The First Icon Box of 2024!

I made some tactical errors this month! My finances will never recover. I shopped the Mega Drop Shop for all the items in the top photo, and I also added on a lot of stuff to my ICON box. So there’ a lot of items to talk about and I haven’t even gotten to try them all out. But I’m still excited and ready to give hella feedback.

Also, spring is coming. I can feel it, it’s almost here. There was a very spring-ish rain the other day, and it’s been cloudy since, and I can just feel a fast spring coming and I need it.

So! The first product that IPSY picked for me is the Yummy Skin Glow Serum in the shade Main Squeeze from the brand Danessa Myricks Beauty. I’ve had a few products from DM before and have liked them a lot, but this one might have to wait until summer. It’s a very bronze-tinted serum, which is just a little strange for me. When I checked their website, it appears to have two shades, and this is the lightest one. The description actually says it’s meant to be used as a primer, though … so I’m definitely confused. A tinted, bronze serum primer?

The texture is smooth, and it has a subtle, sort of warm smell that also doesn’t bother me but reminds me of some kind of tea, maybe, that my grandmother drank. But when would I use a primer that comes in shades like this?

I do still use one of the liquid pigments that I got from DM last year, it’s such a gorgeous product, so I’m going to give this one a shot over the weekend when I’m not going anywhere and see if it just glows, and maybe it doesn’t tint. But at the end of the day, if there’s two shades, then there’s obviously a tint.

[Update: I have tried this Glow Serum a few times since the first draft and I do enjoy how it feels on my skin and the smell has actually grown a lot on me too. I still am not sure exactly what it’s meant to accomplish, but I do notice a brighter glow on my skin when I wear it under my foundation.]

Next up is The Essential Palette by Dominique Cosmetics. I am so thrilled to have this, I love the packaging, and the shades, and the whole vibe of the palette. The first row is all shimmers, and the second row is all matching mattes – not matching perfectly, like the same shade in matte, but matching like they’d go well together. The palette also doesn’t go light to dark, but has brighter shades toward the middle and the very deepest on the far right.

The matte shades are pretty buttery, and don’t have a ton of fallout. They also aren’t as pigmented as I though they would be, so they’re easier to use and more buildable than some other brands. The shimmers are absolutely beautiful, especially the bright ones – if you’ve read any of my posts before, I struggle to come up with a reason to wear a dark shimmer instead of a bright one. But these, I’m going to try. The purple shimmer that goes with the rosey midtone is gorgeous, and the silver white next to it is also a win. I’m working on a look that I can use the gold and bronze for.

The palette retails for $49 which is a lot more than I’d pay for it, although I know some of that is the stunning packaging and how heavy and luxurious it feels. But still, $38- $42 would be the high end of what I’d pay.

This was a really good choice for me from IPSY, since palettes I’ve received more recently have been very disappointing.

Next product is a total fail from GXVE Beauty, which is a brand I hadn’t known of before. IPSY sent me their Original Me Clean High-Performance Matte Lipstick in the shade Tragic Me and it was completely loose from its base and shaking all over the inside of the package, staining everything, making a mess, completely unusable. I couldn’t even get a good picture, it was gross. I did snap this one just to show the fail. That’s the cap, and that’ the lipstick bolt, just sort of fallen out into it. I didn’t have to ever touch the actual lipstick, it just seemed to have never properly been molded to the base.

The next item is the JLO Body Booty Balm and I’m going to have to skip it for this review, since I plan to post a months-long overview after trying it on one side of my body only, and see if I can see the changes. It recommends to use on stretch marks and anywhere on the body that you want to see toning, so that’s the plan. First impressions though: the packaging is on brand, a huge, simple, gold tub with a massive cap, just like the eye cream from a few months ago. The product is a light, whipped body cream that absorbs incredibly fast and smells a little bit like sunscreen? I guess that makes sense, for it to remind of the beach, and showing off your body.

Anyway you can expect an in-depth review probably in the summertime!

Next up! We have two shades of the same item, reviewing together. IPSY finally gave me a taste of Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, and added the Warm Wishes Effortless Bronzer Stick to my box. The shade they gave me was Bright Side and then I added on the shade Good Energy. Bright side is lighter and sort of a chestnut, and Good Energy is a deeper shade more toward a coffee bean. Both seem pretty neutral to me, which I like in a bronzer. Some shades just go way too orange on me.

So the first thing we need to discuss is the packaging, and I actually have things I love and things I don’t like about it. It’s adorable, to set the record straight. Light pink in the middle, gold on each end, and a cap that pops off so the product can roll up. Just like both of the other bronzers I use.

