Tag: wander beauty

October 2021 IPSY Glam Bag Plus Unboxing

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ,

            I am writing this about fifteen minutes after writing Sunday’s post so here we are again. I am back, back again. Still really tired. 

            We are so close to Halloween and the end of the month which is crazy sauce, I cannot believe in less than a week we will be in November, I don’t want to be this close to the end of the year yet, but here we are.

            I never got a tracking email on this one, which is always a little weird but it showed up the same day as my GB so it was two rocks with one bird. 

            I feel like this is going to be a short one specifically because my brain is not rolling at 100% right now, I have been up for almost six hours and it’s only 8 AM. This post is going to be fun because my last post was more on the serious side and life it too short to be serious all the time. 

            Let’s get right into it then, let’s talk about my October GB+

The bag: 

            I love this one, I love the lips and the fangs. The color choice is amazing and what is different between the GB and the GB+ is that the lips on the GB+ are outlined in white which makes them stick out a little more which makes them look even cooler. The lime green drawstring was a great design choice and I want to find a reason use this again because it’s so fun.

The products: 

            I want to preface this with I have six this month because I redeemed points this month so there will be six items instead of the usual five. I was not sent an extra item by mistake; I used my points to get it. 

Kate Somerville Goat Milk Moisturizing Cream:

            I love this, I actually just threw my last one away because it was empty. This is one of my fave moisturizers that I currently have. I bought this one as a replacement for the one I just finished. Normally I don’t buy products as a replacement, but this one is totally worth it. This is one of those products that I have become one of my holy grail products and I really like this moisturizer. 

Illamasqua Beyond Liquid Highlighter in OMG:

            I have been using highlighter daily now because I like to glow a little with all of the gloom in the world. That sounds too motivational for me, I love highlighter though, it’s the crow part of my brain that is just screaming for shiny things. The color is gorgeous and it really doesn’t take much and all of a sudden they might be able to see you from space.

Dermalect Self Esteem Beauty Sleep Serum:

            I love a good serum, who doesn’t? I feel like serums have become such a big part of my skin care routine over the last year and maybe because I’m getting older and I care more about my skin now, or maybe because skin care has become such a big thing over the last few years. It smells pretty good and I am looking forward to give it a chance when I am done with the rest of my serums. I could use multiple serums at the same time (well not together, just on different days) because they are for different things, but I stick with things until they either effect my skin or I run out. 

Aracelli Ojos Perfectos Gel Pencil Eyeliner in Black and Rose Gold: 

            I don’t wear eyeliner but I chose these because I used to use pencil eyeliner all the time, well gel liner. I don’t like liquid liner but I love a good gel liner. I need to get back into wearing eyeliner and I figured that getting some gel liner would be a good first step. I cannot wear eyeliner like I used to back in my emo days. I am a professional adult now and that just wouldn’t be a good look anymore, so here we are with these ones. 

Wander Beauty Staycation Hydrating Mask:

            It can be a wash off mask or it can be a moisturizer so that’s great because I usually like to leave these things on overnight. I am almost out of my Ahava mask so I am looking forward to having another mask that I can put on a few times a week and get all of the benefits of a really good moisturizer.

Doucce Posh Powder Palette: 

            This was my points redeemed item, I love Doucce and I haven’t gotten any Doucce products in my Glam Bags in well over a year. I love their mascara, their eye shadow is amazing, and I am looking forward to giving this palette a try because the shades are stunning. Their packaging is simple and classic and the product is amazing, it is a little on the pricey side though, so when I get the opportunity to get their products, I jump on it. 

            So, there is my Glam Bag Plus this month, it was a good bag over all and I am looking forward to seeing what will be my options in my November bag. 

            If you want to see what else I have gotten this year, you totally can, just click on the month! January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.

            I will be back later in the week with another post so get excited! So until then I hope that everyone has a great rest of the week and everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy! 

