Review: Ipsy 2014-02
Feb. 16th, 2014 03:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikoMan, this month's bag looked awful coming out of the pouch. Thumbs up for the products filling the bag, but geez. I took some pictures, although perhaps M's "it looks like a scrotum" is all you need to know what the gut reaction to taking this one out was. As it happens, one of the products was in the mailer as well, because they really didn't fit!
I think it was a combo issue of a slightly smaller bag and a number of products with additional paper packaging. The blush is also pretty large, as you'll see. The packed bag definitely made a mess of their normal insert, which looks even creepier than it would have normally because of the creasing:
Thanks, Ipsy, I'll have nightmares about those lips for weeks.
For the bag itself, once I had everything out of it and flattened it a little, it's kinda cute. The curved top looks okay, although the bag corners act a little weird. T's recent post tells me that they are squared corners, and they work a little better when the bag's a bit filled, but not over stuffed. Oh, and the liner is a not terrible pink print, which is actually pretty cute combined with the plain front.
I'll learn how much depth of field I have sooner or later...
I'm going to pretend the odd shaping of the bag was thematic, since half the products are also in oddly shaped packaging.
Here's what my quiz reads at the moment. Note that Ipsy also takes into account how you've rated previous products, which I've done each month, so someone else's mileage with the same quiz could now result in different products.
POPBeauty - Plump Pout in "Peony Petal" [lip gloss] (4g, £5.25/CAD$8)
Ipsy community comedy for this one was the person espousing how bad mineral oil is for your skin. I presume she/he gets angry at mothers for their rampant use of the stuff, doing such damage to their babies' butts. Or more likely she/he just has no idea, given that she/he freaked out separately over petroleum products in the same post... but is apparently a fan of plumping products, which are typically applying skin irritants directly to your face. Uh... huh.
Ipsy seems to have the ingredient list wrong on their website. Although the product description includes "packed full of lip-plumping peptides and avocado and jojoba oils", that ingredient list doesn't relate to this at all. I've transcribed the packaging here, for reference. My apologies if there are typos; it was written on the plastic wrap seal and not the easiest to read.
INGREDIENTS: Mineral Oil, Polyisobutylene, Beeswax, Diisostearyl Malate, Silica, Ethyl Hexyl Palmitate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Silica-Dimethyl Silylate, Butylene Glycol, Pentylene Glycol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Caprylyl Glycol, Hexylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sambucus Nigra Fruit Extract, Fragrance [+/- Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140:1), Red 6 Lake (CI 15850:2), Red 7 Lake (CI 15850:1)] Made in Taiwan. Designed in USA.
Can we talk for a moment about fun ways to look things up online? I typically just google and hope for useful results, but I noticed while doing this one that some of the less common ones were harder to find useful results... until I tried Health Canada's Natural Health Products Ingredients Database. Link: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/nhpid-bdipsn/search-rechercheReq.do?lang=eng
It's simplistic, but it also saves you a lot of digging when the possible purposes are just listed off (click through for definitions). Thumbs up, this is actually a useful tool for the public (who probably have no idea it's there).
Despite that, I have no idea what in this is supposed to cause a plumping effect. The good news is that they're going with "peptides" rather than an irritant, so chances are the plumping effect is actually just 1) less dry lips and 2) filled over with product that is meant to be thick. M suggested that it's the sodium hyaluronate, being as it's the salt of hyaluronic acid, which seems as likely as anything. I'm amused that it's probably sourced from chicken / pig bits, according to the NHPD, but I acknowledge that I find humour in odd places.
So, the after all that, the actual product!
This is a sample size of "Peony Petal" - about half the size of the retail product. Still quite a reasonable amount, to my mind. First, I couldn't figure out how to open it... it's a screw off lid, but because of the shape and rubbery nature of the lid, it really didn't feel like it wanted to turn. No problem once you know, but I frowned at it initially. The cross-section of the container is a flattened oval, which I like the look of. It has a doe's foot applicator:
Why are they called that, anyway? Deer have hooves, after all... not the most logical unless I'm seriously misunderstanding the etymology. As applicators go, I personally find them a little hard to use - I tend to have uneven applications where I have to go back and remove some product from wherever I first swipe, and I don't feel like I have the control that I do with a lipstick.