But neither end is perfectly flat, either the cap or the base, so you cannot stand it up easily and it falls over, unless you place it down very carefully. I don’t like this because my vanity is small and I like to stand the product up when it’s uncapped, instead of setting it down with the product close to the table. It’d be good if at least one of the sides could sit and be stable.

The formula itself is very interesting and unique. What jumped out at me is how easily it melted and softened when used on my skin. I barely had to warm it up at all for it to glide on, and I’m honestly preferring it. Just like in her video, you can dot it on your face and blend as if it were a liquid product.

My technique typically for my other bronzers and contours is to brush the top of the product with my kabuki and then use that to apply on my face, but since this one is so soft I just dot it on my skin then blend with the kabuki.

I’m still playing around with which color I like better. Usually I go for something deeper because light shades tend to make me orange, but this one is pretty neutral so I’m not sure which is my favorite at all.

This item retails for $26 which is pretty good, especially with the custom packaging (that I don’t like lol). I’d absolutely recommend it and would buy it at full price if there was a shade that was perfect or me.

Up next! A face cream from Laneige, a brand I’m also not super familiar with, called the Retinol Firming Cream Treatment. This face cream sort of put me off a little bit, because it came with instructions on how to open it. Like, the tube comes in another outer box, which makes sense, but you open it and a little booklet is taped to it as it sits in the carton, explaining how to open it. I’m assuming now, thinking back, that it’s a refillable item and it comes with instructions for the purpose of refill.

So here’s what I did. I put the booklet to the side, and I decided if it’s too difficult to figure out myself, it’s not worth it. Long story short, after some miracle of origami I was able to get the item opened and dispensing product, and I promptly threw the instructions and plastic case out and now just use it like a regular moisturizer. The product itself is definitely a nice, heavy face cream, you can tell by the texture it’s meant for overnight, like most Retinol creams. My only complaint is the squeeze bottle it’s in doesn’t allow for a lot of product to come out very easily – and yeah, I know that’s probably intentional because you don’t need much of these types of products and they’re trying to help you use small amounts, but come on, I want to smother myself with products like these at night.

The scent is also very pleasant and subtle, has a sort of tanginess to it, like a raspberry or a plum fragrance. I like it a lot. This bottle, which is .5oz (a very small amount of product imo) retails for a whopping $39. To compare, I pay $49 for almost three times this amount of product with the Fresh Lotus Youth Preserve and that is already something I consider very expensive. Only time I’d spend money on this item is if it were heavily discounted.

Scalp treatments! I have tried a few, but never really understood what they were supposed to do, or how to tell if my scalp felt any different. The oily ones made my hair greasy at the roots, too. But the R&R Scalp Serum from Undefined Beauty feels different. It doesn’t have a very oily texture, and I’ve used it a handful of times by following the instructions, and no oiliness in my hair. I can’t really tell what it’s supposed to b fixing, but I do get a very itchy scalp from time to time, so I’m hoping this keeps that at bay.

The packaging is also a very pretty blue, and I like the dropper, it’s strong and can carry a lot of product. Additionally, it’s very easy to open because the cap that holds the dropper is larger in relation to the bottle. I can’t find the photo I took of it, or maybe I didn’t take one, but if you look it up you’ll see what I mean.

It retails for $22, which is very reasonable. I might have to look into this brand for other hair and body, it seems like a good product line, and they’re all that color blue.

The next product is a little bit of a letdown, not that it’s a bad product, just that it’s for someone else besides me. I chose it, just like the last few items, so it’s a me issue, but I was really hoping I’d enjoy it. It’s called the SuperDew Highlighter by a brand called Tower 28. It sounds like a great product, but I had misunderstood its purpose. It’s just a balm, like a lip balm, you put on your skin to make your skin look dewy in certain places and then because it looks dewy it catches the eye, like a highlighter. But there’s no shimmer in it, none at all, so it doesn’t have any effect on my makeup look after I have already done my dewy skin tint, on top of my Byroe Oil…. you know what I mean?

It’s actually going to be the perfect product for you if you don’t wear makeup, or you have very dry skin, ideally both, and you can dot this on the high points of your face and basically you’ve got vaseline happening. Think like a teenage girl, who just goes to school in mascara because she has perfect skin, you could slay in this.

Me? No. I’d wear it if I were going to the beach though actually. If I don’t give it away to one of my little sisters, I’ll try it again this summer.

