Unboxing the Ipsy Glam Bag for March 2021

My final subscription box for the month of March arrived. For some reason the regular $12 IPSY Glam bag always seems to have a mail delay. This month as soon as the tracking number went active, the link led me to a page that said there was a delay in transit. I’m not entirely sure what that was about since it also said it hadn’t left the warehouse yet.

However postal mysteries aside, the IPSY Glam bag arrived. For those who don’t know the IPSY Glam bag is a subscription that gives you five usually sample sized products based on your profile with a small makeup bag.

This month’s bag is rather cute. It has a nice graphic of four women holding hands which echoes back to the Stronger Together theme. The materials are nice and the bag is one of the nicer ones. It is one I can see myself getting a lot of use out of.

There was one product outside of my bag this month and it was the F.A.R.A.H. Pressed Powder Brush 620 F. It is not a bad looking brush actually. I am always hit or miss with F.A.R.A.H Brushes. I’ve had better luck with the line of tapered gold handles brushes than I have with ones from other lines.

I don’t know if they are made differently or what, but they seem to be slightly better quality. The quality increase seems to be consistent. However, for me this isn’t really a pressed powder brush, or even really a powder brush. It is absolute perfect for powder highlighters though. And that is what I will be using it for. I am still on a quest for brushes more useful for cream products, but I will get use out of this with powder highlighters.

So now I get to open the bag and see the four remaining items. The first Item I took out of the bag is the item I chose. It is the Ciate London Mango and Lime Burst Lip Oil. I have the Watermelon lip oil and I have almost used the entire tube up.

Incidentally Ciate still has their Spring Sale going on and currently these lip oils , normally $16 are $11.20 (they are the fill size where as this is just a sample size)

I really like Ciate’s Lip oils and I am so glad they come in different scents and flavors. This one smells really nice. It has the sweet, slightly floral scent of a mango blended with the tang of the lime. The taste on the lips is slight sweet and more mango than lime. I think I will get just as much use out of this as I did the watermelon version.

I am less thrilled about the Clearly Balanced Days It’s the (Lip) Balm in Peppermint. The Lip balm has CBD in it, which is not a deal breaker for me. I actually like CBD. The scent is like someone put a drop of peppermint oil into a CBD lip balm. It smells very heavily of CBD oil. Again that isn’t too big a deal for me.

It isn’t a bad product, but it isn’t exciting and in my profile I selected rarely receive lip balms. I really like to choose my lip balms. Actually what I really like to do is go on Cratejoy and sign up for the Jersey Shore Cosmetics Lip Balm subscription a few times a year to stock up on my favorites. It is the lip balm I use the most of and so deliberately ask not to be sent this in subscription boxes.

I also asked to be sent Hand cream rarely but IPSY has been ignoring that for quite a while. This month was no different. This month I received the Dionis Vanilla Bean Goat Milk Hand Cream.

The scent is nice, the feel is nice, but at the moment I have a large batch of hand creams that I am working through. I will say that as the full sized bottle with a pump is only $12 it does seem really nicely priced. From the scent and feel of it when I tried it, I would consider picking up a full size once I whittled down my hand cream stash. Which to be honest will take quite a while.

I seriously have hand creams stationed in every room in the house and still have a box full in the closet. While I am willing to try out new hand creams and I understand that with all of the hand sanitizing it is a necessary item, the fact that I checked rarely send and they send quite often kind of irks me.

But to finish on a happier note, this month the final item in my IPSY Glam Bag is the ECO Fabulous Cosmetics EcoFabulous Blush in Camellia. It is a good looking blush in a reusable metal tin.

While the blush pan is designed to pop out of the tin when used up and a new one inserted, the tin is a really nice size and could easily be reused to house bobby pins and things when traveling. I like that the blush is held in a foam insert leaving the tin open inside and therefore usable for multiple things.

It is a well-designed tin and I will be trying out the blush today when I put on my makeup and seeing how I feel about it.