Anyway, here's me with the lip gloss on:
I like it! First impressions: no plumping effect or feeling (thankfully). I had an odd sensation of cinnamon while putting it on (was there a scent? was I having a seizure?) which I think could mean it tingled a bit, but I wouldn't say it was anything of note. I also didn't find the smell or taste noticeable at all.
Colour was tasteful on me, and the shine is damp without being sparkly, which is exactly what I was looking for in a lip gloss. It's a bit sticky, as you'd expect, and it did come off when I had a glass of milk and some cake this evening, but it came off evenly and left a pleasant amount of colour remaining. Thumbs up for this one, the only issue being that I really need a mirror to apply since I'm so bad at doe's foot applicators.
Zoya - Nail Polish in "Odette" (0.5 fl. oz, $9)
This nail polish bottle freaks me out. I don't know how well I've captured it in pictures, but although it has a normal thick base, it looks like the glass gets incredibly thin toward the top. Pretty design, but I was terribly fearful that it will break when tossed in with my other polishes - given that they mailed it in its own box with cardboard separators, possibly the company is also concerned.
Isn't that weird? Maybe I just have an over reactive sense toward design.
I initially wrote that it wasn't a great nail polish, but I've changed my tune a little. This appears to be a quite good formula - 48 hours including a shower and hand washing some difficult dishes, and I have no chips at all. Its downside is that it's quite watery to apply... my two coats look generally okay, but there's some thinness to the sides of my nails and it was terribly streaky with just one. I applied it while watching curling, so I didn't really notice the drying time.
This colour, though... incredibly meh. Depending on lighting, it goes from looking nearly brown (incandescent lighting) to looking reasonably purple (daylight / fluorescent lighting). I'd describe it as a very conservative purple with brown undertones. This is a colour you can wear to work with a vague sense of self loathing for how conventional you've become.
None of my normal "holding the bottle" pictures took the right focus, so instead you get this one that leaves me with the impression that I was flipping someone off. With nail polish.
City Color - Be Matte Blush in "Fresh Melon" (8.9 g, $3)
Hey, blush! I've never used blush, which may become obvious shortly, largely because I blush quite well enough on my own. Still, it's something missing from my closet at the moment, because there's definitely been the odd time when I'm exhausted that I wanted to grant myself a bit more colour.
This is a full sized product... it'd better be, considering how large the pan is!
If you pressed me to describe the colour, I'd say it's an orangey-pink, because I'm articulate like that. I definitely wouldn't say it's the colour of "fresh melon", so I think that at least makes me more honest than the people who name these things.
In the pan, it doesn't really seem like it would work for me at all. When I blush, it's definitely darker and unsurprisingly a lot more blood related. I don't have a great brush for blush, so I played it safe with a light hand and a fair bit of blending. Application was to the upper rounded part of my cheeks, blended up a little higher than I actually blush with a focus on using it to even out the darker patch that I have in that area.
Because the results aren't that different, I've got a before and after. Please excuse my pirate-parrot camera; M wasn't home to take pictures of me this time so I did it myself. I'm actually surprised at how well they worked, though the ones with the camera are hilarious to me.
With blush (and the lipgloss, which I'd already put on):
I think the lipgloss made a bigger difference than the blush, but I'm not unhappy with the blush result, and I'm surprised that the colour seems to work just fine. Good work, random luck or Ipsy colour match!
Alternates:
Jessie's Girl - 9 Pan Eye Shadow Compact in "Tickled Pink" "Brown Eyed Girl" "Behind Blue Eyes" "The Eyes Have It" (0.22 oz, $4)
J.Cat Beauty - lashes & glue ($4)
Mally Beauty - Evercolor Starlight Waterproof Eyeliner in "Starlight" (0.04 oz, full size retail $15)
Tini Beauty - Eyetini Cordial Cream Shadow + Base In One in "Spiced Rum" (0.14 oz., $18)
Liquid eyeshadow? Puzzling! This is a bronze colour, and it comes in a odd shaped container... square at the bottom, to round at the top. For some reason, I can't decide which photo worked best to show this, so you're getting three: One for colour (and size) and two for shape. The only thing you're missing from these is that the martini logo of the company is also on the lid. I have a picture of that too, but clearly four photos of the same thing would just be excessive.
