Review: Ipsy 2014-03
Mar. 15th, 2014 06:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikoA month flew by quickly - although I suppose it was the shortest month. I got my Ipsy bag at the start of this week and I've just had a chance to try things and take pictures. Here's the bag + contents this month:
M asked me if Ipsy was threatening me ("YOU COULD BE NEXT!") when he saw the tag.
Nothing's changed in my profile, incidentally, and this mix of items was as accurate as could be based on my quiz - the only miss, such as it was, was the tanning lotion... but none of the alternates were on my "like" list either, so this was going to be a shot in the dark for them no matter what.
The bag itself:
The bag has a bit of an odd texture... like a kid's pencil case, maybe one with that slight holographic material? Plastic and ridged, smelled a tiny bit plastic as well but nothing too major. The art is from Klari someone, as it says on the other side of the ominous-threat tag:
It's supposed to be representing San Fransisco's street map, but my bag has none of the darker lines so it mostly just looks like someone's not-very-skilled polymer clay art. It's okay, but it does look better with a different part of the print than I got. Inside the bag is a pleasant blue colour with the artist's name as a tag:
bareMinerals - Mini Marvelous Moxie Lipstick in "Get Ready" ($7, 1.5 g)
This lipstick has a slight fake-vanilla scent that makes my nose itch while I'm applying it, but fades almost immediately once it's on. It goes on quite smoothly, feeling surprisingly soft - I actually wondered if I was putting a huge amount on, but no, I guess it just has some good slip to it.
This particular colour, "Get Ready", is... pink. I don't really have anything else for you, it isn't pastel nor is it hot... it's just pink. Maybe a bit of a purple undertone? I don't know. Pictures will have to suffice since I clearly don't have the words.
Oh, despite that previous picture that has very little context, this lipstick is small. It's part of a little two-pack of mini lipstick and mini gloss (at a cost of $14). Doesn't really matter to me, since I've never used up a lipstick. It is kinda adorable, though. Here it is with one of my standard size NYC lipsticks, for comparison:
Yes, that's my dead video card as a backdrop. I was feeling a bit ridiculous when I took the pictures; perhaps right after the bad headache wasn't my best idea.
Oh, and there's a US-only free shipping + free mascara code, if you know an US-ians who want to do an order from bareMinerals before April 30, 2014. Let me know if you'd like the promo code.
First picture: No lipstick. Second picture: Lipstick!
It's not my favourite colour (gave me a weird doll-face feeling... I think I just don't like the colour that much), but it's serviceable and pleasantly not glittery. It also has nice enough staying power - didn't come off very strongly on a glass, and still visibly coloured after eating a sandwich for lunch. I think I like it better once it's a bit worn.
Alternate:
bareMinerals - Mini Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss
Vita Liberata - Luxury Tan pHenomenal 2-3 Week Tan ($11, 20 mL)
They sent me self-tanner! This was in the theme of going on vacation (presumably you are ashamed of your white winter skin), I guess.
Slightly blurry because that's how I roll. So, not only do I not care about tanning, this sample is also hilariously small. I mean, the package looks reasonable, but there's almost nothing in it... holding it upright, I couldn't even squeeze it out enough with my left hand to see the product. I would doubt you could do more than touchup spots with this sample.
Anyway, I put some on my foot.
I warned you there would be feet. Then I did all the rest of my makeup and such, then I washed off my foot with a bit of hot water and took another picture.
After this, I concluded that it darkened a bit, but that my sandal tan from -last year- was still more prominent (it's the flattened diamond shape). On the plus side, it did darken the glaring white skin around the sandal tan to pretty close to the same colour, so the colour was not unreasonable. I've very doubtful of the 2-3 week description based on these results, at least without using a ton of product.
Alternate:
Pacifica - Indian Coconut Nectar Body Butter
Klorane - Soothing and Relaxing Patches for Tired-Eyes
Pixi Beauty - Mini Flawless Beauty Primer
Chella - Eyeliner Pen in "Indigo Blue" ($24, 1 mL)
Have you ever wanted to apply a felt pen to your eye? No? ... me neither. But I did it anyway, because learning.
This eyeliner pen is a very long felt tip marker. Like most markers, it suffers from the fact that it doesn't get a lot of liquid to the tip unless it's held in a tip-down fashion... so I did have a bit of trouble applying because that's not my natural arm position.
