Happy February! The month of love, and loving your products! I decided I’d like to have a makeup-heavy box this month, so I mostly chose and added cosmetics instead of the skincare I was more drawn to. But they were pretty good picks if I do say so myself. I’ve been very excited to get the products in this Boxy, so let’s get started!
Also – he broke it off after cancelling date number eight. Pretty sure I said something stupid like, “No I don’t feel very led on…. Yeah I understand….” Three months on the dot. I wonder if it was planned, probably not. I bought this couch imagining him on it. Wish he’d said something after date number seven … date six … date five ….. date four…. I could have spent Valentine’s Day out and about. I could have gotten to first base with someone on New Year’s Eve. Now I just cry myself to sleep and try not to think about it. We never even had a first kiss…. We didn’t even make enough memories for me to miss. On our last date he bought me this stupid plant (see below) and helped me name it. He called Valentine’s Day a “special day!” and then made it special by calling me, which he hadn’t done before…. I felt like we were finally out of the woods! Then cancelled plans … then four days later … I don’t know. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I dodged a bullet. A perfect bullet. I fell for him pretty hard.
But then … out and about at a party last weekend I met a nice man, who walked me to my car and got my number, and asked me out the same week. We went bowling, and he put his arm around me, and he kissed me as we were saying goodbye, and I feel hope again.
Hope is my middle name.
Ciate London
I see this brand so much but I still feel like I know nothing about it. I’m pretty sure I’ve received this product before, their Watermelon Burst 2-in-1 Everyday Lip Balm and Mask. It’s a nice lip balm I guess? Not exactly a POWER PICK or anything.
I’ve been wearing it to bed the last few nights. It’s definitely a very heavy mask, and probably pretty good for winter. Still, not very interesting or new or unique to be the IPSY choice for me. Not much else to say.
V Kosmetik
This one I was really interested in, because I’ve been using this brand’s eyeshadow primer for the last few months and liking it a lot. This is their Make-Up Blender, which appears to be a set of a sponge and a puff for makeup application. I’ve never tried a makeup puff before.
The set retails for $25, so a pretty good item to get in the box. It should be mentioned though, that the puff can’t be found on their website and that the sponge is listed for $18. So I can’t find any evidence that V Kosmetik makes the puff besides the marketing on it with the logo.
The blending sponge is more firm and dense than the one I’m using now and I don’t like it as much. It reminds me more of the Beauty Bakerie ones, which I did like for a while before I learned how soft they could be. The puff is only a little larger than my fingertip, and honestly it feels the same as blending in concealer with my fingertip alone. It just doesn’t add the warmth that the finger does, I guess? There isn’t anywhere in my routine that really needs this, except maybe to create an eyeshadow shape. I’ve been wanting to try that out for a while and could use this to get that done, if I put a little powder on it or something.
[Update: I did try using it to guide my eyeshadow application, but I ran into the problem of only having two hands. So it wasn’t a great idea, I can’t hold it and the mirror lol. I think I’d stick with tape.]
I definitely wouldn’t repurchase these items, sorry. The eyeshadow primer is awesome, but these tools are just not it.
Ace Beaute
Another brand I feel like I see all the time but know nothing about. I have seen their products a lot in the shops, so someone must be getting them. [I just realized, I do like the purple mud mask I got from them last year. I haven’t used it in a while, maybe I will tonight].
This is a very spring palette called Whimsical Bloom and it definitely matches its name. It’s full of beautiful pastels and cool midtones, and the arrangement has me fascinated. The top row is mostly transition shades and base shades, then the middle row is all sparkly shimmers like this gorgeous turquoise color literally called sparkle. Then the bottom row is matte shades that go along with the shimmers above them. So sparkle has a matching matte called ethereal, which is a slightly deeper but similar color.
The matte shades are not overly pigmented, so it takes a few goes to apply the right amounts, but I don’t mind that at all, as I like to have a lot of precise control. The contour shades on the bottom of the palette are deeper, so naturally more pigmented, and they are hard hitters.
The shimmers are pretty, they do a good job, but I have to go in a few layers to get the effect I want, the way that Beauty Bakerie shimmers look. There is nothing on the market right now like the Beauty Bakerie Cinnamon Roll Eyeshadow Palette’s shimmer shades. They have the pigment of matte shades, and the bling of the JSC highlighters. One swipe shimmers. So this palette has pretty colors but its shimmers do not even remotely compete with BB. I do like them though.