If it looks a lot like a lip gloss tube to you, you aren't wrong. It also has a doe's foot applicator in it, and it looked quite repulsive to me when I pulled it out.
Remember a little ways up where I said I'm bad at applying with these? Yeah, turns out that's not really better when it's on my eye. It puts a lot of product on you immediately, though thankfully you can still move it around for a while. Since I overshot just doing my eyelids, I ended up doing a fair bit of finger blending to even it out and also had to q-tip away at one side to make it symmetric.
Blending did seem to remove some of the shine, so the upper edge is more matte and more brown. Also, so much bronze on my finger tip. Not the cleanest way to do things, certainly not something I'd want to screw around with while wearing a white shirt.
Pictured below,my nostrils you'll see that it's quite a strong colour... and that blending it upwards still left me with a very defined line. I've emphasized it by taking the photo at this angle, and I did find it a bit traumatic since I'm not really good enough at this to make my makeup intentionally dramatic.
However, head on, the topology of my face covers that pretty well.
After some hours, I can say that it doesn't crease noticeably and that there's no fallout. Nice! But applying is scary and it comes out quite dramatically as a result. It's surprisingly subtle on me anyway, because my skin + bronze makeup = shinier my skin. I'm honestly not really sure what to do with this, but that's probably not the fault of the product.
Alternates:
Jessie's Girl - 9 Pan Eye Shadow Compact in "Tickled Pink" "Brown Eyed Girl" "Behind Blue Eyes" "The Eyes Have It" (0.22 oz, $4)
J.Cat Beauty - lashes & glue ($4)
Mally Beauty - Evercolor Starlight Waterproof Eyeliner in "Starlight" (0.04 oz, full size retail $15)
NuMe - Intense Renewal Mask [hair conditioner] (20mL, $3)
Before I get to the product, let me show you the insert that went with it. This is the product that was outside of the bag, incidentally.
What. The. Hell. "Hey marketing department, can you make our flyer for hair conditioner look like it's actually for lube? Thanks!" Well, I suppose it actually *is* for lubricant, but not the kind that this ad brings to mind.
Here's the inside of the packaging, which actually explains the product and also wants to sell you an "ionic hair dryer" and "magic wand".
Product packaging itself was very bland - nothing on it except the brand and "hair mask". It's a sample, though, so not unexpected.
It comes with a foil seal, and once you break it you get the experience of a very thick conditioner coming out of a tiny tube. Unlike me, you probably don't get a 80s school photo backdrop in the background, so there's that:
Could use more lasers.
A quick search on the ingredients for this told me "these are things commonly used in hair conditioners." Nothing terribly notable, and that's pretty much my finding for the product in general. Being a "mask", the instructions for this tell you to wash your hair normally, then apply a small amount of this product to your hair, comb it in and leave it for 5-10 minutes before rinsing thoroughly.
In the interest of doing a decent comparison, I ran a little side-by-side experiment with my hair. I separated my hair into four sections (waist length hair means that this was still a fair chunk per section) after my shower. I skipped using any conditioner in the shower, and instead treated the sections as follows:
1. NuMe Intense Renewal Mask
2. Control (no product)
3. My current in-shower conditioner (Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal)
4. My current leave-in conditioner (Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Leave-In Conditioner)
I picked both my normal conditioner and a leave in to try because I wasn't certain which one would be more similar to the NuMe product. NuMe felt more like leave-in conditioner in texture.
I used about a dime-size amount of each product. For the NuMe, that seemed to be the right amount to get the hair slick without being messy. For the other two, I was just trying to use the same amount and it was a bit excessive - putting a comb through those sections actually removed a noticeable amount of conditioner because it was just sitting on the hair.