            -MJ 

August 2020 IPSY Glam Bag Plus Unboxing

.Reading time 9 minutes.

Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            Well this is the first month of a new format so I will say my opinions and hope that in the coming months it gets better. So you can personalize three of your products now and most of the products suggested to me were moisturizer, eyeliner (which I still don’t wear), and mascara. Each choice gives you four choices of products and I feel like if they are going to do something like that they should just give you the whole selection of products that they are offering in that particular month. I know that this is the first month and they are going to hopefully send out a survey because I was not the biggest face of all of my choices so I felt like it didn’t give me a lot of options that if I had a larger selection I would have chosen, seriously it was a lot of eyeliner and mascara, moisturizer too and they had already chosen a moisturizer for me so I don’t understand why I was given that option multiple times. Granted I did choose a moisturizer for one but my problem with that was it was the only product that I actually liked/wanted of the four choices they gave me. 

The Bag: 

            I don’t know what I am going to do with these drawstring bags in the future but I’ll figure it out. It’s fine and all the products fit in it but it just doesn’t feel as quality as the bags every month. I think I would rather just not have a bag at all at this point. 

Products: 

Picked for me: 

Huda Beauty Demi Matte Cream Lipstick in Game Changer:

            Okay, I like this one but it’s not exactly the right shade for me, there is too much orange in it and I look better in cool tones so while this is a beautiful color it will for sure have to be a more fall shade for me. I love the packaging but let’s be real Huda Beauty’s packaging usually is. It is a demi matte lipstick and it feel like a mix between a gloss and a lipstick which is an odd consistency but I don’t mind it.

Murad Perfecting Day Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 30:

            I love Murad I have used them for a few years now and I have actually been looking at this exact lotion online for a few months now but I have a lot of moisturizer to get through but it’s fine. It claims to be very hydrating and I always need that especially when it’s consistently like 95 degrees here and it’s just humid so all you are doing is losing all of the moisture out of your body and I know that now as we are getting into the fall and winter my skin will get so dry. 

I picked: 

Thrive Causemetics Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara in Brynn:

            I mean I chose a repeat product because this is my hands down favorite mascara of all time. The packaging is heavy and I cannot recommend this mascara any higher. It’s just so good. I feel like I can’t say much about it because I have already put it in multiple posts, which you can read; they are my July IPSY Glam Bag Plus from last year, and my Top Beauty of 2019. I love it so much. 

Wander Beauty Frame Your Face Precise Brow Gel in Clear:

            I like Wander but this was the least objectionable out of my options the other two I remember were an eyeliner and a mascara and again it felt like  lot of these were the options like they were trying to clean out stock. It’s a clear eyebrow gel and I haven’t really used eyebrow gel in a long time but it’s a much smaller more precise brush than the ELF one I used in college. 

Dermedicine Advanced Skincare Weightless Face Moisturizer SPF 25:

            Another moisturizer in my box this month and I chose this one because again this was the most tuned to my skin care needs of the other products which I honestly cannot remember at the moment. I am looking forward to giving it a try though because I feel like I have gotten so into skin care in the last few years because skin is important so having all sorts of moisturizer is not a bad thing. 

Points Redeemed:

Complex Culture All Over Shadow Brush: 

            You get points every month for reviewing the items and I haven’t redeemed anything in the two and a half years since I started getting IPSY bags, so some of my points have for sure expired but I wanted to redeem something and the Complex Culture brushes are really nice and so having a third one is not a bad thing in my makeup bag. It’s a cute fluffy little shadow brush and I cannot complain about it because it meant that I got an extra item in my bag this month. 

            Overall with this bag, I am hoping that it’s just a learning curve, it’s taking the reviews and insights of their customers and actually it improves because there just will eventually something that will give and it won’t be the best. Four options is a little weird because that means that there are several products that you don’t have a choice on and if you are going to give me a choice let me pick from all the items for the month, let me make my decisions between 30 items or however many there are that month, not 12 that are arbitrarily chosen for me. I suppose only time will tell but I guess in the coming months we will find out how this change stacks up and if it is really all that revolutionary like they made the hype out to be. 