The thin tip gives you some fine control, but also feels like you're going to poke yourself in the eye when you're trying to get more liquid moving. I also found that if it dried, it ended up pulling the skin and not being a very good application. I'm the first to admit, though, that this could just be my inexperience talking.
All things considered, I think I did okay. I went for something bigger than I normally would in hopes that the blue colour would be more obvious... but it doesn't show up very well on camera, and truthfully, that probably means it doesn't show up much in person either. When I'm up close to the mirror, I could certainly tell it was dark blue, but I wouldn't count on it from a distance.
There seemed to be some dark fallout when I continued with eyeshadow later, on the eye where I put more eyeliner... so uncertain, but possible dry-flaking there. No such trouble on the side that I managed with a lighter hand.
More pictures with the eyeliner follow in the eyeshadow section: The eyeliner was more interesting with blue eyeshadow powder scattered on it. I know that's weird, but there it is.
Alternate:
Missha - M Perfect Cover BB Cream SPF 42 PA+++
Nicole by OPI - Roughles Polish in "On What Grounds?"
Be a Bombshell - Eye Shadow Quad in "Bora Bora" ($16, 4.8 g)
This is my favourite picture of the "makeup on video card" series.
First, though, who names an eyeshadow quad after one of the four shadows that are also sold as separates? Even the back of the quad doesn't say it's a quad, so I could totally imagine someone wanting the quad getting a single or vice versa. That said, the blue is definitely the most interesting colour.
These apply fine, nothing special. Didn't see a ton of fallout (other than the dark bits that I'm suspicious were related to eyeliner), which is good. They're shiny but not tragically glittery, and I could probably get some purer colour if I used more with a primer or wet. I couldn't really make use of all the colours here, so you get to see mostly the blue and the lighter brown:
Please excuse my weird vogue-ing positioning... it was hard to get the light anywhere near my eyes in that room.
I made a token effort with the darker brown, but it just muddied the blue to look like my normal skin again. There's a touch of the red under the back corners of my eye, but not terribly visible. Not the fault of the red, I just decided it wouldn't work.
Alternate:
NYX - Love in Rio Eye Shadow Palette
Final natural light photo courtesy of M:
Summary:
Date received: 2014-03-10
Cost: $14.95 + conversion
Value: $58
Useable and amusing, can't complain. Four items this month (Ipsy says 4-5, but I gather it had been 5 for long enough that people were freaking out), but two full sized and three of reasonable utility.
M asked me if Ipsy was threatening me ("YOU COULD BE NEXT!") when he saw the tag.
Nothing's changed in my profile, incidentally, and this mix of items was as accurate as could be based on my quiz - the only miss, such as it was, was the tanning lotion... but none of the alternates were on my "like" list either, so this was going to be a shot in the dark for them no matter what.
The bag itself:
The bag has a bit of an odd texture... like a kid's pencil case, maybe one with that slight holographic material? Plastic and ridged, smelled a tiny bit plastic as well but nothing too major. The art is from Klari someone, as it says on the other side of the ominous-threat tag:
It's supposed to be representing San Fransisco's street map, but my bag has none of the darker lines so it mostly just looks like someone's not-very-skilled polymer clay art. It's okay, but it does look better with a different part of the print than I got. Inside the bag is a pleasant blue colour with the artist's name as a tag:
bareMinerals - Mini Marvelous Moxie Lipstick in "Get Ready" ($7, 1.5 g)
This lipstick has a slight fake-vanilla scent that makes my nose itch while I'm applying it, but fades almost immediately once it's on. It goes on quite smoothly, feeling surprisingly soft - I actually wondered if I was putting a huge amount on, but no, I guess it just has some good slip to it.
This particular colour, "Get Ready", is... pink. I don't really have anything else for you, it isn't pastel nor is it hot... it's just pink. Maybe a bit of a purple undertone? I don't know. Pictures will have to suffice since I clearly don't have the words.
Oh, despite that previous picture that has very little context, this lipstick is small. It's part of a little two-pack of mini lipstick and mini gloss (at a cost of $14). Doesn't really matter to me, since I've never used up a lipstick. It is kinda adorable, though. Here it is with one of my standard size NYC lipsticks, for comparison:
Yes, that's my dead video card as a backdrop. I was feeling a bit ridiculous when I took the pictures; perhaps right after the bad headache wasn't my best idea.
Oh, and there's a US-only free shipping + free mascara code, if you know an US-ians who want to do an order from bareMinerals before April 30, 2014. Let me know if you'd like the promo code.