I should note, I am an idiot and accidentally added my Pantene shampoo the first time (I was so puzzled when it started foaming...) to that bundle. I rinsed it out and added the conditioner after, but that section may have been a bit excessively washed.
My findings as of the next morning were that the NuMe / Control bundles felt very similar to each other. The NuMe one is perhaps a little less static prone, but it's not dramatic. The other two are definitely more dry. Given the control, though, I'm more inclined to look at the mitigating factors for the other two conditioners: they were in my hair less long (being as I did them after, and the snafu with the shampoo took time), and neither are meant to be used like that (the leave in, for instance, not being left in).
None of these results were better than my normal hair routine when I'm concerned about my hair being dry, incidentally, which would have been use of the Pantene in shower and then addition of the leave in Garnier before I head to work.
I'd say NuMe has a conditioner effect, but that the application method is inconvenient (10 minutes with slimy hair? Ick.) as compared to applying a leave in conditioner in the morning. On the plus side, my hair would have looked silly if it had been dramatically different, so it's just as well that it wasn't super effective. I'll probably use up the sample - maybe the application would be okay if I'm sitting in a bath anyway - and then not think of it again.
Alternates:
Pacifica - Hawaiian Ruby Guava Mini Body Butter Tube (2.5 oz, $7)
First Aid Beauty - Skin Rescue Cleanser With Red Clay (1 oz, $5)
Skyn Iceland - Fresh Start Mask with Ice Age Mud (1 mask, $6.5)
IPKN - Moist & Firm Beauty Balm SPF 45BB (0.05 oz, $1.5)
Dr. Lin - Acne Spot Corrector (1 oz, $9)
PHYTO-C - Velvet Gel (0.01 oz, $1)
Überliss - RituOil (0.34 oz, $3)
Summary:
Date received: 2014-02-10
Cost: $14.95 + conversion
Value: $41
This bag was fun! All things I was willing and able to try, and more than one that fits a niche I'd been looking to fill.
I think it was a combo issue of a slightly smaller bag and a number of products with additional paper packaging. The blush is also pretty large, as you'll see. The packed bag definitely made a mess of their normal insert, which looks even creepier than it would have normally because of the creasing:
Thanks, Ipsy, I'll have nightmares about those lips for weeks.
For the bag itself, once I had everything out of it and flattened it a little, it's kinda cute. The curved top looks okay, although the bag corners act a little weird. T's recent post tells me that they are squared corners, and they work a little better when the bag's a bit filled, but not over stuffed. Oh, and the liner is a not terrible pink print, which is actually pretty cute combined with the plain front.
I'll learn how much depth of field I have sooner or later...
I'm going to pretend the odd shaping of the bag was thematic, since half the products are also in oddly shaped packaging.
Here's what my quiz reads at the moment. Note that Ipsy also takes into account how you've rated previous products, which I've done each month, so someone else's mileage with the same quiz could now result in different products.
| Stylist: | Michelle |
| Comfort: | Somewhat comfortable |
| Adventerous: | Very adventurous |
| Beauty brands you love / want to try: | elf, Urban Decay, MAC, theBalm, OPI, NYX, smashbox, tarte, LORAC, Too Faced |
| Makeup products: | Eye Shadow, Eye Liner, Lipstick, Brushes, Tools |
| Other products: | Hair Styling, Hair Tools |
| Usual place for buying beauty products: | Mass retailers |
| Skin tone: | Medium |
| Skin concerns: | None |
| Eye colour: | Brown |
| Hair colour: | Dark Brown |
| Hair concerns: | Split ends |
POPBeauty - Plump Pout in "Peony Petal" [lip gloss] (4g, £5.25/CAD$8)
Ipsy community comedy for this one was the person espousing how bad mineral oil is for your skin. I presume she/he gets angry at mothers for their rampant use of the stuff, doing such damage to their babies' butts. Or more likely she/he just has no idea, given that she/he freaked out separately over petroleum products in the same post... but is apparently a fan of plumping products, which are typically applying skin irritants directly to your face. Uh... huh.