The next item is such a win! And it’s something I’ve wanted to try for a while, I’ve seen the ads, I’ve seen the reviews, and I put it off because I was like, how good could it be? Come to find out, the Baggage Claim Eye Masks from Wander Beauty are just as incredible as everyone said. I have tried other undereye masks in the last few years, but nothing like these, at all.

The packaging is very pretty, millennial pink, classic just like the rest of their branding. It has a little tab to pull and open it, obviously, but what jumps right out at you is the liquid – literally, it’s so full of serum that it comes out a little when you only open it. Then the eye masks are inside, on little cards, soaked with serum as well. And they’re just as beautiful as the pictures.

Another huge difference I noticed between these and other undereye masks is the thinness of the fabric. These are paper thin, and because of that I feel like they have an easier time adhering to the skin and fitting the shape. They aren’t rubbery at all, they feel like putting gold foil under your eyes. The actual serum also sort of glues them to the skin, it feels like there even might be some suction or something keeping them in place once they’re placed.

The actual skincare feeling of these masks is so cooling, soothing, and hydrating. I leave them on as long as they’ll stay, because they feel so good, and when I take them off my skin looks firm and hydrated, and especially brighter. I am planning to purchase more of these next time I see them on IPSY’s sales or boxes.

They are incredibly pricey, although not far off in my opinion from the quality. A pack of 6 pairs retails for $26, a little over $4 a pack. That’s a decent amount of money, but for something this iconic and that’s won this many awards, I don’t need much of a sale price before I’ll buy them again.

I added the Charlotte Tilbury Beautiful Skin Foundation in the shade 2 Neutral to this ICON box, and I’ve tried it a few times. Honestly, nothing really stood out to me about the foundation. The shade is perfect for my skin, and the texture is a little heavier than my Kevin Aucoin, but … I don’t have a ton more to say. It’s alright? It’s whatever? It’s whatever. I like my current faves a lot better. I’ll def use it if I need a heavier look though. It’s got a good pump at the top that squeezes out plenty of product, but I just don’t find myself reaching for it in favor of anything else.

I am about to empty this bottle of Kevin Aucoin, though, so maybe when that happens, I’ll just start using this one and see if sheers out the way I want. This foundation retails for $49, which is a whole lot of money, and I probably wouldn’t pay that much. But like I said, I’ll keep trying and see if I get anywhere with it.

Okay next up is a big win from an unknown brand to me, Polaar. I added on their Ice Source Ultra Moisturizing Mask, which claims to use real glacier ice as an ingredient. I really like the product, and I think the reason it went on sale was the packaging. I might be intentional, but the brand name has a chunk missing from it, so maybe it’s hard to read and that’s how it ended up in IPSY. Either way, the mask formula is just what it claims to be; it’s hydrating, cooling, and has a nice fragrance, although weirdly enough they didn’t go with a very wintery, icy fragrance and chose something very springy and flowery. I leave the product on for about an hour, after that it’s gone a little mattified and doesn’t feel like it’s continuing to add hydration to my skin. It rinses off really nicely and leaves my skin feeling very refreshed. I highly recommend putting this one in the fridge to keep up the ice theme.

It retails for 33 Euros, about $36, which is way more than I’d pay again for a bottle this small. I’d pay somewhere like $23-$26. It’s also a little strange that they claim one of the active ingredients is the iceberg water, and that they “retain its properties with their specific know-how.” I do get that icebergs that have been frozen before should have water in them that is not polluted, so like, it’s purer, but that water isn’t an active ingredient, it’s just better water, you know?

Anyway, it does also have hyaluronic acid in it, which is a very active ingredient and helps the skin retain moisture, so that balances out the whole iceberg thing. I would definitely choose this item again if I had the chance, but it’d have to be at a decent discount.

The next item I added to my ICON box is the Watermelon Dream Clarity Serum from Dallas and James Skincare Co. All in all it is a good product, but there are a few things to discuss: For starters, it does not have a watermelon scent and sort of smells like it’s gone off. The packaging is absolutely gorgeous, possibly the prettiest bottle of skincare I have ever seen. The unit carton has beautiful artwork of a sunset on it, and the fonts are all cursive and aesthetic. The bottle is also excellently designed to show off the unique product; It’s clear, and the serum is full of little gold flakes, so it shimmers and sparkles and looks so pretty on my vanity. When you take the actual serum out on your fingers, the little gold flakes mostly break apart and mix into the serum and disappear.

