Welcome back! So this is the last post in my August IPSY reviews. I had to separate these out because I had a lot of thoughts and I ordered too many things.
The last type of item you can get from IPSY is just a standard purchase; go to their site, click on shop, add to cart, confirm. Just like any online shopping, except it’s nice when it comes from IPSY because they have a good interface and the site tells you exactly how much the item would sell for at the retail cost.
I like to shop with IPSY because there are always new products to try at discount prices and I tend to easily find new things I love.
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| S’mores! |
This month I purchased four products in their own orders, but technically eight. I’ll explain.
The Glamlite S’mores Highlight and Contour Palette is so far nothing special by me. It retails for $18 and I got it for $12, which isn’t the best discount IPSY offers but isn’t terrible. The packaging is adorable and looks like a s’more on the outside and a chocolate bar on the inside and I can absolutely see how the silver and gold would look like a marshmallow that’s a little brown on the end.
The blinding silver highlight is very nice on my nose and browbone, but when I swatched it with the deeper gold highlighter I couldn’t tell much of a difference on my hand. I’ve upped the contrast in this picture just because I don’t have a great camera. Also the dark brown chocolate shade really hasn’t performed super well so far, and it’s such a deep shade I don’t dare to overapply. It’s at least five shades deeper than what I’d normally use as a bronzer. I’m going to continue to try it out as a contour shade but I don’t know if it’s for me. The blinding silver highlighter also had a good amount of fallout when I used my highlighter brush in the pan, and that got into the contour shade. Most of it blew out but it’s so sparkly I worry it’ll end up in the wrong spot.
So it’s not like wow, but I will say the silver highlight looks amazing on my nose. Totally blinding and really helps slim it out. I plan to definitely use this for date nights and like times I need something striking. It doesn’t look very natural on me right now because my tone is a little tan and this is literally white silver, but in the winter this will look much more seamless. The gold looks a lot more natural on me but I don’t love gold tones on me unless they’re very light. I own one gold tone highlighter from Jeffree Star Cosmetics and do love that but it’s such a light color you can almost not tell it’s warm toned. This one is very gold as you can see.
I also purchased the Luxie Beauty Glitter and Gold Brush Set which came in an absolutely adorable red envelope package with a snap shut and everything. The fabric is velvety and looks kinda like an old journal. Thing is dope. I love it. The actual brushes are interesting – I’ve never owned this flat looking one for contour, but it came in handy because I got a contour set in another box. I’ve been playing around with it and it does apply very nicely. There is a flat foundation brush – I don’t know why anyone would apply foundation with something flat like that. The blenders and eye brushes are good, very soft, and they’re not exactly heavy but they don’t feel cheap either. And there’s a highlighter brush that was nice, nothing new but applied very well and no flyaways so far. We’ll see after the first wash.
This set retails for $85 and I got it for $12, but with the color scheme, I’m thinking it was probably some kind of holiday set or something. Red and gold and “glitter” really do scream Christmas to me but it’s just a theory. Another reason I think this is because it doesn’t appear on the Luxie Beauty website. The closest thing I can see is the Luxie Golden Glow Set which seems to have a lot of similar brushes. That one is on sale for $38 from $95 – so I do think I got a good deal, but I believe the Glitter and Gold was probably being phased out or was temporary.
Anyway these brushes are very good quality and I’m super happy with them and excited to use them more. Make sure to check out my Insta posts on the main page to see eye looks I’ll be doing with them.
I also purchased the Complex Culture Good to Glow Blushed Duo in the shade Spiced up + Be Content. I have loved this brand since I got my first product from them. Their items feel bougie and sleek and modern and well-thought-out and I was very excited to try this too.
Unfortunately I’m not in love with it yet, but I think that’s because it’s the deepest shade combo. I should have gotten the lighter ones but maybe it wasn’t available or maybe I just thought I needed this one. Anyway one shade is matte and one shade is shimmery, which I don’t think I realized at the start. I don’t love sparkly or shimmery blushes for a few reasons. First off it’s just not super necessary. I have a round face shape and don’t need sparkle drawing any attention to my cheeks. I also mix blush with my bronzer sometimes and apply it all at once, so I definitely don’t want sparkles in my bronzer.
