Ipsy Glam Bag: March 2013

Hello everyone! Today's post is a review on this month's Ipsy Glam Bag.

For those who don't know, Ipsy is a makeup/beauty monthly subscription service. For $10/month (plus tax in some states, shipping included), you'll receive 4-5 products in a little cosmetic bag. It sounds like a great idea, and some bags I've received have been awesome. However, some bags, like this one, were not so awesome. If you're interested in signing up, you can click here to register for their Wait List (it usually takes about one month to get a bag, so if you get put on the wait list in late February and miss March's bag's payments, you'll be able to sign up for April's bag). Unlike Birchbox, I don't get any sort of recommendation points for you clicking this link.




I wasn't too stoked about this month's, and they've certainly had better months. In fact, the only reason I didn't cancel was because when I clicked "cancel," a message said, "Wait, don't miss out on next month's brands!" and two of them were Yes To and Urban Decay. I absolutely love Urban Decay, but don't like to fork over the cash for their products, and Yes To is another brand I really like. Plus, in December's bag, we received a full-sized Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner, so I'm holding out for another month. We'll see what April is like. If I'm not completely "wowed," I am definitely cancelling.

 

Everything came in this cute little cosmetics bag. All of the products are travel-sized for this month's "Great Escape" theme. The feeling is sort of water-resistant-wind-breaker-esque (phew!) and the bag is pretty big, an inch or so longer than a glasses case and almost as wide. I think it would be a great cosmetics bag to travel with, and it's definitely one of my favorite bags that I've received thus far.

Too bad that bag's contents didn't match up to the bag itself.

The first product I pulled out was Juice Beauty's Hydrating Mist (1 fl. oz ~ $3.25). I didn't really care for this product. It is supposed to "tone" and "hydrate," but I found it neither removed oil from nor added moisture to my face. It has the smell of ylang ylang, which I don't care for. I don't hate it (some people on Ipsy's website claim it smells like "grandmas," haha!) but I'm pretty indifferent. However, it made my skin tighten up a bit, and I had to put on more moisturizer just to compensate for that discomfort. Overall, I would not purchase this product, nor would I recommend it to anyone.

The second item in my Ipsy bag this month was LA Fresh's Travel-lite Makeup Remover Wipes (8 wipes ~ $2). These wipes are pretty average at removing makeup. However, they are not paraben-free, which worries me. Parabens are a chemical preservative that are pretty cheap to acquire, so a lot of companies use them in their products (especially makeup) to lower the cost. This sounds great, but actually, there is a connection of parabens to breast cancer as it can be absorbed through the skin. So I think I'll pass and stick to my good ol' Neutrogena Makeup Remover Wipes, which are paraben-free.

The third item is the Glam RX Mini Freestyle Palette. (You can also see my Nikon camera reflected in the mirror!) This is an Ipsy-exclusive product, but I wasn't too impressed. It's pretty heavy for such a small palette. I included the two dimes for size comparison. I'd say you can squeeze 6 dime-sized eyeshadows in there, and that 8 would be pushing it. Also, a lot of my de-potted eyeshadows didn't stick, since the magnet is relatively weak. Unlike my Z-Palette, it didn't come with extra magnets for the eyeshadows that didn't stick to the magnet (as this magnet doesn't work on aluminum). My Z-Palette is larger, and the mirror doesn't mean much to me since I have my own (lighter-weight) mirror. This will stay in my makeup case and collect dust.

The last item is two Yaby Eyeshadows in Seashell and Azalea (.5g each ~ $1 each). When I was going to swatch these, I was impressed by the silky feeling of them, almost rivaling Urban Decay. However, I was sorely disappointed when I saw how little pigment the colors had. The pale pink wasn't so bad, but the rose-pink (the camera made it look a little darker than it is) was barely noticeable. It was disappointing, as these were the one thing I was actually kind of excited about.

Overall, I'm pretty upset with this month's bag. This might have been the worse bag yet since I've started receiving them, and I got my first bag in September. You have one last chance Ipsy!

Did you get this month's Glam Bag? What did you think?

With love,
Sammi

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Disclaimer: I purchased this month's Glam Bag with my own money and am in no way being compensated for this review (if I was, they would kill me).