IPSY is coming at you very late I’m so sorry! But there’s so much to talk about, I have lots of thoughts. I always have so much thoughts. Many think.
It’s springtime ^-^ I am getting some sunshine and writing this from a cafe. I’ve been recently listening to these immersive writing sessions from a YouTube channel called Abbie Emmons. They have a few stretches of writing time, called Sprints, and then breaks in between. They also tell a story, the music transitions as you write, I think. So there is one where you’re writing inside the Enchanted Forest and the longer you write the more the music turns a little more dark, or one on a northbound train during a blizzard, and stuff like that.
This one is called Cozy Seaside Cottage on a Summer’s Day, it’s piano music and the sounds of the seaside. Making me want to visit my hometown.
Anyway! That’s what I’ve been writing to. I can never do anything if I’m not doing it to music. My mind just doesn’t work without it.
Also – I’m moving back to my old place in the town where I work. Things just didn’t pan out like we wanted them to. I feel so sad but also hopeful. I was just hoping to be a good partner to someone and it doesn’t look like I can be. I think maybe I don’t know myself very well like I thought I did, and I have a lot of thinking to do. Good thing I do many think.
It’s a mixed bag for March, unfortunately, but some of them were my own fault so we’ll go through it. I have been ordering way too much the last few months, something about my money feels so expendable lately, unhealthy, need to stop. Plz send help.
The first item IPSY chose for me this month is the Wander Beauty Getaway Face and Eye Palette in the shade Sunkissed.
It’s a small palette, easy to hold in one hand, and it comes with three face products and four eye products. The face products are a bronzer, a blush, and a highlighter, all powder, and the eyeshadows are two mattes and two shimmers. All the eye colors are browns, but they do have a nice gradiant.
A couple things about this palette though – I’m a little bored. This bronzer and blush shade already belong to [I believe it’s called] the trip for two palettes. I literally have these shades already in a very similar palette, they’re even the same name. So this does feel like they’re just trying to put some newness on shades that already existed and wrap them up with eyeshadow and act like it’s new.
For the record, I have loved the trip for two palettes ever since I tried one in 2020, and have repurchased them. I have several variations of this palette in my collection.
Another thing is the pan size. To make room for this highlighter, which is in the shade city lights, also an old formula and shade, the pan size has gone from a good round pan to these little rectangles. That’s not a big deal for the highlighter because I use a small brush, but my bronzer brush is much bigger than these pans.
Other than that, like I said, I have always and will continue to like these formulas and shades. I’m just whining a little that it’s not as usable as the other design.
The eyeshadow shades are also a little boring. There’s a light brown, a slightly less bright brown, and then two tan/brown shimmers with vaguely different undertones, one I can tell is slightly more red.
But like – I already have a nice brown color in the bronzer, and a nice highlight color with the highlighter. I don’t need these tiny pans of brown to create the very on-the-fly makeup look the designer is obviously going for. This palette is supposed to come off like the one thing you take with you on your vacation, throw a look together, whatever, etc. But the three shades above would have been fine for that.
And if we did need to put four eyeshadow shades, they should create a decent look. One of these shimmers should be a very bright gold color, maybe like a blue and white shimmer, to compliment the brown. And one of these shimmers should be a deep crease matte color. Then you have a midtone, a crease color, a bright highlight or inner corner, and a deep contour shade. Who wants a really well-blended midtone in the crease and then just a deep dark color all over the lid that’s a little sparkly?
I love this brand, and objectively speaking these products are the same ones I love, but this arrangement isn’t for me.
The next item IPSY picked for me is also a brand I’ve loved for a while, and also a makeup product. It’s from Beauty for Real, the brand I get my favorite mascara from.
The item is a brush set, the Essential Pro I-Brush Collection. These aren’t the types of brushes I usually reach for, just because they’re for very precise looks and my routine is a little more cookie cutter, but I did give them a go. I didn’t think I’d even use the one for brows, since I don’t do anything to my brows and barely pluck them to shape let alone brush or color them. But I decided to give the brush side a go. I’ve seen how the laminated brow trend took off anyway.
So it comes with five handles and six heads, so four of the brushes are just regular brushes and one of them is double ended. I miss the days of double-ended brushes. Not like, makeup was better then or anything. But we were better.
The IPSY description of the kit doesn’t actually say the names of the different brushes, so I’ll describe them:
The kit contains one small blender, something I’d use to deepen the crease, that was very firm. It also contained a sort of round, more flat brush but not all the way flat. When I saw it, I immediately assumed it was something to maybe pat on deeper shades on the outer corner maybe. I guess I could see myself blending something into the crease with it but not really.
