This month's bag theme is Classic Beauty. The actual bag itself is a bright blue with a black lace-like floral pattern on it. It has a round matching blue zipper pull with Ipsy stamped on one side.
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| I added a collective swatch below the tinted lip balm review |
NYX eyeshadow in Lanikai $4.50 for single shadows
You can find the NYX website HERE. If you sign up for their email list you can get 25% off your first order.
In the pan this looked light bluish gray with some small silvery glitter pieces in it, once on my lids though, it was more of a shimmery pale lavender gray. Lanikai has a silky texture that almost feels like a cream. It applied easiest with a brush using a sweeping motion as opposed to packing it on. It blended smoothly, and had zero fall out. The pigment layered nicely so I could easily build up the color. One swipe gave me an even wash of lavender/gray so layering isn't totally necessary. It looks much more shimmery in the swatch then it does on the lid, it is definitely a shimmer finish but it isn't quite as shiny as it looks in the photo. I got about 6 hours, without fading, out of this without a primer underneath. This went on much smoother then I thought it would, it's been quite a while since I've used a drug store brand eye shadow, I think I've been converted! I would love to try out more NYX eyeshadows in the future.
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| To get the color this dark it took about 5 layers. |
StarLooks kohl eye pencil in Obsidian $12 for a 2.4g pencil
You can find this HERE. If you enter the code IPSY at check out you can get 20% off your total order of $35 or more.
The darkness of this liner left a lot to be desired. Maybe it's just me, but when I think of obsidian, I think dark black so I had high hopes based off the name. One swipe left me with a faded black line, not gray and not solid color, just faded black. I had to go over it several times just to get solid color. I warmed it up a bit and used it on my waterline, I got a fairly even, mostly solid, line. Once built up, obsidian is a decent charcoalish black color which isn't what I was hoping for but it is a nice color. It's not totally matte but not shimmery or sparkly either, it's got a slight sheen to it though. I actually really enjoyed the soft effect this gave me on my waterline. One fantastic thing about this is that it washed off very easily with no left over residue! No raccoon eyes in the morning for this girl. I got about 5 hours of wear out of this. Overall it's a very ok eye pencil, it isn't the best I've seen but it isn't the worst.
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| Ignore my majorly chipped nail polish... |
You can find this HERE.
I've explained my reluctance to use new mascaras before and my huge expectations from them, but I'll do a quick recap. I have short stumpy lashes on my left eye and normal length lashes on my right, so lengthening is necessary for me. I'm also freaked out by huge mascara brushes, I have problems with giant bristles coming at my eyeball, I can't explain it. So small bristles are required for me as well.
That said, this mascara went above and beyond and I was impressed! It went on solid black from the first swipe which is extremely important to me because my eye lashes are blonde naturally. It's buildable so while your lashes look beautiful with a coat or two, after 5-10 swipes (which sounds kind of ridiculous I know) it looks like I'm wearing false lashes. They are longer, thicker, and curled naturally without using my lash curler. I had no problems at all with clumping. The wand itself is a little on the short side, I'm not sure if the full size wand is longer, I liked the short wand though. It has medium length bristles, with a small wave in the middle. Honestly, I've never found a difference with the shape of the wand and performance, but I thought I'd throw it in here. Also, this washed away completely very easily with just a little soap and water, but it also didn't run the second it got wet.
Skyn Iceland Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels $30 for 8 pairs
You can find this HERE.
These are neat, they are like little fabric covered gel pads with a slightly sticky side (that has a peel away covering) so it sticks to your eye. Which is actually pretty awesome! Normally I get eye thingers and they are wet, or they slip and slide all over my face, I end up having to lay back for 10 minutes while they do whatever they do, and I wind up with eye stuff all over my face. But with these, I could feel the liquid under the pad but nothing leaked out, and when I removed them, my face was dry underneath. After about a minute the eye pads felt pleasantly cool, not overly cold or tingly. The only down side (not really down side, more of a strangeness) to these is how freakishly large the eye pads are. These covered my entire under eye, starting at my nose, and I still had enough to cover a good inch maybe inch and a half past the outer corner of my eye. I might cut my second pair in half and use it twice. I didn't notice a dramatic difference after I removed these, but I wasn't expecting anything crazy after 10 minutes and one use. If I had an issue with puffy or tired eyes I would definitely consider these. The price isn't out of this world either, if you used them once a week you'd basically be paying $30 for 2 months of eye gels. Now, if you cut them in half and stored the open one in a ziplock bag you could stretch that to 4 months for $30, which isn't a bad price at all.