The formula itself also looks excellent from what I can see from their website, with hyaluronic acid, cloudberry extract, mandelic acid to help with redness, and niacinamide. It retails for $42 for 1oz, or 30ml. This is actually not a bad price at all for what you’re getting, looking at the ingredients and the gold flakes and the packaging. I’d definitely pick another one of these serums up if it went on the app again.

The following item is another one I chose, the Battle Prep Eye Primer from the brand Teeez Cosmetics. This is in the shade Blank Canvas. It’s funny that it has a shade name, considering it’s the only shade. The packaging also says something to effect that it’ll work for every skin tone. The shade, consequentially, is the right shade for my skin. I don’t know if I’m using it wrong, though, or if it’s just a pretty bad primer, because it seems to make my oily lids even more oily instead of less. The instructions do say to apply shadow after the primer has dried, which is a little confusing to me but alright, I tried that – it barely holds for more than an hour. Nothing at all like the Love+Craft+Beauty one, my holy grail (that I need to buy another of).

The applicator is also less hygienic, with a wand you apply to your lids like a lip gloss. And it’s more expensive, at $25 vs $15. All around, not my favorite product. I’m going to give it another try tomorrow and try really waiting a while until it’s completely dried before applying, but I’m not optimistic.

Almost done! The next item is from Goldfaden MD, the brand from last month that gave me this really nice face scrub. This item is a serum that I can use after the scrub, which I’m excited to try! It’s called the Plant Profusion Supreme Serum. First off, the packaging is nice but nothing gorgeous. The dropper also isn’t very efficient and doesn’t pick up a huge amount of product. But that’s where my complaints end; the texture of the serum is incredibly slippery, which is something I just love in a serum even if it doesn’t help or mean anything. It’s this milky color, and feels just very nice and refreshing.

I looked on their website to see what could possibly justify the $235 price tag, to find that they use plant stem cells as an ingredient, as well as a lot of fruit and tea extracts. I remember when plant stem cell technology was becoming a thing in the skincare world, so it’s interesting to see one a decade later that’s this pricey but [apparently] from a very successful brand.

I can’t find the picture I took of this item either, and I thought I did one with a sample on my hand, but my camera roll is calling me a liar… so you can see it here.

I definitely won’t purchase this for myself, even at a discount it’d still be way too much money. But when I randomly get these in my boxes, I’ll be very happy!

Alright, the last item was unfortunately a pretty big disappointment, but I think I’ve figured out a way to make it work. This is the PillowGasm Cherry Glow Sleep Mask by the brand Wishful. And let me tell you, the only way it’s a “pillowgasm” is because it makes a mess all over your pillow. Sorry.

It’s a huge tub of this sticky, honey-like product that you’re supposed to be able to sleep in but I guess that’s only for people who sleep very still on their back, which is the opposite of the way I sleep, very chaotic from side to side. The moment I put it on my face I realized there’ll be no sleeping with it on, and one night I even tried sleeping on my back with it just to say I tried it, and my body was physically upset and started hurting. So this is also the story of how I learned that side sleeping is physically necessary to me and not just a preference.

Anyway. The packaging is beautiful, and it comes with one of those nice little spoons that no one knows what to do with or how to keep clean, and the scent is intoxicatgly good, very cherry – but again, it isn’t designed to be on a pillow. And before you say “Dani, are there any products that are sleeping masks that you can actually sleep in?” the answer is yes. There are sleeping oils and masks that you can make work for even a side sleeper. I love the Phytonutrient Concentrate from the brand Non-Gender Specific, it’s an overnight oil treatment that leaves me feeling so smooth and doesn’t gunk up my pillow at all.

So what I’ve been doing is just using it as a cream mask. It’s a little stickier than the average one, but it does the trick. I won’t repurchase, though, since I have plenty of other cream masks that I like better.

One thing that did stand out to me was that the brand put a sample of another one of their product inside the box so you can try it with other things, and that’s something more brands should do – so I will probably look for their products as add-ons in the future and hopefully I’ll find something else that I like.

And that’s everything I have for this ICON box! I think it was a win, although I spent way too much money on add-ons and everything. But I’m very happy with it and found some things that I’m going to continue using! I think my favorite was the Baggage Claim Eye Masks because they were such a surprise and a relief at the same time, that they are as good as everyone says.

Thanks for reading! I’ve just received my March BoxyCharm and I’m getting photos and preliminary trials done today, so you’ll see a post coming up in a few weeks about everything I got there. I didn’t add much to this box because I lowkey need to tone it down… but slow and steady, right?

Anyway, talk soon!

Dani