This month I did receive a nice looking bag and five items that I will use. Was it the most exciting bag? No, not by a long shot.

I was a little irked that they don’t seem to be paying much attention to the profile, but they are nice products nonetheless and I will happily use them. This will however be my last IPSY Glam Bag. I will still keep my Glam Bag Plus and I will be keeping the Quarterly Glam Bag X for the time being. I will however be opting out of the $12 bag.

It is a good bag for the most part and a great subscription, but I’ve noticed that most of the items that I want to try are available as add ons. At the moment, I would rather just get the one IPSY Subscription per month and then choose from the add ons if there is anything I want to try out. For me it is a matter of product stockpiling. I always want to try new things, but I also want to use up the items I have on hand.

I suspect I will return to this subscription in the future. I usually do. I tend to let it go, use up a bunch of products and then see they have a sample coming up or a bag design I really like and then I’ll sign up for a few months. So although this is farewell to this subscription, it is a temporary farewell. I will no doubt return in a few months.

IPSY Glam Bag February 2021 Unboxing

Through snow, ice and winter winds, my Ipsy Glam Bag did fly, finally arriving on my doorstep. This is of course the $12 IPSY glam bag. I am still awaiting the arrival of the first Glam Bag X. This Glam Bag featured five sample sized products.

The reason I signed up for the regular IPSY Glam bag was actually for this month’s bag. I liked the little envelope style clutch, red faux leather with a gold lip clasp. I thought it was cute. I also thought it would make a cute clutch, until I saw the back.

While the back of the bag is cute with the letter look stamped on the back, it does make the bag less versatile. I actually chose the larger version of this bag for my Glam Bag X without realizing that it had the same back design. While cute on the small one, I’m not so sure about the larger version. The design is stamped on and not integrated into the material so I may actually use some nail polish remover and see if it will come off. But that is a craft project for another day (although I will post it in one of my upcoming daily posts.

While I do enjoy the bag, it is what is inside that counts and of course what will let me decide if I plan to keep this subscription or let it go to try something new.

The first item I took out of my bag was the item I chose. It is the Amore Pacific Treatment Enzyme Peel Daily Cleansing powder. I absolutely adore Amore Pacific. I’ve tried two creams from them and loved both of them. I am very excited to try the cleanser. I have to say I do like that it is a powder. It means there is more product in the bottle without added water. One of my favorite masks from AnnMarie Skincare (the Purifying Mud Mask) is the same way. It makes it shelf stable for longer and it makes the product last longer. It makes it fantastic to keep around, and why I always keep the Purifying Mud Mask around (well that and it is a fantastic mask). I can’t wait to try this one out.

The next item in my bag was the Farah Flat Foundation brush. I have been looking for a good flat foundation brush so I may give this a test this week to see how it works out for me. The IPSY Glam Bag arrived this weekend and so I chose several different foundations for my weekly makeup bag in order to give the brush a good trial. I’ve had some really good brushes from Farah and some not so great ones so it will be interesting to see where this lands.

Following the foundation brush was the NEOGEN Dermalogy Probiotics Youth Repair Cream. Currently I have an essence from NEOGEN in my skin care routine for testing and will soon have used it a month (I think I have another week and a half on the trial). I also have a larger NEOGEN cream of a different variety to try out. As prior to these products I hadn’t heard of the brand, I am happy to have several items from them to try out.

As always I love getting any sort of powder so I was pleased to see the Lottie London Ready Set Go Loose Setting powder in my Glam Bag this month. I’ve never tried anything from Lottie London that I can recall and if there is one product I will always go through it is powder. Whether pressed of loose even if I wear no other makeup, I always add a layer of powder over my moisturizer. I love a freshly moisturized face, I just don’t like the shine. So even on no makeup days I use powder. It is always nice to try a new one.