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| Yeah, I've been using it! |
Cailyn Tinted Limp Balm in Big Apple $19 for 3g plus attached brush
You can find this HERE.
So when Cailyn makes tinted lip balm they don't mess around, this is much more like a lip stain that is still removable once its rehydrated. I originally used this with the small brush that came in the top, expecting it to be a wash of red with a moisturizing balmy shine and texture. But because my lips are on the medium side and I'm pretty impatient, I ended up using my own lip brush for this once I realized how pigmented it actually was. It is freakishly pigmented, it's not just a wash of color, we're talking solid color here. It goes on like a lipstick like texture and dries down to no texture at all. It isn't matte, it isn't shiny or glossy, it looks like your natural lips as far as sheen goes, but colored. Just like a lip stain, in fact, if I had to classify this I would put it in the lip stain category. It dried in about a minute, which is how long you have to fix any mistakes before it seals itself completely on your lips. If you use a lip pencil first it takes about 10-15 minutes to dry down. There was minimal rub off from this even before it dried, I got about 8 hours of wear out of this with minimal fading and no touch ups, with 2 meals and several glasses of water in between. If you apply a gloss the balm does not dry down and stays wet and is more prone to fading though. I did notice that once it got wet it was more prone to shifting or wear, so be aware of that, otherwise it isn't moving an inch. The color itself is exceptional. It's a lovely dark apple red that I feel would go with a lot of hair colors and skin tones. It is a fantastic color for fall!
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| Lanikai eyeshadow, Big Apple tinted lip balm, It's So Big mascara |
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| Big Apple tinted lip balm on my lips. Just saying, sorry about the negative amount of happiness in this photo, this was literally my 15th try to get a picture of the color on my lips, my camera was not wanting to focus today. |
This month's glam bag came with a tiny extra, a promo card for Michelle Phan's new make up line EM. Mine talked about The Life Palette Career Life and a little sample from Look 3 in that giant palette "out to lunch". It included the cheek color and 3 eye colors. It is one of those little card samples, where it's a single or two time use at best. At first I thought a little number/letter code stamped at the bottom of the card was possibly a coupon code, however, it isn't. I'm not sure what that code is for but a coupon code would have been magical considering they are $75. Which isn't that bad when you look at the amount of make up you get in one palette but it's still $75.
I labeled the colors so it would be easier to tell them apart when I wrote about them.
I haven't worn any of these yet but the blush or "B" is a nice peachy/coraly color that was a breeze to swatch, it went on very smooth and had a lot of pigment with one swipe. It had a slight slight shimmer to it but nothing dramatic.
1 is a nice medium shimmer brown, it went on smoothly with a nice even color.
2 ends up being an interesting greyish brown shimmer, it went on less smoothly then 1 and it was hard to build up the color to get a decent swatch, but I got it in the end!
3 is a dark brown that I could barely swatch because it was so powdery when applied to my skin. I tried to build up the color but it continued to be chalky, the fall out was awful. Which is a shame, the color reminds me of another brown that I consider to be a must have for my every day eye make up.
It's possible the texture would be a little better in the pan and not just sprayed on to a card. I'm not saying anything either way. The colors are all very nice and go well together. I'd love to try this palette, with all of it's colors and mix of blush, lip colors, and eye shadows. The reviews I've seen on these have been glowing so I'd love to see for myself and encourage you to see for yourself as well.
You can find Michelle's EM website HERE.
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| I added a "B" for blush and "1,2,3" to tell the eyeshadows apart. |
As usual, if you would like to receive your very own Ipsy Glam Bag you can sign up HERE! It's $10 a month and each monthly glam bag has a theme of it's very own right down to the mini make up pouch. You also take a beauty quiz when you sign up to help personalize your glam bag.
Enjoy!
*Ipsy Glam Bag is a monthly beauty sample bag that I paid for with my very own money. I do not get paid to give good reviews*
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