really down on the bags lately, but I think it's just the bloggers feeding off each other and making it seem worse than it is - I've actually been quite happy with what I received.

August

The bag was a pencil case esque one that felt like an inflatable pool toy and was white with orange spots. I haven't found a use for it yet.

Dr. Brandt - Pores No More Pore Refiner: This product does work to make your pores less visible. It feels a bit siliconey on. I don't really have a purpose for it, but it worked as advertised and it amused me for the 2 minutes I played with it.

Urban Decay - Perversion Mascara: This is the best mascara I have ever used. Okay, so I've only used a couple types of mascara, but this one is way nicer - the brush is well-bristled so my lashes don't end up all stuck together, and it only takes a brief swipe to get the effect that I hope for. It wasn't clumpy and doesn't look unnatural. It did have a bit of a smudging problem, though, where my eyelashes tend to touch my face.

J. Cat Beauty - Flying Solo Eye Shadow: This was sent to me in another meaningless skin colour, so all I could tell was that it was a bit shimmery. Meh. "Natural" is not something I look for in eyeshadows, because what the hell, if I'm going to take the time to smear powder on my eyelids I think it should look different than normal.

Jersey Shore Sun - Mongongo Lip Conditioner: It's lip balm, it works fine. I now will not need to buy another chapstick this winter, so that's nice.

Klorane - Dry Shampoo with Oat Milk: WHAT. This is actually the best thing in the bag... I didn't have high hopes since T didn't care for the dry shampoo she tried, but oh my god. This has saved me on a number of mornings when I woke up and realized my hair looked awful, but couldn't deal with the idea of having wet hair all day from morning shower. Spraying this at my head is frightening, but it makes my greasy roots look so much better. It's hilariously gray when you spray it on, but after I tousle it into my hair it looks just fine. Unlike T, I found it also decreased my itchy-scalp-itis, so bonus.

September

The bag was a shiny gray square one with four studs along the top. It is okay and will be used for something.

Crown Brush - Infinity Shadow/Crease Duet Brush: <3 This was the winner of the September bag. I was always sad that I didn't get brushes when they were an option, so I was extremely pleased with this. I've mostly been using the shadow side of it... I find the crease brush a little too solid, and I prefer to use even smaller brushes if I'm doing some edging. But yeah, a bigger shadow brush was exactly what I needed and I'm pleased to not have to buy my own.

Hikari - Lipstick: This brand is packaged exactly like Be a Bombshell. I am betting they are the same products from the same factory in China. This lipstick looked like a somewhat dark red in the tube, but applied to being a brighter shade of matte red-pink... I feel like it looks weird on me, but I haven't tried it more than once yet. The strangest part, though, was that it's a super dry lipstick... powdery feeling and really pulls on the lips when you try to apply it. Not what I'd look for in a lipstick.

NYX - Hot Singles Eye Shadow: Geez, another skin coloured eyeshadow. This time there were tons of other options too, but I continue on my boring beige streak. The quality of the eyeshadow was fine, but as usual, I could barely see it other than shine.

Pacifica - Natural Water-Proof Eye Pencil: I thought I would hate this like all the other eye pencils, but I don't. This is the best eye pencil I've received from Ipsy - it's soft enough that it's actually possible to apply to my eye, and the fact that I received a brown-ish colour matches very nicely to me. Good on you, brand, you're not bad.

Briogeo - Don’t Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Mask: It smells okay, but left my hair feeling a bit greasy when I did a quick test on the ends. I'm a bit burned out on hair masks, since we all know they can't really repair anything... just coat it for a while.

Book reviews

Let's see how much I remember about the books I've read in the past while!

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone: This is a strange book. It's set in a industrial age world with gods and magic and... lawyers who do necromancy, ish? I didn't hate it, but it didn't exactly enthrall me either. It felt like there was a bit too much going on, as if the author had done a lot of world building and couldn't wait to show it off, but really, not all of it needed to be in this book. Towards the end it was also rather predictable.

Village of the Ghost Bears by Stan Jones: Huh, this book was significantly better than all the other ones in the series. I quite liked it - still a bit bothered by the main character's relationship, but the story was very good.

Feeling Good by David D. Burns: What was I doing reading a self-help book about depression? I don't remember, but it was on my list so I got it out. I read the intro and skimmed through the rest - mostly it told me that I do not have self esteem issues, unlike, apparently, a lot of depressed people. Also, if someone offers you a quiz to test your depression levels, it will almost always tell you that you are moderately depressed because if you answer anything other than "rarely" or "never" to their very generic questions (like, do you feel sad in a week), you fall into the huge "moderate depression" category. Mostly the author spent his time trying to convince you that the book might work for you. It felt like a placebo at best, a con at worst.

Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson: Aw, the Longmire TV show got cancelled this year. Oh well, at least I can still read the books! This one, as usual, was good - I enjoyed the scenery and characters around the scrapyard. The mystery was a bit contrived, though, and no one seemed like they reacted enough to the fact that this was a massive serial killer they were going after. Strange.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor: This is a young adult novel that's basically a kid magic coming of age story, with modern Nigeria as a background. I presume the magic system is based off of Nigerian folklore as well, though I didn't go and look it up. It was a fun enough read, didn't take too long.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson: This book/series came very oddly recommended to me. I was lent a copy with the comment that I'd probably like it, but that it was a pretty confusing read and that the recommender had never gone on with the series because of that... next a coworker told me that the second book was really good, and that the first book would eventually make sense... a similar comment came from my neighbour at band, who read it and felt like she should read it a second time to make sense of things (but she never had). So, uh, often recommended but not exactly highly?

With all that warning, I went through the first third of the book with it just sort of washing over me. There was a lot of different characters and not a lot of explanation as to why anything was happening. The next third introduced even more characters and pulled together some background into a bit more coherent of a world. The final third pulled all the characters physically together, unmasked a few things and was generally a let down. Yeah, that's right: the part that should have been the pay off was just disappointing. They built up a character the entire book and then took away what made her interesting without doing anything about it... I only ever came to care at all about one of the characters (out of a huge cast)... and frankly, there was just a lot going on for no real reason.

I think fantasy writers should learn something from mystery writers. It's great that you have a huge world in your head, but you don't have to shove it all down my throat. Subtlety makes for a way better payoff... I don't want to get to the end and be thinking "about damn time you explained that nonsense from the beginning", I want "oh my god, that was foreshadowed and I didn't even notice it at the time, you clever bastard".

Did I hate it? Nah. But I wouldn't recommend it either, it's just another weird-ass epic fantasy that leaves you at the end of 700 pages wondering whether you really got that much out of it. Also, the title of the book is a strange choice, and I was constantly troubled by the idea that there was a mobile "moon" that apparently didn't cause gravitational effects. Totally unnecessary as well.