I will say though, some of the shimmers are very different on than they look in the palette. So the shade sparkle for example, it looks like a light greenish teal in pan but it comes out golden. So I wore a green and gold look that day unintentionally, I got a compliment on my early St Patty’s day look. True story a girl said that to me at work. I haven’t noticed it as bad with the others, I’m going to try a look with Violette tomorrow and see how it comes out.
This palette retails for $39, which is about right I think for the amount of product. The packaging is perfect for the whimsical message of the palette’s colors.
I’m excited to start using it as spring comes around!
Rare Beauty
It’s been a minute since I’ve gotten any rare beauty! Their contour sticks and concealers are some of my staples, so getting an eyeshadow stick is very exciting. This is their All of the Above Weightless Eyeshadow Stick in the shade Contentment (Rose Taupe).
The packaging is a twist-up, which is the best type of packaging for cream eyeshadows. it looks like it starts out sharp but should smooth over. I just wish it wasn’t a shimmer, it’d be so much more useful as a matte. I love cream eyeshadows that are matte, to start a base or literally draw on where I want color. But with shimmer, its so limited. The formula is pretty good, but I wasn’t able to try it in all the ways I wanted. I did use it on the outer corner to add depth, but it transferred all over my lid over the day. Definitely not a product I’d get in this deep shade again. These types of cream eyeshadows are (imo) best in midtone shades and as bases and highlighters
These retail for $22, which is alright, not terrible. I’d definitely choose them in the future or if I see them in the shop. I’d love to try a more nude shade.
Byroe
Byroe… we will just always meet like this. Our love knows no bounds. This is their Kale Hydrating Gel Moisturizer and I’ve been so excited to try it as we move into spring. I love very lightweight products in the spring, since I like to be outside and in the sun as much as possible. So I need products that can leave my skin able to breathe.
The packaging is perfectly on brand, as usual, lovely colors and quality. Obviously it’s kale, right, so the jar is green. It says it’s fragrance free, which would be nice since I don’t really want to smell like a vegetable (unless it’s cucumber, if that counts). It also says it contains some trademarked ingredients that help lock in moisture while keeping the skin cream fast-absorbing.
They mean it when they say fragrance free, there’s really no smell at all. If there’s a smell it’s like, the smell of walking into another room, like you don’t really notice it. The texture is so lightweight and refreshing, I sort of wish it were in a squeeze tube though, or a pump, since its so lightweight… but I love tubs… so I’m conflicted. It’s got a slightly gelatin property. The comparison I want to make is the Laneige Water Bank gel moisturizer, it’s a similar thickness to this but slightly more jelly. So if you take your fingertip and tap it on the product, instead of coming off with a little cone of product, you’d just come off with a little moisture, the product would mostly stay intact.
It sinks in very well and by the time I’ve wet my beauty blender and come back to my vanity it’s mostly sunk in except around my eyebrows. My KVD foundation goes on over it perfectly with no pilling, so it doesn’t mess with my looks.
It retails for $85. I cry. I recommend it, if you can afford it. I’ll have to see if it’s available on Poshmark or something….someone allergic to Kale maybe…
Add-ons
So that’s all of the items IPSY chose for me or that I chose for myself, time to talk about these exciting add-ons! Like I said, I made a real effort to choose makeup over skincare – and there was one item I have always wanted to get, that I finally saw in add-ons! I’m leaving it for last but I already knew I’d love it, even before I got it.
Commodity Fragrances
This brand is so interesting and I choose their stuff any time I see it. You’ll recall that Juice is my favorite fragrance from them, and that Gold and Milk are close behind, I love them too. I had the opportunity to select Milk Personal and add it to this box, so I absolutely made sure to.
In case you forgot, Commodity Fragrances gives you not only options on fragrance but also intensity. So you can choose Milk, but you can choose Personal, Expressive, etc. Milk is just such a nice lowkey fragrance and now I can wear plenty of it without worrying that I’m going to annoy anyone by dousing myself in the stuff.
The packaging for these is also beautiful and elevated, I love that it’s just plain black or plain white, all very matching, nothing ornamental. I can carry these in my bag, there’s not tons of artwork that could fall off it. I have juice in my bag right now actually.
