Back to Ipsy.

Back to the grind here. Brass tacks is that I unsubscribed from Ipsy in October. Partially due my not wanting to spend the money, however negligible, another part is that I just wasn't feeling it so much.

It's not a bad service, but like I often become in both Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 4, I was over-encumbered. I had too much crap laying around that I wasn't using or wanting. Since my cancellation I have emptied out tons of little samples. Maybe empties post I mentioned. Shoot, who knows.

Anyways, Ipsy has once again enticed me. Em cosmetics eye shadow palette, from partially failed cosmetic brand? Yep. Sign me up. And then I found out that I had enough points to redeem some illuminator, also from Em. That one I am actually pretty psyched to use.

I have not forgotten the excitement for the Early Access to the Glamrooms. All day Wednesday I was expecting an email, but it turned out to be Thursday. Here is my haul.

Let's break this mother down.
Crazy Rumors
HibisKiss Natural Lip Color - Coral
0.15 oz tube. Full size at $4.99 Link
This I am pretty excited about, even though I have a million delicious Mtn. Dew lip balms. A tinted lip balm is welcome, and the ingredients look promising. Additionally, the color appears very flattering in photos. 

Jelly Pong Pong Cosmetics
Caribbean Sun Bronzer Duo
0.10 oz compact. Full size? $24.95 Link
It can be appreciated that this is a bronzer and blusher. It looks matte, and that is more my speed. However, I have no way of telling what shade it is, and whether the bronzer will be orange on my. Anything warmer than Hoola or Chocolate Soleil is too warm for my pallor.

Glamour Dolls
Blending Brush #10 Sperm Whale Edition
$3.99 Link
Oh. I do wish this was a packing brush, but eff yeah to the brush. Always great to have another eye brush, and I am thankful.  

Trissola
Chia Smoothing Oil
0.5 oz dropper bottle, out of 2 fl oz. Adj. $6.50 Link
Hair products never win me favor. Initially, I was miffed. Like I resubscribed? For this? But, it's not a styling product. It's one I can use. Keep in my purse or whatever, and then make sure my hair is glossy and black. Okay. Bring it on. I actually am pleased with this.

IT Cosmetics
No-Tug Waterproof Mini Gel Eyeliner - Black
0.012 oz, out of 0.017 oz. Adj. $15.53 Link
My UD Perversion pencil is pretty diminished. It has some juice, but shoot I am excited to try another one. (The UD 24/7 Perversion is probably HG status. It is perfect.) This seems to be a little over half. Decent value, and hopefully it works just as well as the UD in my eyeliner, and lack of smudge and transfer.

In total, this bag is valued at $55.96. Great, as that figure is, it's not the cash value, it's the usability. Save for the bronzer, I can see these as every day, or at least frequent.

Months in Review.

After some reading of my own blog here - which put me to sleep -  I noticed that I went for about a year. It was a decent year, but after that year I fell off the wagon. Partially, those reasons are outlined. One being I did not want to keep buying things. The second reason was simply I grew out of love with the idea of writing.

Truthfully, I always have and will always love the concept of journaling. So let's get back to it. What new acquisitions have I made since my October mumble?
Here we go super mini review!
Oct. 3 I purchased the NYX Mineral Face Stick, NYX Hi-Def translucent powder, NYX Color correcting concealer, and the Real Techniques Miracle Sponge
Well. I have little to say about the foundation stick, and it is fairly hard to find tons of reviews on it. I can't say it's my favorite, but then again I have not really worked with it. The translucent powder does fine, but maybe not a perfect replacement for my Bare Minerals pressed mineral veil. The correcting concealer is wonderful! It took a bit to figure out how much product to use, but finally I got it. I do not use this every day. My skin is fairly clear, but when I am going somewhere I may use it. The sponge is great, but I wonder how it stacks against a beauty blender. All of these were discounted via a promotion.

Oct 12. I purchased the NYX Tame & Frame in Black. Meh. It's kind of light, and a little hard to pick up on my brush. Need to work with it more.

Oct 24. I purchased the Tarte Amazonian Clay full coverage foundation. I love this, but it is not for every day. Sometimes I am too dry feeling, and would just prefer something lighter. This was purchased during the 20% off.