Ipsy seems to have the ingredient list wrong on their website. Although the product description includes "packed full of lip-plumping peptides and avocado and jojoba oils", that ingredient list doesn't relate to this at all. I've transcribed the packaging here, for reference. My apologies if there are typos; it was written on the plastic wrap seal and not the easiest to read.
INGREDIENTS: Mineral Oil, Polyisobutylene, Beeswax, Diisostearyl Malate, Silica, Ethyl Hexyl Palmitate, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Silica-Dimethyl Silylate, Butylene Glycol, Pentylene Glycol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Caprylyl Glycol, Hexylene Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sambucus Nigra Fruit Extract, Fragrance [+/- Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140:1), Red 6 Lake (CI 15850:2), Red 7 Lake (CI 15850:1)] Made in Taiwan. Designed in USA.
Can we talk for a moment about fun ways to look things up online? I typically just google and hope for useful results, but I noticed while doing this one that some of the less common ones were harder to find useful results... until I tried Health Canada's Natural Health Products Ingredients Database. Link: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/nhpid-bdipsn/search-rechercheReq.do?lang=eng
It's simplistic, but it also saves you a lot of digging when the possible purposes are just listed off (click through for definitions). Thumbs up, this is actually a useful tool for the public (who probably have no idea it's there).
Despite that, I have no idea what in this is supposed to cause a plumping effect. The good news is that they're going with "peptides" rather than an irritant, so chances are the plumping effect is actually just 1) less dry lips and 2) filled over with product that is meant to be thick. M suggested that it's the sodium hyaluronate, being as it's the salt of hyaluronic acid, which seems as likely as anything. I'm amused that it's probably sourced from chicken / pig bits, according to the NHPD, but I acknowledge that I find humour in odd places.
So, the after all that, the actual product!
This is a sample size of "Peony Petal" - about half the size of the retail product. Still quite a reasonable amount, to my mind. First, I couldn't figure out how to open it... it's a screw off lid, but because of the shape and rubbery nature of the lid, it really didn't feel like it wanted to turn. No problem once you know, but I frowned at it initially. The cross-section of the container is a flattened oval, which I like the look of. It has a doe's foot applicator:
Why are they called that, anyway? Deer have hooves, after all... not the most logical unless I'm seriously misunderstanding the etymology. As applicators go, I personally find them a little hard to use - I tend to have uneven applications where I have to go back and remove some product from wherever I first swipe, and I don't feel like I have the control that I do with a lipstick.
Anyway, here's me with the lip gloss on:
I like it! First impressions: no plumping effect or feeling (thankfully). I had an odd sensation of cinnamon while putting it on (was there a scent? was I having a seizure?) which I think could mean it tingled a bit, but I wouldn't say it was anything of note. I also didn't find the smell or taste noticeable at all.
Colour was tasteful on me, and the shine is damp without being sparkly, which is exactly what I was looking for in a lip gloss. It's a bit sticky, as you'd expect, and it did come off when I had a glass of milk and some cake this evening, but it came off evenly and left a pleasant amount of colour remaining. Thumbs up for this one, the only issue being that I really need a mirror to apply since I'm so bad at doe's foot applicators.
Zoya - Nail Polish in "Odette" (0.5 fl. oz, $9)
This nail polish bottle freaks me out. I don't know how well I've captured it in pictures, but although it has a normal thick base, it looks like the glass gets incredibly thin toward the top. Pretty design, but I was terribly fearful that it will break when tossed in with my other polishes - given that they mailed it in its own box with cardboard separators, possibly the company is also concerned.
Isn't that weird? Maybe I just have an over reactive sense toward design.
I initially wrote that it wasn't a great nail polish, but I've changed my tune a little. This appears to be a quite good formula - 48 hours including a shower and hand washing some difficult dishes, and I have no chips at all. Its downside is that it's quite watery to apply... my two coats look generally okay, but there's some thinness to the sides of my nails and it was terribly streaky with just one. I applied it while watching curling, so I didn't really notice the drying time.