If you want to see what else I have gotten this year you can! January, March, April, May, June, and July.

            I will be back later in the week with another post, have a good start to the week!

            -MJ

What was in my March 2020 ipsy Glam Bag

.Reading time 8 minutes.

Hey Hey, it’s MJ, 

            So welcome to April, I wrote this post at the latter end of March but let’s be real I didn’t have the energy to post it so there is going to be a lot of catch up in April for March and that’s okay because we are living in a pretty uncertain time. I have been dealing with a lot so I took all of February off (February kicked me in the stomach a couple times) so I took it off completely and I regret it but when you don’t feel like writing anything and you can’t string two words together it gets hard to write blog posts. So here I am trying to get something written, it probably won’t be my best but I’m working on it. 

            Alright so of course my first post, post hiatus is my ipsy Glam Bag this month, this month because it was the 100thGlam Bag we got an extra sample which is really cool and congratulations to ipsy for making it 100 months. 

            First of all, the bag is super cute I love the color scheme and the studded detail. It’s bright and springy and right now that’s something that I feel like we need. 

            On to the products,

            Ofra Cosmetics Bronzer in Americano

                        I am still pretty new to bronzer and I don’t wear it too often but this is actually a really good shade to match my skin tone. It does have a shimmer to it so it is better for summer than winter. It would also make a great eyeshadow color. (which is suggested on the card) 

            Luxie Beauty Periwinkle Pro Precision Tapered Brush

                        I have so many brushes now and I really like that but I need a bigger brush holder. It’s a really feathery brush which is great for powders but it’s a little too feathery for me and my normal routine. 

            Wander Beauty Eyeshadow in Bouquet

                        This is a beautiful and pigmented shade, I like all of Wander’s products that I have gotten to try. I did swatch this and I agree with the card where it says to put it on with your finger instead of a brush. This is one of those shades that’s good for day and night wear depending on whatever else you put with it. 

            Hanalei Company Kukui Lip Balm in Island Mint

                        Who doesn’t need more chapsticks and maybe I will actually get through one in my life time instead of having a half dozen of them spread out through their house but I am one of those people where I randomly find lip balms all over. I can read and understand almost all of the ingredients. I am not going to open this one up but I love a Hawaiian brand.

            Tatcha The Water Cream

                        I chose this one because I have heard so many good things about Tatcha and their creams so I had to try this one when I saw it as a choice. My skin is congestion prone and I have been told this is a pretty good cream for that. It’s one of those creams that everyone talks about but is really expensive so getting a sample of it helps make more informed decisions when it comes to purchasing a full sized product.

            Shaina B. Miami Highlight in Guava Glow

                        It’s a really pretty color and I love the flamingo’s pressed into the pan. I love cute pan pressings. It’s a really pretty shade and the pigmentation for a highlight/ multipurpose powder is pretty good. 

            So it’s a little bare bones, I’m getting back into the swing of things and it will take some time. When you’ve been in a creative slump it happens like that and with the quarantine it makes life just a little bit more lonely. I will see you all in a few days with another post and I am going to try really hard to keep to a good schedule in the coming weeks and months but I cannot make any promises to that fact. 

            Have the best week you can! 

            -MJ

Fall 2019 fabfitfun Unboxing

.Reading time 11 minutes.

Hey hey it’s MJ, I do hope that everyone had a nice week, I had a week I can’t qualify it as good or bad so it was just a week. 

            I got my fall fabfitfun box in the mail on Friday, it was pouring rain all day and that is for sure all this girl can ask for, I really like rain. I like overcast days, calm rain, a good book, and tea no matter how cliché that sounds. In all seriousness though we needed the rain it’s been so hot here and we haven’t had the rain we need as farmers get hopefully their final cutting in for hay for the cows this winter. Side note: I grew up surrounded by corn and bean fields (sometimes there wasn’t much more than corn in Indiana.) but now where I live it’s a lot of livestock and not a lot of crops so it’s a completely different kind of farming and I have learned a lot about it. Okay back off the side note and into the box.

