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.