First picture: No lipstick. Second picture: Lipstick!
It's not my favourite colour (gave me a weird doll-face feeling... I think I just don't like the colour that much), but it's serviceable and pleasantly not glittery. It also has nice enough staying power - didn't come off very strongly on a glass, and still visibly coloured after eating a sandwich for lunch. I think I like it better once it's a bit worn.
Alternate:
bareMinerals - Mini Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss
Vita Liberata - Luxury Tan pHenomenal 2-3 Week Tan ($11, 20 mL)
They sent me self-tanner! This was in the theme of going on vacation (presumably you are ashamed of your white winter skin), I guess.
Slightly blurry because that's how I roll. So, not only do I not care about tanning, this sample is also hilariously small. I mean, the package looks reasonable, but there's almost nothing in it... holding it upright, I couldn't even squeeze it out enough with my left hand to see the product. I would doubt you could do more than touchup spots with this sample.
Anyway, I put some on my foot.
I warned you there would be feet. Then I did all the rest of my makeup and such, then I washed off my foot with a bit of hot water and took another picture.
After this, I concluded that it darkened a bit, but that my sandal tan from -last year- was still more prominent (it's the flattened diamond shape). On the plus side, it did darken the glaring white skin around the sandal tan to pretty close to the same colour, so the colour was not unreasonable. I've very doubtful of the 2-3 week description based on these results, at least without using a ton of product.
Alternate:
Pacifica - Indian Coconut Nectar Body Butter
Klorane - Soothing and Relaxing Patches for Tired-Eyes
Pixi Beauty - Mini Flawless Beauty Primer
Chella - Eyeliner Pen in "Indigo Blue" ($24, 1 mL)
Have you ever wanted to apply a felt pen to your eye? No? ... me neither. But I did it anyway, because learning.
This eyeliner pen is a very long felt tip marker. Like most markers, it suffers from the fact that it doesn't get a lot of liquid to the tip unless it's held in a tip-down fashion... so I did have a bit of trouble applying because that's not my natural arm position.
The thin tip gives you some fine control, but also feels like you're going to poke yourself in the eye when you're trying to get more liquid moving. I also found that if it dried, it ended up pulling the skin and not being a very good application. I'm the first to admit, though, that this could just be my inexperience talking.
All things considered, I think I did okay. I went for something bigger than I normally would in hopes that the blue colour would be more obvious... but it doesn't show up very well on camera, and truthfully, that probably means it doesn't show up much in person either. When I'm up close to the mirror, I could certainly tell it was dark blue, but I wouldn't count on it from a distance.
There seemed to be some dark fallout when I continued with eyeshadow later, on the eye where I put more eyeliner... so uncertain, but possible dry-flaking there. No such trouble on the side that I managed with a lighter hand.
More pictures with the eyeliner follow in the eyeshadow section: The eyeliner was more interesting with blue eyeshadow powder scattered on it. I know that's weird, but there it is.
Alternate:
Missha - M Perfect Cover BB Cream SPF 42 PA+++
Nicole by OPI - Roughles Polish in "On What Grounds?"
Be a Bombshell - Eye Shadow Quad in "Bora Bora" ($16, 4.8 g)
This is my favourite picture of the "makeup on video card" series.
First, though, who names an eyeshadow quad after one of the four shadows that are also sold as separates? Even the back of the quad doesn't say it's a quad, so I could totally imagine someone wanting the quad getting a single or vice versa. That said, the blue is definitely the most interesting colour.
These apply fine, nothing special. Didn't see a ton of fallout (other than the dark bits that I'm suspicious were related to eyeliner), which is good. They're shiny but not tragically glittery, and I could probably get some purer colour if I used more with a primer or wet. I couldn't really make use of all the colours here, so you get to see mostly the blue and the lighter brown:
Please excuse my weird vogue-ing positioning... it was hard to get the light anywhere near my eyes in that room.
I made a token effort with the darker brown, but it just muddied the blue to look like my normal skin again. There's a touch of the red under the back corners of my eye, but not terribly visible. Not the fault of the red, I just decided it wouldn't work.
Alternate:
NYX - Love in Rio Eye Shadow Palette
Final natural light photo courtesy of M:
Summary:
Date received: 2014-03-10
Cost: $14.95 + conversion
Value: $58
Useable and amusing, can't complain. Four items this month (Ipsy says 4-5, but I gather it had been 5 for long enough that people were freaking out), but two full sized and three of reasonable utility.