This colour, though... incredibly meh. Depending on lighting, it goes from looking nearly brown (incandescent lighting) to looking reasonably purple (daylight / fluorescent lighting). I'd describe it as a very conservative purple with brown undertones. This is a colour you can wear to work with a vague sense of self loathing for how conventional you've become.
None of my normal "holding the bottle" pictures took the right focus, so instead you get this one that leaves me with the impression that I was flipping someone off. With nail polish.
City Color - Be Matte Blush in "Fresh Melon" (8.9 g, $3)
Hey, blush! I've never used blush, which may become obvious shortly, largely because I blush quite well enough on my own. Still, it's something missing from my closet at the moment, because there's definitely been the odd time when I'm exhausted that I wanted to grant myself a bit more colour.
This is a full sized product... it'd better be, considering how large the pan is!
If you pressed me to describe the colour, I'd say it's an orangey-pink, because I'm articulate like that. I definitely wouldn't say it's the colour of "fresh melon", so I think that at least makes me more honest than the people who name these things.
In the pan, it doesn't really seem like it would work for me at all. When I blush, it's definitely darker and unsurprisingly a lot more blood related. I don't have a great brush for blush, so I played it safe with a light hand and a fair bit of blending. Application was to the upper rounded part of my cheeks, blended up a little higher than I actually blush with a focus on using it to even out the darker patch that I have in that area.
Because the results aren't that different, I've got a before and after. Please excuse my pirate-parrot camera; M wasn't home to take pictures of me this time so I did it myself. I'm actually surprised at how well they worked, though the ones with the camera are hilarious to me.
With blush (and the lipgloss, which I'd already put on):
I think the lipgloss made a bigger difference than the blush, but I'm not unhappy with the blush result, and I'm surprised that the colour seems to work just fine. Good work, random luck or Ipsy colour match!
Alternates:
Jessie's Girl - 9 Pan Eye Shadow Compact in "Tickled Pink" "Brown Eyed Girl" "Behind Blue Eyes" "The Eyes Have It" (0.22 oz, $4)
J.Cat Beauty - lashes & glue ($4)
Mally Beauty - Evercolor Starlight Waterproof Eyeliner in "Starlight" (0.04 oz, full size retail $15)
Tini Beauty - Eyetini Cordial Cream Shadow + Base In One in "Spiced Rum" (0.14 oz., $18)
Liquid eyeshadow? Puzzling! This is a bronze colour, and it comes in a odd shaped container... square at the bottom, to round at the top. For some reason, I can't decide which photo worked best to show this, so you're getting three: One for colour (and size) and two for shape. The only thing you're missing from these is that the martini logo of the company is also on the lid. I have a picture of that too, but clearly four photos of the same thing would just be excessive.
If it looks a lot like a lip gloss tube to you, you aren't wrong. It also has a doe's foot applicator in it, and it looked quite repulsive to me when I pulled it out.
Remember a little ways up where I said I'm bad at applying with these? Yeah, turns out that's not really better when it's on my eye. It puts a lot of product on you immediately, though thankfully you can still move it around for a while. Since I overshot just doing my eyelids, I ended up doing a fair bit of finger blending to even it out and also had to q-tip away at one side to make it symmetric.
Blending did seem to remove some of the shine, so the upper edge is more matte and more brown. Also, so much bronze on my finger tip. Not the cleanest way to do things, certainly not something I'd want to screw around with while wearing a white shirt.
Pictured below,
However, head on, the topology of my face covers that pretty well.
After some hours, I can say that it doesn't crease noticeably and that there's no fallout. Nice! But applying is scary and it comes out quite dramatically as a result. It's surprisingly subtle on me anyway, because my skin + bronze makeup = shinier my skin. I'm honestly not really sure what to do with this, but that's probably not the fault of the product.