Oct 31. Anastasia Beverly Hills Self-Made palette. Discounts and points dropped this bad boy down to $20. The brush inside was crap, but so many of the colors are beautiful. Favorites are Witchy, Isla, and Blush. Most of the colors are really buttery, save for Pink Champagne which is a little gritty. Still, I adored this.

Dec 12. ABH Dipbrow in Granite. I do like this much better than the NYX one. It works really well at beefing up my brows, and shucks. For 14 months leading up to this purchase I have been using way too light of a brow pomade! Oh I love this! I got a new sample of UD Perversion mascara, and NYX Liquid Suede in Sway. All of these were free with Ulta points, and 20% off when I finished off Christmas shopping. Yay for extra goodies.

Aaaand there started my no-buy. Which really, you can tell actually started in November, but Christmas shopping kind of didn't count. I had a $92 bill which only rang up for $2 with my points I had been banking for forever.

The new year I started with a major purge. I got rid of a bunch of things that I got as freebies, or from Ipsy. I kept things that I could actually see myself using, and things I actually wanted to use. All of my makeup now fits neatly in a Sterilite 5 drawer table top container.

Additionally, I am keeping a list on my phone. This list has products I am interested in trying, in specific shades and whatnot. If it's on the list, I will be hunting down reviews and then saving them for when I get my allowances. The no-buy is going to soon roll into a low-buy. This is going to certainly limit what comes in, and encourage me to spend more time shopping my stash. Let us hope that with that I can develop some good posts about stand-out products in my stash. The reviews, more or less, will be in depth, instead of just a first impression. I also hope to post some looks.

That is the end of my come back. I am looking forward to bringing some good content, and hopefully inspire some other relatively broke people to make do with their own products. Of course, I want to sprinkle in some new things once we hit february. :)

Day 3 of NaNoWriMo

It is NaNoWriMo month again! My week prior has involved many attempts to plan for an easy month, instead though I yet again fall into a "Pantser" status. Despite my heavy thinking and timeline-ing, I sit here wondering how I am going to connect all the dots in my story.

I thought I was being a planner this month. It was sitting down to write the first day that alerted me to the fact, that I rarely plan everything. I had a neat morning after Halloween. My nephew was just picked up after I took him Trick-or-Treating in the rain and playing Halo 5 until 4AM. Flash to being at work. I manned the phones at the funeral home, armed with a classy, black, boat neck dress, and my purse-sized notepad and a fine pointed BIC pen (my favorite kind of pen). I waffled back and forth to the bathroom, having downed and refilled my water bottle three times. The wind blew leaves in such a manner that they crinkled in the carport. Fall debris clattered ontop the roof. Despite the day being mid-60's and beautifully blue, I let my mind decide that I was in a funeral home on Día de los Muertos and that I should be distracted by that.

Even me writing this is proof enough how easy I am getting distracted from my writing. Part of me is feeling that a nice outline could cure this. Another part of me recognizes that, much like in the past week, my efforts of creating a timeline are fruitless.

I can get pretty long winded, but I guess my aim is to say that I need to buckle down and get myself a plan to conquer this month. I'm already floundering quite a bit.

Perhaps I will use this blog this month to document my month of NaNo. Maybe even some cosmetic gushings. Who can say. Either way, I need to get my cocoa on this month and utilize my bay window as a writing space. It would be cute.

Blogging

I dunno man. It's been nice not having to photograph everything I buy with an iPhone camera. Secondly, it seems not blogging about purchases has cut spending down. Not that I really overspent like some people. A paraphrased quote from a Facebook Ipsy/BB group. "I charged like $300 on the card. lol. I'll have to hide that from my husband". That's  another story entirely.

Notable items that I have acquired since last posting are the Urban Decay Naked Smoky. Adore it. I wore it for two weeks straight, and only now am not wearing it because I got a touch lazy and some of my brushes were actually forgotten at my parents house. Oops.

Kat Von D products such as the Ink Liner in Trooper. I adore this, but sometimes it does not have the blackest opaque appearance. Still, very precise line. Next were her Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks in Witches and L.U.V. These are fantastic, but I daresay, the ColourPop ones are kinder to me? Witches has a tendency to be sticky on me and requires a bit of layering. Still have to play with it.

