Coco poses with my August 2016 Ipsy bag
Coco insisted on watching me open my bag in order to make sure everything in my first Ipsy bag was safe. Luckily, everything in my bag is cruelty-free, so the only potentially unsafe part of this bag is my own ineptness with makeup!
Ipsy provides five makeup products in a cute bag each month for $10. Not all of their products each month are cruelty-free so I have to do a bit more research when receiving this bag than when I receive Goodbeing, for instance, but a good many of their products are cruelty-free, so unless I get extremely unlucky I probably won’t receive more than one or two non-cruelty-free products a month, if that.
Coco sniffing my August 2016 Ipsy bag. Silly kitty!
In my Ipsy bag, I received:
Overall, my bag was worth about $62.41, which is nice for a $10 bag. I didn’t like everything in this bag, but the products I did like were worth over three and a half times as much as I paid for it, so I’m happy.
August 2016 Ipsy Bag in Purple
This month’s bag came in one of two designs. I got the purple one, and the other was teal. I’m not a big fan of this month’s bag, though I did like the purple one a tiny bit better than the teal. I’m not really here for the bags anyway, though, so this is fine.
IT Haircare 12-In-One Amazing Leave-In Treatment
Let’s start with the IT Haircare 12-In-One Amazing Leave-In Treatment. When I filled out my Ipsy profile, I specified that I don’t like hair products and I don’t want any, so when I saw that they were sending this to me anyway, I was a little miffed.
After using it, though, I am super glad that Ipsy ignored that part of my profile for once.
Because I received it, I decided that I should try it out anyway. I hate putting things in my hair, generally. I sometimes style my pixie cut with gel if it’s misbehaving. Hairspray should just die. I’d never tried leave-in conditioners of any kind, though, and I didn’t think I’d like it.
But, hey, after a single use of this stuff, my small dandruff problem completely disappeared. So there’s that.
You’re only supposed to use a pea-sized amount of this stuff, so this tiny travel bottle is going to last me a while. It smells decent (nothing special, but better than a lot of hair products), and my hair feels nice after using it, so I’m going to keep using this. It’s supposed to be volumizing, but I have relatively thick hair and didn’t notice any extra volume (which is good). So good job, Ipsy. This was a good call, despite ignoring my profile.
Don’t do it again.
Jersey Shore Cosmetics Mongongo Lip Conditioner in Vanilla Coconut Cream
I love vanilla coconut, so Jersey Shore Cosmetics Mongongo Lip Conditioner in Vanilla Coconut Cream was a bit of a treat for me. This balm is really good at moisturizing my lips when they feel dry, so if I’m lying around the house on a Saturday and my lips feel parched, I’m likely to reach for this.
This stuff does not play well with lipstick. If you want to moisturize your dry lips before putting on lipstick, you’re better off using something else. This stuff goes on rather thick, and my lipstick was basically sitting on top of it and wasn’t staying in place very well. If you’re not planning on putting on lipstick for the day, great. This will work well for you. Otherwise, try something else.
Lord&Berry 20100 Maximatte Crayon Lipstick in Intimacy
Lord&Berry’s lip crayon in Intimacy was a new one for me. I’ve had plenty of lipsticks, but never a lip crayon before. Intimacy is just a little tiny bit darker than my actual lips, and it is very matte in color. A swatch is below.
Swatch of Intimacy
Overall, the lip crayon was one of my favorites from this bag. Matte doesn’t always look great on me, but I liked how this looked. It was also easy to apply, and it had great staying power. I didn’t feel like I needed to touch it up throughout the day. If you want a matte lip crayon, this one might be for you.
NYX Liquid Illuminator in Gleam
The NYX Liquid Illuminator was where Ipsy dropped the ball for me this month. This came to subscribers in one of two colors: Sunbeam, a light pearly color, and Gleam, a more peachy color. Instead of paying attention to subscribers’ skin tones when doling these out (something that’s just a little bit important when dealing with highlighter), Ipsy apparently chose colors randomly. I am extremely pale and was hoping that I would end up with Sunbeam, but because of this randomization, I ended up with Gleam, and the results were rather disastrous.
Since the illuminator is supposed to blend rather well, I wanted to give it a chance by dabbing it on my collar bones to see if it’d look okay. It didn’t. This peachy color makes it look as if I am intentionally giving myself a sunburn — a very sparkly sunburn. It is literally exactly the same color I turn when I get a sunburn. I’m not even joking. Here’s a swatch:
Swatch of Gleam. If Twilight vampires could get sunburns, they would look a lot like this.
The sad thing is I think I really would have loved this product in Sunbeam. I’ve never used any kind of highlighter or illuminator before, and it would have been nice to have the chance to try one in a color that would actually look good on my skin. I’m going to have to give Gleam away, though. There’s no possible way I’m going to be able to get this color to work for me. (I will give this stuff credit for having good staying power once it dries, and for being easy to wash off. The formula itself seems rather nice.)
Rodial Smokey Eye Pen in Black
The Rodial Smokey Eye Pen was also a disappointment for me. I don’t mind trying new eyeliners, and I was rather excited to try this one because it seemed extremely pigmented.
This stuff smudges. This stuff smudges bad. Here’s a swatch (before I managed to smear it and get it all over my arms):
Swatch of Smokey Eye Pen in Black
This is supposed to be used to get a smoky eye, but I couldn’t get it to work for me. I used a q-tip to blend it like the directions on the Ipsy website said to, but all that accomplished was removing almost the entire product from my eyelid. I tried multiple times, but it would not stay. I also tried using it as a regular eyeliner, but it was bleeding down my face in less than five minutes in a room-temperature space. I don’t know what it is about this formula, but it just would not work for me. Unless I can find someone who wants this, this is probably going in the trash.
Overall, I liked three out of the five products in my Ipsy bag this month, so I’m satisfied. I wasn’t expecting to find a cure for my dandruff just like that, but if it works, it works. After receiving this bag, I went ahead and edited my preferences on the Ipsy site. The way I see it, you can’t actually know 100% what kinds of products you’ll be happy to receive in your bag until after you’ve already received some and thought about them for a bit. I also read somewhere online that stating that you’re “set with your beauty routine” rather than “adventurous and willing to try anything” will make Ipsy stick closer to your profile and send you fewer rogue hair products when you specify you don’t actually want any, so I’m giving that a try as well. For my first month, I think things went rather well. Here’s hoping my next bag will be even better!
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