And I’ll be honest – I rarely use blush at all unless I’m going out with my man.
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| The Swatches Look Very Distinct |
So this product has nice packaging and formula and everything, but I couldn’t tell any difference between the two shades when I applied them on my face except the sparkly one seemed to be more pigmented. They both looked kind of glowy and too deep for my skin tone.
I’m going to continue trying them out and see if I can mix them with my Wander Beauty Trip for Two or something, to make them lighter.
I do think the formula is nice and I really, really wish I had gotten a better shade for me. This one might end up on my Poshmark though.
The last purchase was a bundle, the Glossy and Gorgeous Hair Bundle. I purchased this because I have curly, frizzy hair and have been dying to find some products I can use to help. I liked this bundle because it had a leave-in conditioner which I love, and a hair mask which I had never tried. I didn’t realize at the time, but it also contained a hairbrush I already have, so I’ll be putting that one on my Poshmark too.
This bundle contained the DAE Cactus Flower Leave-In Conditioner and the Styledry Coconut and Fig Hair Mask. I probably won’t talk about the brush because I have it, and it’s a brush. It’s a nice brush. Good brush. It brushes.
The hair mask is super interesting. The texture is very thick, almost like a sugar scrub but without the sugar, if you can imagine that? The bottle didn’t say how much to use, just to rub through my hair and leave for a little while. I used a good bit, but I have long curly hair and wanted to make sure I got my scalp and my ends really well. I used a lot more than I would have used a regular hair product, because it’s supposed to wash out afterwards.
So I ran a good couple of globs through my hair, put it up in a bun, put a mud mask on, and left it for maybe an hour. I know that’s probably too long but I love to just leave a mask on so I figured why not also just leave a hair treatment?
Washing it out was interesting and I didn’t love the experience. I think I either used too much or too little or left it in way too long – no matter what I did, my hair was washing out as if it still had product in it. It kinda felt like that sticky feeling when you still have shampoo or something in it.
Anyway, I kept rinsing and rinsing and rinsing and eventually gave up. In the shower, my hair didn’t feel silky like it does when you wash out conditioner. But I figured maybe my hair had absorbed everything already. When I got out of the shower I didn’t notice anything different about my hair and it didn’t feel softer than normal.
After this I used the leave-in-conditioner and sprayed it through my hair, running my fingers through it. Then I got some on my hands and added to the ends and the top of my head which gets very frizzy.
This product smells amazing and makes my hair feel super smooth and soft. When it dries it’s super easy to curl and even if I didn’t use real conditioner it’s pretty silky. I don’t see a difference at all with my frizz though, with either product, and I didn’t have a good experience with the hair mask but maybe that was user error.
My plan is to use the hair mask just in the shower with me next time I shave and only leave it for a few minutes instead of overdoing it. And then instead of putting it up in a towel like I did, just brush it out and let it air dry.
This bundle is valued at $78 and it cost me $25. I looked up the products individually and it looks like the leave-in conditioner retails for $26, the hair mask is €16,95 or $17.27, and the brush retails for $34.99 but is on sale currently for $24.49. This means that the math is technically correct on IPSY’s website saying that these items together are worth $78, but the fact that the brush is the highest value item and it’s also currently on sale means the value of the bundle actually is more like $65 ish. Still, that means you sort of pay for the brush and get the hair products for free.
And then when I resell the brush I could even make part of that back.
And that’s it for the products I ordered this month. I didn’t love these products as much as I hoped I would, but I think I can make them work, and hopefully if not I can at least make some money back on them or give them to my sister.
My favorite item here has to be either the Luxie Brush Set or the Leave-in Conditioner. The brush set is by far the best (alleged) value for what I paid, and the leave-in conditioner seems like something I could use if I figured it out for my hair. I will say, this morning when I woke up to finish this post and get to work, my hair was still very soft and did seem slightly less frizzy.
Thanks for reading to the end of this small series! Keep an eye out for a summary of all the August IPSY Reviews in my next Beauty Box Battle post, which I’m hoping to have up by the 27th ish.
See you all soon! If you’re interested in any of the products I’ve talked about and want to see if they’re listed on my Poshmark, there’s a link on my homepage.
¬Dani