I’m so sorry it took me so long to write this post! I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I was able to find some time to review my first ipsy bag! If you don’t know what ipsy is, it’s a monthly beauty subscription service where you pay $10 a month and receive a bag with 4-5 deluxe samples or often full-size products. It is an awesome deal and a great way to try out new products! A fun aspect of ipsy is that they release sneak peeks of the products in the bag at the beginning of the month, and they have a lot of “challenges” and opportunities to win more products!
This month’s theme is Pretty in Paradise.
First of all, I LOVE the bag. Rebecca Minkoff partnered with ipsy this month to design the bag, and it is a pretty navy blue color with bright pineapples. The zipper and interior are red. This would make a very cute summer clutch! Now on to the products!
1) Nyx Butter Gloss in Eclair – this item was the first sneak peek for the month, and everyone got one of these in one of three colors. I received Eclair, which is a pink lilac shade, and I have a picture of the swatch below. The gloss is very shiny and “buttery,” and it is quite pigmented. It also smells AMAZING, like a vanilla cupcake. Best of all, this is a FULL SIZE item, which normally retails for $5.00.
2) OFRA Universal Eyebrow Pencil – I’m still relatively new to eyebrow makeup, and I have yet to master using an eyebrow pencil to achieve natural-looking brows…they always end up looking like they were painted on! Nevertheless, I was excited to give this a try. OFRA claims that this eyebrow pencil is universal, in that it can be used on any hair color or skin color. I’m skeptical of that, but I just read the instructions on their website, and I will give it another shot. Even though it is a deep chocolate brown and I have dark brown hair, the pencil color was so different from my hair color that it was blatantly obvious, even from afar, that I was wearing an eyebrow pencil that didn’t match. I didn’t blend it out as the website instructs, but I will try that next time and see how I like it. I do like that it has wax in it, so that it holds the brows in place, and my brows can be rather unruly! This is also a FULL SIZE product, normally retailing for $13.00.
3) Nicka K Shimmer Eyeliner in Blue – I was VERY skeptical of this when I found out I would be receiving it, as I normally do not like to use makeup with glitter. It’s also electric blue, which is completely out of my comfort zone. I was even prepared to trade this with someone else, but when that fell through, I actually felt relieved. This is definitely not going to be an everyday kind of thing, but I think it might look nice with black liner for going out. I haven’t used it yet apart from swatching it, and it is a very pigmented electric blue liquid liner with some shimmer. I’m glad it doesn’t have glitter chunks! It’s also waterproof and smudge-proof. This is a full size product that normally retails for $4.99.
4) REALTREE for Her perfume – So far in 3 subscription boxes, I’ve received 3 perfume samples! In contrast to the Birchbox samples, however, this is a deluxe sample and it is twice as large. I love the pink packaging and the fact that there’s a cap over the spritzer. The website describes the scent as containing pomegranate, persimmon, orchid, lotus blossom, amber, violet, and mahogany wood. To me, it has a very woodsy scent, which makes sense coming from RealTree, which seems to be a hunting/outdoors company. It’s a nice scent, although rather strong, so a couple spritzes go a long way. This deluxe sample size retails for $6.99.
5) Carol’s Daughter Sacred Tiare Anti-Breakage and Anti-Frizz Styling Cream – This product is meant to be used prior to blow drying or straight ironing your hair. I don’t use heat products on my hair, I don’t even own a hair dryer or straightening iron, so I’m not sure how much use I’ll get out of it. I plan to try it once and let my hair air dry normally, but I may have to give it to a friend who uses heating tools on her hair. The full size (90 ml) retails for $12.00 at Target, so I calculated the sample size (15 ml) to be worth about $2.
Total value of bag contents: $31.98. The bag itself, having been designed by Rebecca Minkoff, is worth well over $10 in my opinion. So I paid $10 for $32 worth of products and a designer makeup bag. Not bad! To top it off, I’m already very happy with 3 of the products (gloss, eyebrow pencil, and perfume), and I look forward to giving the eyeliner a try. Like I said, I probably won’t use the Carol’s Daughter cream, but I’m sure I can find a good home for it!
I hope you liked the review of my first ipsy bag! Let me know what you think in the comments. If you’re interested in joining ipsy, there’s a link to join in the side bar as well as the top navigation bar of this blog!
I have a couple reviews planned for this week, so check back soon!
xoxo
belle violoncelle 