Kulfi Beauty
A brand new brand to me! This is their Main Match Crease-Prof Long-Wear Hydrating Concealer. In the shade Bad Badaam.
Here’s the thing. You don’t want to name your product like this. You don’t have to list every benefit of the product in its name. You want to come up with a name that’s easy to recommend to other people. You want a random girl to be able to tell a random girl where she gets her concealer. I will never recommend this concealer to anyone, not because it’s bad, but because it’s got twelve fucking syllables, FIFTEEN with the shade name.
This product isn’t bad, but I didn’t love it. It’s way too rosey for my skin tone, so I wasn’t able to use it much. The formula was decent, but nothing exactly wowed me.
It retails for $26, so compared to the $24 for the one I’m using from Rare Beauty, it’s not bad. I wish I had received a shade that worked for my skin tone so I could give more info, but there’s very little I can do with it.
Morphe
Would you believe that I have never tried a Morphe product before? Everyone loves their stuff, or loves to talk shit about their stuff, but I’ve never touched it. I was actually pretty thrilled!
This product is their Hot Shot Sun Drops in the shade Bronze Bombshell. I’ve never had a liquid bronzer before that I can recall, they’ve always been stick or powder. So it’s a first!
The packaging is cute, it’s a frosted plastic bottom and a white top, so you can see the color of the product through the base. It’s a thin squeeze bottle with a twist cap. The product is very watery, so I tried to use my fingertips to apply but it’s very messy. What I’ve been doing now is, since every time I wet my blender I use a paper towel to dry it out a little extra, I bring that paper towel with me to the vanity and pump some product out onto that. Then I use my contour brush to spread the product out a little like it’s paint on a palette, and then apply from there, just like if I tapped it off the top of a contour stick.
The shade is more bronzey than contour(ey?), but that makes sense. It looks pretty orange on me and I’d love something slightly cooler, which is harder to find. But it’s got a good texture, and once it’s blended it doesn’t look that different from what I usually wear.
It retails for $16, which isn’t bad at all. I recommend this if you’re an easy swipe and go bronze person, I just need so much more precision when I contour.
ToyFactory
I remember this brand but I can’t recall anything I’ve loved… OH! I actually tried a concealer that I liked from them, in a long tube with a long handle. It was super light and high coverage, and it was very “going out.”
This is their Dreamset Highlighter in the shade Metaverse. I thought this was a highlighter, but it’s so tiny I think it’s actually an eyeshadow topper. My highlighter brush cannot even fit in this.
Ah, I’ve just taken a look at it … it’s a mini. Did I know it was a mini? Was it labeled as a mini? I don’t remember. Maybe I’m an idiot. I do not love minis.
Okay, well I wouldn’t have picked it if I noticed it was a mini. I like to use my add-ons for really good, full size products, preferably to stock up. This is a really pretty silver highlighter, and I like it a lot. I used it for my inner corner on my eyes, and I did try to use it for the tip of my nose. Maybe I’ll try to use my smaller highlighter brush next time I use it and get it on my cheekbone.
The formula is stunning, don’t get me wrong. Bright silvery white. I just thought it was mislabeled, because what I got was as small as an individual eyeshadow.
Danessa Myricks
It’s here! Do you guys remember the Dew Wet Balm? I love this line. I wrote about it in this post. And then I wrote about another shade in this post. And then I went on their website and almost bought this new shade! This is the shade Morning Dew. My collection is complete!
Something to note, though – the other two get shiny right away, but this one takes a few dips with the brush or other application tool before it starts to get properly sparkly. The first application just looked like skin gloss, so I get the sense that some of the sparkle sank down during pressing or something.
I love this product, it gives a bright shiny glossy highlight without having to soak a highlight brush in powder and setting spray, like I have to do with my powder highlighters.
I definitely recommend this product in all it’s shades. I have a good one for blush, and then I have a perfect summer and winter highlighter shade! They retail for $24 and I might now go buy the Sweet Water and Holy Water shades too, they are a bright peachy shade and a pink lilac icy shade. So pretty! And affordable!
Thank you for reading, and I just splurged a lot on the March box. I’m so excited about some of the stuff I got!
Talk soon,
Dani