And finally there is the Design Me Gloss Me Hair Oil. It is designed to smooth down hair. I remember trying something from this brand a while back and I recall liking it, but I can’t recall what the product was. I look forward to giving the brand another try.

Additionally I did add on a pack of hair scrunchies from the brand Kit-sch Beauty. They were a three dollar add on and while they are nice and pull my hair back without pulling it out, they do feel a little on the cheap side. I suspect I will use them for a while but not have them last a terribly long time. They don’t have the feel of something that will last a long time. I could be proven wrong, I often am actually. However as a three dollar add on, I am very pleased with them, no matter how long they last. I actually really like IPSYs add on section. I love that it is very simple divided into sections by price and that many of the items you didn’t get in the bag are options.It is very neatly organized and I have to admit, I almost always find something to add on each month.

Over all I have to say I am fairly pleased with my bag this month. It is a surprisingly good mix of products. I am very excited for the item I chose and really hope that Amore Pacific appears more regularly. I will take any size they feel like sending sample or otherwise from the brand. I also have a few new to me brands/products that I get to try out as well, which is one of the reasons I get this subscription box. Quite frankly I have to say that I am happy to keep the IPSY Glam Bag another month to see what they come up with next month. If it remains a good mix, I just may have to hang on to this subscription.

Julep is currently having a 50% off sale for those looking to stock up on makeup. Use code 50MAK

IPSY Glam Bag July 2019 Review

For those who don’t know the Regular IPSY bag is $10/ month, charges on the 1st, ships between the 6^th and the 10^th (later if you have ad-ons). Add ons can be chosen on the 2nd you can add up to three add ons (full size is $12, deluxe samples $3). These ship with your bag so there is no additional shipping charge. I not only like the no additional shipping, but I really like the set price. This month I got the HUDA Beauty Mauve obsessions palette as an add-on but I will be reviewing it separately. As for what came in my bag…

First up is the MÍDFLOWER Hyaluronic Acid Moisturizing Mask. It is a sheet mask although it was a little different. The texture is different and instead of wearing it for a set time, you keep it on until it starts to dry out. It was a little strange, but when I took it off, my skin was fabulously hydrated, which is the point of the mask.

Next came the PACIFICA BEAUTY Bronzer Blush Duo. It is adorable and has a mirror on the back. I like the concept of the combo in one palette (mostly because I have a small bathroom and space is always an issue). I wanted to like it. But I just didn’t. Its kind of a consistent theme with me for this brand. I suspect that despite its claim of buildability, the product is just too light for my skin tone. I am going to pass it on to a more fair skinned friend and see if she does better with it, but for me, I could have swirled circular clown markings on my cheeks and you wouldn’t have been able to tell.

On to the next product which was BENEFIT COSMETICS Roller Lash Curling Mascara in Black. I love benefit cosmetics, I use mascara pretty much every day and I have three of these sitting in my drawer. Two I believe from IPSY. I think the other one was from Birchbox. It’s a good product, but I will be passing it along to someone else.

THEBALM COSMETICS Eyeshadow in The Rundown came out of my bag next and as always the packaging made me smile. The color is nice, the formula is great. Despite the great looking packaging though, a part of me wishes I could pop it out and put it in a magnetic palette. The singular eyeshadows I can’t put in a palette tend to get lost in the back of the drawer. But I like it and as long as it is on the counter I will remember to use it.

Finally I pulled from my bag a COLOR CLUB Nail Polish in Mrs. Robinson. It is pigmented. It is long lasting. It is also a bright pink I will never wear. My 10 year old niece loves it though so it will be put to good use. Admittedly she thinks Mrs. Robinson was the nosy neighbor in the re-runs of three’s company and I declined to explain The Graduate to her. Hopefully no one else will either and her mother won’t yell at me.

Over all this wasn’t the greatest bag. It was okay, but most of it will be passed on to someone else. Hopefully they will find it of more use than I do. I’ve noticed they occasionally have dud months, but at least they are few and far between. Fingers crossed that next month is better.