ColourPop. Finally tried stuff from them. I bought three Ultra Mattes, a LippieStix an eyeshadow, and a highlighter. Of these selections I do enjoy all of them. The highlighter is gorgeous, but it crumbled a little when I was dealing with it. Still works. The eyeshadow is also great and mostly budge proof (haven't had it crease yet when wearing under powder or alone, but I don't want to speak too soon). Both of these have a texture similar to stone clay. It's almost cold or wet feeling to the touch. Love it for that reason.
The LippieStix has a scent which I appreciated, it's nondrying, and stays on quite well. The color takes a bit of building like Matte lipsticks have a tendency to. Finally the Ultra Mattes. All three are frigging amazing. Except I am paler than I was last year, and even light Solow looks dark on me. Bumble is full on vampy. Trap is perfect. Absolutely perfect in every way. As far as performance, they work on the whole nicer than those Ulta ones I mentioned way back.

I tried a Too Faced Melted Liquid Lipstick. Love it. One of my most comfortable to wear, though not totally transfer proof. Lasts a good, good deal. 

From NYX, I purchased two of the Liquid Suedes. For me, these worked better than the SMLCs. They are comfortable to wear and they last through my lunch beautifully. I bought Stone Fox and Soft Spoken. I kind of like Stone Fox better than my KVD black (though the Stone Fox is a cool, dark grey).

Lets see what else. IT Cosmetics CC+ cream was acquired, and it's amazing. BUUT.
As a low end foundation, I am using Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse. I feel like Bare Minerals fondations have really fallen to the wayside with me. The Ready foundation is cakey now, and the BareSkin is far to dark (got pale).

Not much point to this post, except that hello. I exist. I may or may not return to this, but I would rather just post a bunch of looks with stuff I already have instead of buying to review. So many blogs/vlogs seem to esteem acquiring so much products that you could never in a lifetime dream of using. I love researching a product before purchase, but I don't want to spend every dime on cosmetics either.

Ipsy April 2015 Beautifully Bohemian

JulieG 

Nailcolor in Damsel (mid-tone pink crème)

This is full size. Buy it here.

$3.99 

 

It's a pretty color, I'm just a little meh about a nail polish. It's a similar color to my one Butter London polish in Snog. Pending review, I may use this over the weekend. My work does not allow me to use polish, so it's very sparing I can paint my nails now. That's depression and I am sure that I would have been more excited had that not been the case. 

 

Pandora's Makeup Box

Pink Carnation Blush (peachy pink)

This is full size. Buy it here.

$14

 

 

For real, this is one of the most beautiful blushes I probably own. Described as a peachy pink, I would actually say it's more of a dusty peach mauve. Then again, I could just be talking out of my rear. There is no shimmer, leaving it somewhat matte. The saturated swatch shows a nicely pigmented blush, which blends out beautifully. At least until I get the hang of it, I would exercise caution as it is color rich. 

 

This is a pot housed in a plastic doodad. It does close, therefore you can travel with it. Although I am disappointed that I failed to scrutinize the photo closely. The cardboard box it comes with is essentially a throwaway. The magnetic box shown on the website is an additional $4 to purchase. Still it's nice, if you bought from them you can choose to buy three blush pans and only have one compact. That reduces waste and some folks may elect to just toss these in their ZPalette and forsake the cardboard compact anyways. They're nice enough blushes, it's something I would look into.

theBalm Cosmetics

NUDE Dude Eyeshadow Single in Fit (shimmering copper)

This is a sample size at .035 oz. Buy the full palette here.

~$3

While the color is very redundant to my collection, it is certainly gorgeous. I had hoped for the other one, but alas this will do. It is in a small magnetic compact, which is pretty fancy for a single. Inside features a preview of the full sized palette.

Texture wise it's smooth and buttery, reaching full color with little effort. Absolutely gorgeous and will be nice to work on my eyeballs with.

 

Mullein & Sparrow 

Mini Lip & Cheek Tint

This is technically full size at 0.25 oz, as it's in a duo. Buy it here.

$10

Simple ingredients. Sweet orange scent. Cocoa butter also makes up the majority of notes in this. It's slippery in texture and does give the implied dewy finish. I almost doubted the efficacy of the color delivery, as it was almost invisible.

As a lip balm, it's hydrating and feels nice, but it is very slippery. Oil heavy I suppose. It feels nice, but provides my lips absolutely no color. On the cheeks it takes a lot of building, but it's a great natural flush. I have yet to test it's longevity, but so far I like it. It's balm properties allow it to soak into your cheeks after some time eliminating some of the extra dewiness.