            Like always these views are my own, I promise. 

            I am going to start off with an audible sigh and I will explain why. This box was not a diverse as boxes have been in the past. Granted some of that was because of the customization options that I chose and because it is a subscription box with a mystery component not every box can be a winner. With that in mind I love all of the products that I received it was just a little heavy in skin and body care items. 

            Let’s get into the break down, again like usual the box is $50 four times a year (March, June, September, and December) and the value of this box was between $211-345.99, I am a seasonal member so I have more limited customization options than someone who is a select member has, one day I will go select but that day is not today. Also per usual I will not be telling you the exact value of my box but let’s say it is about in the middle of that range somewhere. 

            For my first custom option I didn’t really have strong feelings about any of the options given so I chose the mystery item so I didn’t know what I was going to get at all with this one. I did receive the Dr. Brandt Clean Biotic pH-Balanced Yogurt Cleaner with chlorophyll and the Dermelect Runway Ready Luxury Foot Treatment both of which sound pretty great. I think getting these two did give me a little bit less for a diverse spread. The other options were the Plush Ultra Plaid Scarf, (I have like 100 scarves and I don’t need more) Anthropologie Travel Yoga Mat (I have two yoga mats and I don’t think I would need another), the Amika Strand Perfect Styler (again I already have a hair straightener), or the Mobile White Advanced Teeth Whitening Kit.

            The next customization option I chose the Kate Spade Lunch Tote, I still like lunch boxes and they are great for work and also it’s Kate Spade so I of course gravitated toward that. It’s a nice tan with black polkadots and it says “out to lunch” on the front. It’s really cute and more functional for me than some of the other options. The other options were the NassifMD Detox Pads, Kut from the Kloth slim striped wallet. Or the Twine cheese board with plate.

            The last customization option for seasonal members my choice was the Baublebar Farah Ear Crawlers, I love earrings and I loved the idea of ear cuffs when I was in high school but all of the ones that I had never fit right so here’s hoping that these ones because they are crawlers and go in the hole in my ear will give me that effect but still work. The other options were The Better Skin Co. Lava Magik or Cosmedix Pure C. 

            So the next two are customizable for select members. 

            I got the Skinvolve Body Boost Gel, it’s a pre-workout cream to tighten skin and it’s formulated with menthol and green tea. I don’t know how I feel about this one but I think I need to know more about it before passing any real judgment on it. The other options were the Eparé Dual Salt and Pepper Mill, Afterspa Hair Towel Wrap, or the Tréstique Mini Eye Essentials (set of 4).

            The next customizable for select members and just random for everyone else, I got the Wander Beauty Baggage Claim Gold Eye Mask (6 Pack). So this I was really excited about I got into under eye masks earlier in the year and they are pretty great for anyone who has under eye issues (like bags) and needs some extra nourishment and hydration there. These have aloe peel extract and lavender oil so I am hopeful that they will be pretty great. The other options were the Aromatherapy Associates Deep Relax Roller Ball or the Skin&Co Roma Truffle Therapy Face Toner.

            These next items were in every box so there was no customization in these.

            Aveda Damage Remedy Daily Hair Repair, okay confession time, I probably need this product more than I would like to admit, my hair is damaged to high heaven, I stopped getting it professionally dyed over a year ago but my ends are still pretty fried so I am actually really excited about this product being in my box. 

            Harper + Ari Exfoliating Sugar Cubes in Juice Cleanse, these smell amazing first of all. I don’t exfoliate very frequently because my skin is sensitive and that means that most exfoliating products are a little too harsh for my skin so I will be trying it out to see how my skin reacts to them. Like I said though, they smell absolutely amazing.