Alternates:
Jessie's Girl - 9 Pan Eye Shadow Compact in "Tickled Pink" "Brown Eyed Girl" "Behind Blue Eyes" "The Eyes Have It" (0.22 oz, $4)
J.Cat Beauty - lashes & glue ($4)
Mally Beauty - Evercolor Starlight Waterproof Eyeliner in "Starlight" (0.04 oz, full size retail $15)
NuMe - Intense Renewal Mask [hair conditioner] (20mL, $3)
Before I get to the product, let me show you the insert that went with it. This is the product that was outside of the bag, incidentally.
What. The. Hell. "Hey marketing department, can you make our flyer for hair conditioner look like it's actually for lube? Thanks!" Well, I suppose it actually *is* for lubricant, but not the kind that this ad brings to mind.
Here's the inside of the packaging, which actually explains the product and also wants to sell you an "ionic hair dryer" and "magic wand".
Product packaging itself was very bland - nothing on it except the brand and "hair mask". It's a sample, though, so not unexpected.
It comes with a foil seal, and once you break it you get the experience of a very thick conditioner coming out of a tiny tube. Unlike me, you probably don't get a 80s school photo backdrop in the background, so there's that:
Could use more lasers.
A quick search on the ingredients for this told me "these are things commonly used in hair conditioners." Nothing terribly notable, and that's pretty much my finding for the product in general. Being a "mask", the instructions for this tell you to wash your hair normally, then apply a small amount of this product to your hair, comb it in and leave it for 5-10 minutes before rinsing thoroughly.
In the interest of doing a decent comparison, I ran a little side-by-side experiment with my hair. I separated my hair into four sections (waist length hair means that this was still a fair chunk per section) after my shower. I skipped using any conditioner in the shower, and instead treated the sections as follows:
1. NuMe Intense Renewal Mask
2. Control (no product)
3. My current in-shower conditioner (Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal)
4. My current leave-in conditioner (Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Leave-In Conditioner)
I picked both my normal conditioner and a leave in to try because I wasn't certain which one would be more similar to the NuMe product. NuMe felt more like leave-in conditioner in texture.
I used about a dime-size amount of each product. For the NuMe, that seemed to be the right amount to get the hair slick without being messy. For the other two, I was just trying to use the same amount and it was a bit excessive - putting a comb through those sections actually removed a noticeable amount of conditioner because it was just sitting on the hair.
I should note, I am an idiot and accidentally added my Pantene shampoo the first time (I was so puzzled when it started foaming...) to that bundle. I rinsed it out and added the conditioner after, but that section may have been a bit excessively washed.
My findings as of the next morning were that the NuMe / Control bundles felt very similar to each other. The NuMe one is perhaps a little less static prone, but it's not dramatic. The other two are definitely more dry. Given the control, though, I'm more inclined to look at the mitigating factors for the other two conditioners: they were in my hair less long (being as I did them after, and the snafu with the shampoo took time), and neither are meant to be used like that (the leave in, for instance, not being left in).
None of these results were better than my normal hair routine when I'm concerned about my hair being dry, incidentally, which would have been use of the Pantene in shower and then addition of the leave in Garnier before I head to work.
I'd say NuMe has a conditioner effect, but that the application method is inconvenient (10 minutes with slimy hair? Ick.) as compared to applying a leave in conditioner in the morning. On the plus side, my hair would have looked silly if it had been dramatically different, so it's just as well that it wasn't super effective. I'll probably use up the sample - maybe the application would be okay if I'm sitting in a bath anyway - and then not think of it again.
Alternates:
Pacifica - Hawaiian Ruby Guava Mini Body Butter Tube (2.5 oz, $7)
First Aid Beauty - Skin Rescue Cleanser With Red Clay (1 oz, $5)
Skyn Iceland - Fresh Start Mask with Ice Age Mud (1 mask, $6.5)
IPKN - Moist & Firm Beauty Balm SPF 45BB (0.05 oz, $1.5)
Dr. Lin - Acne Spot Corrector (1 oz, $9)
PHYTO-C - Velvet Gel (0.01 oz, $1)
Überliss - RituOil (0.34 oz, $3)
Summary:
Date received: 2014-02-10
Cost: $14.95 + conversion
Value: $41
This bag was fun! All things I was willing and able to try, and more than one that fits a niche I'd been looking to fill.