Overall, it's nice sized and a nice tools free addition to my purse. Some days you don't have the means to pack a blush and this will give you a little something, as well as healing lips from the salty french fries and the day of biting your lip because it was too busy at work and you were getting slammed. 

Mica Beauty 

Eye Primer

This is half sized at 4g. Buy it here.

$22.50

 

I do not have much to compare this to, but I have heard a parallel made between the MAC painterly pots? Maybe? There is a controversy surrounding this. As the nature of the container, there are divots and holes in the product. Mold or bacteria is always a concern, as the product itself can easily resemble agar. Ipsy has since emailed all recipients of the product claiming that it passed a microbiology test. I am sure that means they swabbed the suspect spots and grew it on a plate, then staining it. If that's the case then it's only hysteria perpetuating the "OMG. IPSY IS CREEPING ME OUT."

 

Full disclosure, my product had one speck. It has a green cast, but as Ipsy said it is from condensation making the indents. My product appears to have that affliction. Examining it with just my eyes, there is no colonial morphology. It does not resemble a crateriform colony and has no substance outside of the product itself being pushed in a perfect circle. My product at least seems completely safe.

 

I can not speak to the product itself yet, except that it's a thick primer creamy wax, which reminds me of Benefit's PoreFessional.  

The Bag.

I am incredibly foggy on the definition of Bohemian. I have a certain look in my head when I picture the word, and I know it's not a style I would wear. Barefeet or sandals from Jesus' time seem to be the footwear of choice, alone with earth tone dresses and braided headbands, and huge earrings. Maybe I am wrong about that stereotype. Still I can only vaguely piece this bag to that image. For all I know, the bag is a perfect representation of Bohemianism. Eitherway, it's larger than previous bags marginally. It's woven hempy-something fiber with some surprisingly non-garrish colors woven through that. It's pretty dang cute. As far as it's slightly larger size, I think this will make a better colored pencil case than my August Ipsy bag.

So my bag's value came in at a very decent $53.50. Price tag isn't everything of course, but it's nice to see that my $10 is going to things I would have less access to with a sampling approved price.

The contents are not as exciting, as say getting the Too Faced Melted would have been, but I am thankful to try the cheek tint and that perfect blush. Also primers are welcome, and metal-inspired eyeshadow is always a soft spot (even though I probably have ninety with that color..heeeh.)

It was a good month. Let's just hope that May brings me something I flip out over.

Ulta Matte Lip Cream

The I'm A while ago Ulta released their own version of a liquid lipstick, promising to dry with a matte finish. Since it has a $9 price tag, even with their Buy 2 Get 2 Free sale, I wanted to wait it out until I found some actual reviews for it. A lot that I have found so far have been limited to just that of swatches and impressions.

I missed the sales, but I could not help myself. I have seen enough that was both charming or mixed that I had to try it.

Here is dinner. My daily log about this product. Eat up kids.

10:40 
I freshly applied this. Very slippery. Very faint scent, but it likely would not be irritating. It fades within .0016 seconds. Also no taste. Another note is that it does manage to be opaque in little coats. I believe this was around one and a half coats to be sure.

 

10:47 

As you can see, it is already drying down to a matte. This still had the power to transfer, with a velvet tackiness. Really a lovely color, which seems to be growing into my signature shade.

 

11:14

Significant time has past. This dries down between 15-30 minutes. It's incredibly lightweight and feels like nothing on the lips. Compared to the NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream, this is a lighter product. It does not settle into lip lines, and pretty much stays where you put it. Provided you wait the time for the product to dry.  I've included a small blot test, in which I forcibly smashed my lips into a white piece of scrap paper. My shade is a light one, so I cannot attest to darker shades. Still, it seemed to only take away the places where I had the cream on thicker during the initial lining. Bravo.

 

12:54

This ultra flattering photo of my lips (I promise, they do not look like this in real life...) is absolute CASH. Perfectly matte and color strong. This is a full two hours after I first applied. Let it also be noted that I had not eaten or drank anything up until this point. However, I did spend a lot of time touching my lips to my hand or to themselves. Product not be blamed, but the lips are slightly dry. On a normal day though, you would apply a balm anyways after a few hours.