There’s also a brush that I know in my heart is an eyeliner brush. It has the little crimped end. I have used it for liner-like purposes though – for example, those Danessa Myrick’s colorfix liquid paint thingies, the shimmer one wasn’t great applied with the brush I was using, but I was able to get a gloop of it on this brush and draw not a bad line across my lashes. I posted that look on my Insta if you scroll below. I don’t wear a lot of liner so this will probably be the only time I use it.
Next it has a very flat small brush. I suppose this might be for applying highlight on the inner corner or just below the browbone, since it is very precise-looking.
And last up is the brow brush, so it has one of those comb-like things with the bristles to brush your brows out and then it has the other end as an angled brush to apply powder or liquid brow color.
I don’t color my brows so I haven’t used this last one, but I did use the first end to brush my brows out a little and they got really fluffy and then a little scary and then I realized I might like it, and that was the only time.
The packaging, by the way, for these brushes is really nice. The handles are a little like those fancy pens you get at banks, that’s like a silicone plastic rubbery bit that makes it easy to write with, but in this case they stick a little better to my hand. I really enjoy the feeling of that, I wish all my brushes had it.
So it’s not my favorite brush set, like I said there are just a lot of brushes in it that are for very specific uses I just know I won’t utilize. I know online it says it’s a good brush set for beginners, but I don’t see that at all. I’m intermediate and this is still super precise and specific for me.
Alright! I picked a few items as well, so let’s talk about those.
First up, I accidentally chose a Refreshments product, the brand that IPSY created. I try not to get those because it isn’t really the purpose of the box for me. However, I was pleasantly surprised! The Pearly Body Wash in the fragrance Citrus Spritz. And I really enjoyed it, the fragrance was great, the packaging was easy to use, and I felt clean but not sticky after. And I did need a body wash, so win-win ^-^
I don’t have a ton more to say about it, just that it’s a nice body wash and I will definitely keep using it. I still will avoid Refreshments in my choices, but I got lucky.
Next I chose the Iconic London Precision Duo Contour Pots in the shade Medium. This was the most awful thing ever. I hate this so much.
So first off, the packaging is so stellar. I was obsessed with how this looked and how pretty it was, with the double stack and everything. The product is a powder and cream contour. The shades looked okay online, but nothing about this formula is acceptable.
The only explanation for what I’m about to describe to you, aside from this just being a terrible product, is that it’s expired.
The cream doesn’t even come off on the brush or my finger. So as I rub it around, little dunes of product grow around my finger, like play dough that’s just almost done spoiling. When I lift my finger away, a mostly clear and patchy substance is stamped on it. No actual, usable product comes off on my finger or brush unless I pinch it between two fingers and pull it off. If I do that, I can then spread it on my face where I want it, but it spreads just as patchy and playdough-y.
The blend is awful. It’s either playdough or it blends out into nothingness. The powder is okay, it’s just a powder and it’s designed to set the cream, so if I can’t use the cream the powder is pretty useless. Awful choice, I thought it would be a good product. Never probably touch it again.
Last item I chose for my box is my very first lash curler! It’s from V Kosmetik. It’s bright gold and came with an extra rubber bit for when this one gets dirty.
There’s not a ton to talk about, since it’s my first one and I don’t have a lot to compare with. But my lashes are obviously curled after using it – I go maybe three times on each side, and I try to vary the places I crimp. My lashes have been almost twice as high and twice as standout as before, just because I’m starting at such an advantage. The mascara I use went on a lot fuller and my lashes caught the formula better too.
If I end up getting other lash curlers I’ll definitely compare and contrast. For now, I’m happy to have one and be learning how to use it.
And now for add-ons! Those things I said I wasn’t doing anymore, how ridiculous. Why would I say such things anyway.
I added five items to my bag! I feel awful but also very glad!
First up is from Fenty – I’m constantly trying new stuff from them now, but this is one I had really been looking forward to. It’s the Bright Fix Eye Brightener. I got it in the shade Seashell.
I wasn’t actually as thrilled as I thought I’d be, although maybe the shade just isn’t for me? But the formula is sooo full coverage, and doesn’t work very well with the light-coverage eaze drop that I was trying to use it with. Like I said, it might just be that the shade is off. It didn’t blend out super easily and just didn’t look flattering. I’m not sure where it’s supposed to be brightening, unless you’re meant to pick a very light shade and therefore it’s brightening. But in that case, anything can be “brightening” if you just buy a shade up.
