Ipsy Stats.
What is it: Ipsy is a monthly that delivers a makeup bag
(called a glam bag) with 5-6 sample or full sized products every month.
Cost: It’s $10 a month or $110 for a year.
Shipping: Ipsy ships through DHL in the States, which can
take a while.
Personalization: There is a style quiz and the product
reviews you give affect what’s in your bag, but overall there isn’t much
personalization going on here. You cannot skip a type of product all together
(i.e. you cannot opt out of getting mascara entirely).
Points system: For every product you review and friend you
refer, you earn points which can be redeemed for special offers. The offers are
limited and often go fast, though.
Awesomely unique: Every month you can view your “Glam Room”
and see the products you’ll receive in your bag before you get them. This
subscription is pretty makeup heavy. Each month it arrives in a pink bubble
mailer, which is pretty cute. You get a different, reusable makeup bag each
month, instead of a box.
Unfortunately unique: There is a waitlist when you sign up
and you have to wait or jump through a bunch of hoops to activate your
subscription. There have been issues in the past with unsafe/unusable products.
This
month’s makeup bag, while suited to the theme of “Back to School” is pretty
heinous. I like polka dots, but orange on white doesn’t appeal to me as a color
scheme. Added to the fact that this is vinyl, I really hate this bag. I get it,
it’s a pencil bag, woo hoo, fun. Unfortunately I’m not 7 and I would be embarrassed
to carry this around. I can’t even think of any friends I would inflict this
bag on.
Inside the
bag were five products; a teeny tiny black eyeliner, mascara, blush duo, pore
primer sample and lip balm. Not bad, all makeup, which is really important to
some (based on my reading of internet forums).
My eyeliner
is a Lord & Berry Silk Kajal Kohl-Liner in “#1001 Black.” Frankly it’s
pretty smudgy, which is exactly what you want from a Kajal kohl liner, but not
what I’m looking for in an everyday liner. It’ll probably be a good base for a
smoky eye set with powder eye shadow, but that’s the only way I would use it.
The Mascara
is a fair sized sample of Urban Decays Perversion mascara, which is pretty cool
since this is a brand spankin’ new product. I was hoping for the eyeliner, but
I can take it, I’m a big girl.
These blushes are not showing as color accurate. Sorry. They're both much pinker.
This has a swatch of the eyeliner too, in case your were curious.
Next is the
blush duo from Coastal Scents. This is actually a sample of the Forever Blush
Duo and while I think it’s cool we got a sample of an actual palette, it’s not
functional. I prefer a big fluffy brush for my blush application and that will
not fly with this sample. They would have been better off giving us a full size
blush in just one shade. Besides, Coastal Scents is not an expensive brand? Why
is it the cheapest looking sample in here, when they could have easily afforded
to provide a full sized product for this brand?
I was
excited to get the Dr. Brandt Pores No More Primer sample as I have large pores
and am on a huge Korean beauty kick. Unfortunately it broke me out. It’s not
uncommon for slick, silky primers to wreck my skin, but still disappointing.
Last is my
least favorite product of the bunch. As soon as I saw this in my Glam Room, I
was disappointed. There were four possible lip balms to get and I got the grape
scent. I have always hated artificial grape scents, though this particular
scent isn’t that bad. It’s not super strong, and I would probably use it if it
wasn’t for the chunks of iridescent glitter. I actually love glitter, but
combined with the artificial scent and cutesy packaging it overall just feels
like something I would have had as a kid.
This bag
was a huge disappointment for me and I will probably only use the mascara,
which there will be a full review on later. That’s the nature of services like
this, though. I don’t expect to love it every month.
Does this seem like a good bag to you? Did you get the same stuff? Have any questions about how Ipsy works? Leave it all down below.