            The last item is the Human + Kind Body Soufflé and it is sealed so I am not going to open it but I am always for a good body lotion, do I use them as often as I should, no, but do I like them and think that I need more? Yes, yes I do. 

            Overall, I mean, I like the box; I don’t love the box. I saw some comments online to that same tone and I can agree with them now. Fabfitfun is one of the OG boxes like this and I have loved every other one I have received so it’s not a make or break sort of thing. Some of the lack of product diversity is my fault but it was just really skin and body care heavy this time around. 

            Well that’s it for me and I will see everyone mid-week with another post. 

            Do you subscribe, did you get anything in this box that you can’t live without? Let me know down in the comments. 

            Until next time, 

            -MJ 

May Glam Bag Plus Unboxing

.Reading time 8 minutes.

So this is my second post of May, I have been sick for the last like week and a half and I have just been dealing with some things that have taken a front seat instead of letting them take a back seat even though I wish they were taking a back seat. 

            Okay on to this though, they opened up the wait list for the Glam Bag Plus last month and I jumped on it because I am a huge fan of ipsy’s service and I was really excited for the prospect of a full sized product box from this company. 

            Okay so honestly I didn’t really know what to expect in this box and I was pleasantly surprised and I must say for an initial box, I know that it will just get better as the service continues. 

            This post probably won’t be super long because I am just not in a great mood and I don’t want that to bleed into this post. 

            Yensa: Tone Up Primer Essential Glow: 

            I like it and it has really good essences in it so I am looking forward to seeing how my skin reacts to it, I have been having more breakouts recently because of stress so I am hoping that this product doesn’t make those worse. It goes on really smoothly and I am a fan of the packaging and the ingredients, it does give a very slight glow to the skin when it is put on but as it dries it sinks into the skin.

            Glam Glow Bubblesheet Sheet Masks (3):

            I got some of these in one of my FabFitFun boxes last year and I have used one or two now and I really like them already so getting more was a big plus in my book. They don’t bubble up a lot but it is still kind of odd to have something bubbling on your face, you don’t leave them on the length of time that you would with a regular sheet mask. These are more of a quick turnaround mask; this mask only stays on for 3-4 minutes unlike a regular mask which can stay on for 20+ minutes. 

            Kandee Johnson x pūrlisse Butter Me Orange Creamsicle Body Butter: 

            I love the packaging and I am always on the lookout for good lotions and stuff, I hoard them and then don’t use them, to be honest and I love them. It smells amazing but I haven’t used it yet if we are being honest. I didn’t even know Kandee Johnson did a collab with Pūrlisse but here it is and I can’t wait to give it a try.

            Wander Beauty Wandress Seascape Eyeshadow Palette: 

            I have been following Wander beauty on Instagram for probably six months now but I have never purchased anything from them. So when I found out that there was a potential for a Wander Beauty product with the may Glam Bag Plus I was excited. I really like the colors in the palette, now I have swatched them and they are a little cakey but on a brush it may be a completely different story. I am not usually a wearer of blue eyeshadows, not for years now but the blue called Coastal in this palette is beautiful. It makes a nice little palette for travel if you took a matte single shadow to go with it. 

            Illamasqua Lip crayons in Media and Lust:

            I have really only dove into lip pencils recently and I don’t’ have all that many, I think I have two if we are being completely honest so I was actually really excited when I saw the lip pencils in this box. The colors are beautiful and they go on very smoothly. Media is a more pinky coral shade and Lust is a redder/berry shade so they would go with a bunch of different shades because they are more neutral when it comes to their specific colors. I am not saying neutral in general but a more neutral pink and red so they go with various shades of pink and red. 

            Overall it was a great first box and I am excited to see what is coming in the upcoming months, ispy continues to do a great and consistent job when it comes to their subscription services and their products. 

            Do you subscribe? If you do what was your favorite product this month? 

            I’ll see everyone on Tuesday/Wednesday for another post! 

            -MJ