April IPSY Glam bag: Beauty Rocks

For once I have a legitimate excuse for posting my glam bag late. My grandma passed away April 17th and life has been pretty hectic since then, as you can imagine. So my blog has taken a back seat for the most part but I'm trying to make a comeback!

So let's start with the IPSY bag from April.

Starting with the bag...this is definitely one of my favorites. I am a huge music lover so "beauty rocks" theme with a record player is perfect. I really like it! Not as much as solid print bags in a print I love, but still.

Here's my bag's contents and I have to admit, I'm not stoked OVERALL. Of course I'll explain that all.

Let's start with the best of the bag which is of course this Urban Decay 24/7 Velvet glide-on eye pencil in black velvet.
Obviously anything Urban Decay is worth the rest of the bag to be honest. This is a pretty straight forward product. A black eyeliner pencil. Which came just in time as I was just recently thinking to myself in disbelief that I didn't have a go-to black eyeliner pencil anymore since I only use liquid or gel eyeliner these days.

A smudged out line to the left and a straight swatch to the right. See the little bald part towards the top? That was where a little bit of the tip broke off because I was pressing down too hard. This is definitely the kind of eyeliner that is soft to achieve the "glide on" effect and for the blendability. The website says it is waterproof but I didn't test that claim but I would be interested to know...

This is just a trial size and when I went to look for the weight/price on Urban Decay's website I got a little confused.
It says the trial size fill weight is .03 oz but it says the full size is .04 oz.
Very peculiar. Since you can't buy the trial size individually and I don't know what to make of the weight issue, I am making an educated guess about how much it is worth based on the other travel size kits.
This travel size is worth about $6
The full size is available at Urban Decay's website for $20 and you can also find it in store at Ulta or Sephora
Would I repurchase? Yeah mosty likely, but I would definitely buy a travel set because it is a much better value and you get to try multiple colors. Win/win!

I got this Cailyn tinted lip balm in Apple Pink.
Let's talk about how much is wrong with that sentence.
First off, when are apples pink?! And to be real I don't even think this is a pink shade. More like a peachy-nude.
But the biggest gripe I , and everyone else, has with this product is that it's somehow marketed as lip balm. As even the most casual beauty lover knows...lip balm is supposed to be moisturizing.
This sucker is pretty much the opposite of that.

It's super matte and as you can see it settles into fine lines and such. It is pretty drying. I have heard that it is long-lasting, which is nice, I guess? But I couldn't stand to have it on my lips long enough to find out.
Maybe this could work for you if you did some major prep work to your lips beforehand and slathered on a ton of actual lip balm before applying.

Another shot to re-affirm how drying this B is.
Unfortunately I can't see myself using this in the future since it makes my lips feel like ass.
Not actual ass cause that's typically a smooth surface.
It actually pisses me off that basically the main thing this "balm" claims to be is "SUPER moisturizing" uh, what? I can't even see that under any stretch of the imagination. Keep trying, biddies.

It also bugs me that the pictures on their website are super photoshopped. not only that but they photoshop a shine on to the "ultra matte" balms. Um, ok? That's smart I guess.
Also it says "coming soon, june 2013!" Really, you didn't have time to update your web page in the past year?!

All in all this product left me grumpy.
The plus sides are that it was a full size product and it has a built in brush which is pretty neat.
This product sells for $19 which literally made me say HA! out loud.
It can be bought on their website here 
I think you already know that I would not repurchase this.

The next product in this confusing bag was this Dr Brandt microdermabrsion skin exfoliant sample.
In case you haven't noticed by the lack of skin care reviews on this blog, I don't really use any skincare products.
I want to get into them but just haven't gotten around to it yet. So this was a nice sample to try although I haven't tried it yet. In fact I don't think I have ever used a skin exfoliant so I'm not sure if I would like it!

The website says it polishes away dead skin cells which is nice but that sounds just like any other exfoliator out there so I'm not sure what sets this one apart.

Here's a drop of it on my skin next to a swipe of the lip balm

This is another product whose price had me laughing.
This little shit retails for $78 on their website ... I know that skin care items are typically more pricey than cosmetics but damn. I don't have that kind of money!
This trial size is actually just an 8th of the full size with just .25 oz making it worth approx $9.75
That is an insane price for something I will probably only use once or twice.
Even though I haven't used it yet I can confidently say I will not repurchase since it is way out of my price range.

This little bugger stunk up my whole bag. I smelled it as soon as I opened the envelope. Once I opened my bag and discovered the culprit I found that the cap was loose. Nothing spilled out but I guess that's why the smell was so strong.
I was a little surprised since I have never gotten a fragrance in my IPSY bags.
This is just a roll on perfume oil in jasmine. it's a nice product but jasmine is not really a scent that I enjoy. It's too easy to be overpowering.
I will be either tossing this in a giveaway or giving it to someone who likes the smell.

This retails for $10 on their website which isn't a bad price I don't think. Their website actually has a LOT of fun scents!
With the 20% off coupon Ipsy subscribers get I might get another scent to try, there were quite a few that caught my eye! And I like that it's so portable and it's a roll on oil so the scent should stay around for a while.

Lastly I got this Elizabeth Mott pop goes the eyseshadow in Champagne.
I wish IPSY would stop giving me such boring colors. I get that they want to be widely appealing but geez.
Anyway, this eyeshadow arrived to me shattered. Womp womp womp.

This eyeshadow promises to change your life and I think that's extremely laughable. No champagne colored eyeshadow is ever going to change my life. C'mon. They are a dime a dozen. And everyone has Naked hahah

Anyway this eyeshadow is the full size product and retails for $12.99 at the Elizabeth Mott website.
I won't be repurchasing this product because to me that is far too expensive for just one eyeshadow.

So I investigated IPSY's website and found a form for what to do if something is broken. It said to write them and they will get back to you and ship a replacement. It also said that if they were out of the product they would replace it with a similar product. Understandable.

I was pleasantly surprised after dealing with IPSY Care (their customer service) their reply was fast and to the point. They had another eyeshadow on the way to me within 24 hours. I was satisfied.
Until I actually got said eyeshadow. Remember I told you they might replace it with a similar product. And hey, that's fine. But what I got was a BH cosmetics sample that I already got in a past Ipsy bag.
I mean.....I am pretty confident they have various eyeshadows laying around. They couldn't have checked to make sure they weren't sending me one THEY already sent me?!
A little disappointed by that, not gonna lie. Another item to add to the giveaway pile.

Overall if it weren't for Urban Decay being in this bag I would be so annoyed with what a bomb it was. It's like they knew they had an awesome eyeliner in there so it didn't matter what else they stuck in there.
Whateva. Still worth the $10 because let's face it ANY $5 will be worth $10 really!

This bag was worth approximately $57.74 although I would never pay that much for it I am glad to get it for $10.

If you want to get a bag full of goodies in the mail for only $10 a month and join in on the surprise, you can sign up using my referral link here.