I was expecting it to actually be brightening the same way other things are. That being said, if you buy the right shade, I think this is a good full-coverage concealer. I can’t imagine someone wearing this without a medium or full-coverage foundation, like they show in the ads.
Next up is the KVD Beauty Good Apple Lightweight Full Coverage Concealer in the shade Light 03. This is such a good find.
I never tried the viral Good Apple foundation or serum foundation, and people did say they weren’t that good. But this concealer is absolutely fabulous. It’s so good it made me start using a beauty blender again.
So the packaging I think is meant to look like a serum bottle with a dropper, but get this! It isn’t a dropper! It’s just an applicator that pulls out of the packaging. I really like this, the bottle looks good on my vanity but it doesn’t drip everywhere.
The applicator is also tilted when it pulls out, so I can come at my face at more of an angle. It’s not incredibly wide but it doesn’t have a point on the tip, so I can’t go crazy with it all the way up to my eye, but I don’t do that full beat concealer anymore anyway.
This shade is very light and brightens me the fuck uppp, and it blends out into amazing coverage. I do a little dot half an inch below my eye close to my nose, and it blends all the way down and out to my cheekbone.
I am really enjoying using this, especially because for a while I haven’t really been applying concealer. I’m so pale in the winter I couldn’t find anything light enough honestly, but this I’m using anyway. I feel like I’m starting to enjoy the details in makeup again, since I’ve been able to do it from home.
Next I added a deluxe sample of some kind of hair product. It’s the Babe Tame Frizz Control in the [fragrance?] Coconut Paradise. From the brand Aminnah. I don’t know if I’m just dumb, but frizz control products are usually like, creams right? This stuff was some kind of gel, and I was applying it after I got out of the shower and it just made my hair sticky and greasy and it was awful. Will not be using, threw in the trash. Frizz control makes me think a cream product, something like a conditioner that keeps things smooth. This gunk gel was not it.
I also added a product from Saturday Skin, called the Yuzu Vitamin C Sleep Mask. I haven’t actually used this product very much and I’m unsure why, because I love sleep masks. Maybe it’s the packaging, it doesn’t come in a tube it’s one of those jars you scoop out of.
Anyway the packaging is really pretty, it’s like bright yellow and white, but the component is see-through so you can see that even though the jar appears huge there’s a much smaller jar the product is in.
The texture is a gel, the kind that wouldn’t probably stand on its own, and it has these little flecks of orange which is maybe supposed to give off orange peel vibes? But I thought I noticed that as I applied the mask those seemed to break apart and the texture went from having little bits in it to being more smooth after application.
And it’s a nice formula. You know sleeping masks, it’s hard to find the kind that don’t just fall off and rub off on the pillow, you know? So this one does seem to mattify pretty well while I’m lying down. I do apply about fifteen minutes before bed just to give it a second to “harden” lol.
It leaves my skin feeling very soft, and funnily enough there wasn’t really a film that needed to wash off the next morning either. I’ve liked it the times I used it and I’m glad I added it to this bag.
Last but not least, I added a setting spray to replace the TYNT one that I loved. This one’s from the company Give Them Lala Beauty, and it’s their Dew You Boo setting spray. As the name implies, it’s for a dewy finish.
The bottle is much bigger this time, it’s as tall as my Fat Water and seems to contain a lot of product. The spray is a much finer mist as well, and it’s easy to hold and spray. It also doesn’t seem to get as wet around the sprayer as the TYNT one did so it’s less messy.
Honestly, do setting sprays even do anything? I like spraying it, it feels hydrating, but isn’t setting spray just for the mood?
I will say, it is amazing when I spray it on my highlighter brush and then go in with my highlighter, from JSC or really any other one I use. I spray like three spritzes and when I apply I am lit, like a Christmas tree.
And that’s everything for March’s IPSY! And I should be getting my April bag any day now as well 🤭 〰️ I also added too much to that.
This bag was not my favorite, definitely had some products that I wasn’t thrilled about, but overall have a bunch of good stuff that I’ll enjoy using.
Also, a little update; I don’t know what’s up but the Eaze Drop Blurring Skin Tint I was raving about a few months ago is starting to not like my skin anymore? Like, when I apply it just looked patchy and crumbly like in a movie about that hard rock in the desert that’s splitting open from the heat. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve been using my ND foundation instead and it’s been better. So yeah, I’ll write more about it as I figure out what’s going on, but it’s not good.
Talk soon! Next post should be Allure Beauty for April. The box is on my desk now, itching to open it ^-^
Dani