Skin & Tonics : Skincare Guides & Product Reviews

It’s that time of the month again, and no, I don’t mean my period. It’s Ipsy Glam Bag time! The June Ipsy bag arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday of last week, and though that is reasonably fast, it used to get to my house a lot faster. I live in the same state Ipsy’s mailing service ships from, and for a long time, I received my Ipsy bag the day after they shipped – usually before Ipsy even emailed me my tracking number. It’s not like that anymore.

Recently, DHL decided that it’s somehow more efficient to ship my bag from North Carolina to Kentucky, then to Georgia, then back to North Carolina again. Every month I keep a watchful eye on my Ipsy tracking status, and every month, when I see that my bag is in Kentucky, I think, “This is it! This is the month my bag disappears forever!” Fortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. But I sure would like to know why my bag needs a grand tour of the southeastern US before winding up in my mailbox.

The June Ipsy Glam Bag was fun enough for me, though I heard on Instagram that it wasn’t a homerun for others. Ipsy is now customizing their monthly offering for subscribers based on their beauty quiz answers. I actually don’t even remember taking the beauty quiz, but my answers must have been pretty good because I usually get the products I want.

My June Ipsy Glam Bag contained:

• Travel size Psssst!® The TRUE Original Dry Shampoo by Freeman Beauty ($2 value)
• Full size Starlooks Lip Pencil in Tipsy ($12 value)
• Full size NYX Mosaic Powder in Rose Gold ($7 value)
• Full size Chella Highlighter Pencil in Ivory Lace ($18 value)
• Full size J.cat Beauty Sparkling Cream Palette in SCP107 ($4 value)

Total value: $43

The bag is pretty cute this month – it’s a cheetah print number with neon yellow lining. A makeup bag is one of the few places that sort of combination could come off as “cute!” instead of “unbelievably tacky!”

Now for the products! First up, we have the Psssst! Dry Shampoo by Freeman Beauty. I’m a huge dry shampoo fan, and have some pretty high standards when it comes to this stuff. Aside from the fact that the packaging looks like it’s for men’s shaving cream, and it’s kind of annoying to count out 4 s’s every time I type out the product name, this stuff is pretty great. It doesn’t leave behind a white powder residue, it does a great job getting rid of my greasy hair patches, and it smells pleasant enough. It’s no Batiste (my favorite dry shampoo of all time), but it’s extremely decent. I would probably purchase this product as a Batiste alternative in a pinch.

Next up, we have the Starlooks Lip Pencil in Tipsy. I’m not really a lip liner kind of gal. People and fashion magazines always suggest that we use one, but every time I have, I’m eventually left with a ring of color once my lipstick wears away, and that ring of color looks ridiculous. I decided it would be unfair to judge this product as a lip liner since I don’t really wear them, and instead used it as an all over lip color. You know, like a skinny version of the Nars Lip Pencil. As a lip color, the color was a little off for my skin tone. Also, it was very dry, as lip pencils often are. I wore mine long enough to snap a photo, then wiped it off before I left the house. I’ll probably never use this lip pencil again.

The third product I pulled out of the bag is the NYX Mosaic Powder in Dare, which consists of 4 matte and shimmer cheek colors in the rose gold shade range. I was pumped about this. The Mosaic Powder was one of 3 or 4 different NYX cheek products we could have received in our bag, and this one was at the top of my list. And not only did I get the product I wanted – I got the color palette I would have chosen myself!

The NYX Mosaic Powder did not disappoint. It is pigmented enough to build color if I need to, but it’s easy enough to sheer out on my cheeks. The buildability (that’s a thing, right?) even makes it wearable as an eyeshadow. The color lasted for several hours on my cheeks, and even longer on my eyelids when used with an eye primer.

I was also very excited about the next product in this month’s bag, which is the Chella Highlighter Pencil in Ivory Lace. I have a couple of highlighter pencils in my arsenal already, and they see a lot of action. I usually use them to highlight the arch under my brown and blend it out into my eyeshadow. My other pencils are the NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk, which is pure white, and the Benefit High Brow pencil which is more of a pink flesh tone. The Chella Pencil in Ivory Lace is a light beige tone. It’s a welcome addition to my highlighter pencil lineup, and compliments my natural skin color very well. It’s easy enough to blend once applied, and the highlight lasted for 7 hours. It could have lasted even longer, but I had to wash my makeup off. I like this highlighter pencil a lot and will probably buy it again in the same color.

Swatch Comparison (left to right): Chella Highlighter Pencil in Ivory Lace, Benefit High Brow, and NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk

Lastly, we have the J.cat Beauty Sparkling Cream Palette. This palette is a very similar product to the NYX Glitter Cream Palette, which I am not a fan of. The J.cat palette is basically a jelly/Vaseline type base with a crapload of glitter suspended in it. Like the NYX palette, I don’t know what I’m supposed to use it for. The glitter is definitely not eye safe. I made the mistake with the NYX palette of trying to put it on my eyes anyway, as I had seen countless YouTube beauty gurus do, and wouldn’t you know it? I got glitter in my eye. I’m lucky I didn’t scratch my retinas out. I won’t be putting this on my face at all, but I did swatch them, and to their credit, I do think the glitter density in the J.cat Beuaty Sparkling Cream Palette is far better than the NYX version. Be warned, however, that when you remove this glitter, it will get everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

Overall, the June Ipsy bag didn’t really blow my mind, bit it did have a couple of strong performers, and for $10, that’s good enough for me. If you would like to get your own Ipsy subscription, you can sign up on the Ipsy website.

Pros:
+ Great dry shampoo that doesn’t leave behind a white residue
+ The Chella Highlighting Pencil is a great, natural looking highlight color and wears for a long time
+ NYX Mosaic Powder is versatile and reasonably long wearing

Cons:
+ Starlooks lip pencil is drying and the color was off
+ Sparkling Cream Palette. Scratchy glitter everywhere. Ugh.

Skin & Tonics Rating:

Performance: 4/5 – The products that did work this month worked well, and there were more good products than duds.

Quality: 3/5 – Mostly high quality items, though the J.cat glitter and the Starlooks pencil were disappointing.

Value: 5/5 – Even with the disappointing products, $10 for $43 worth of stuff is a spectacular deal.

Overall: 4/5