 

1:01

This was concerning. I ate some nasty breadsticks from the other day that were in the fridge. Hard as rock and greasy. If it had been a thing I condoned, I would have sooner just gave them to Dallas or Nightshade. While I am pleased to show that color is still there, the oil is not intending on doing good things.

2:24

After hard boiling some eggs, I wanted to enjoy a sandwich. This was before. Note the small breakdown towards my inner lip. This color is very forgiving though, but it is hard to tell. I am sure with a darker color it may be more obvious. Regardless, my lips still look fab after dabbing that nasty breadstick residue off.

 

2:56 

Post egg salad sandwich. A kinder sandwich indeed, as there is little to no additional damage to the pristine matte. 

 

3:01

The color remains, and quite well I might add. There is not halo issue. After this point though, I elected to reapply. Maybe around 4PM I decided to reapply, and there indeed was a difference. Albeit, a small difference. Maybe it's the nature of the color? Maybe it's just a great product.

 

My final verdict can only be judged on the specific shade "Artistic". It's a gorgeous color, and through eating and drinking it maintained itself well. As always though, avoid things too greasy and you should have a great color.

So far, at 7:30 PM, having had this on basically since 11AM it is doing pretty well. I touched up the main flesh of my lip around 4.

AS far as price, I would honestly wait until it's on sale. Ulta regularly has good sales (though so far through Feb and March I only saw two B2G2 sales... hmm. Not as good as usual.). I imagine this product could be between $4-5 based on how they previously priced their lip products during house brand sales. 

Now if you are impatient like me, I would suggest getting a color or two that you adore. Maybe next week I will be pulled into the Ulta tractor beam and grab another one.. NYX's is cheaper and offers more colors of course, but this is perfect for someone who has no desire for a heavy and slightly tacky lip cream. Maybe I will compare the two more in depth later. 

For now though. Dude. I just gotta pick out my next color. Maybe "Striking" or "Vivid". But really, you should try and get them on sale. 

Another final note is that I gave these 4/5 stars on Ulta's website.

Ipsy April bag impressions.

JulieG Nail Color.

Balls. Totally don't want this. Cheap $3.99 nail polish versus a $25 Elizabeth Arden lipstick or $22 Too Faced Melted... wow. Totally balanced.

Pandora's Thing Pink Carnation

This looks to be full size, and it's a refillable cardboard palette. Looks adorable, and I will always take a pressed powder blush. This is okay. $14 full size.

The Balm Nude Dude single eyeshadow.

A little lame becauses it's one random shade. I saw a complaint that it should have at least been a duo. Had it been, it would have been completely okay even if it was the same side split in half. This is not going to be very indicative of the formula. I'm not too excited about this because it's a nuetral eyeshadow. Cool. They exist repeatedly in my collection. Still, it's alright I suppose. I super hope for Flirty, because it's a darker shade.
At .035 oz this is worth about $3, as the pan is rougly the same size as the pans in the palette.

Mica Beauty Eye Primer.

This is pretty exciting. The full size is an 8 g pot of primer valued at nearly $45. First WHAT. Why? Is it laced with skin cells of a unicorn? Better be. The pot Ipsy is sending is about half that, so roughly $22.50. Price means little if it's not quality, so lets hope it's great.  The truly cool thing is that my UD Primer potion is starting to run low. I still have a few other prestige type eye primers, but eventually they're going to run out.

Mullein & Sparrow Mini Lip & Cheek Tint

My first impression was that of "Why do I have two blushes?". I love blush, as stated, but two in one bag? The product itself though is beautiful and resembles something from an apothecary. For that I do not even care if it's a repeat. It's perfect because of what it looks like. On the website this is only available in a duo set valued at $20. So this is a $10 product, but the website has a high price point. It's beautiful and has pretty basic ingredients. Maybe this is my most anticipated product.


Overall, like most people I have a miffed attitude about not receiving a lip product. I especially wanted a Too Faced lip-guy, but hey. It's on my "to try" list, and it will still be there. I can still buy it easily at Ulta, whereas it is harder to come by something like the Cheek tint or the Mica Beauty things (do they even sell that at Ulta??)

My bag will have a value of about $53.50. That's fairly high compared to recent. Lets just hope it's all good stuff.