Ipsy bag January 2013

Another day, another beauty bag. For those of you who are newer to my blog (hi!), you may not know that not only do I subscribe to Birchbox, but I also subscribe to Ipsy. What can I say? I'm a fiend for beauty products and like to pretend that it's not ridiculous to spend $20 a month on, essentially, samples.

Click below to see what I got this month! 

Soho Beauty Concealer Brush (full size - $7.99)

The first item that grabbed my attention was obviously the brush. A brush in a beauty sample bag? I'll take it! Unfortunately, it's a concealer brush, the one type of brush I've never had any use for. My ring finger just works so excellently at blending my foundation. I will have to give this a try, though. 

Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange Body Butter (this size, 2.5oz, sells for $7 and 8 oz. is $15)

If this were any other scent, I might be thrilled. But I. Hate. Orange. Smelling. Things. I like oranges themselves, but the scent of oranges almost makes me gag. This lotion is less repulsive than I thought it'd be, but I do not see myself reaching for it. Ever.

Big Sexy Hair Spray & Play (full size is about $13)

I used to use this stuff in high school, and I always liked it. But when I when through the phase of having "scene girl hair" (you know.. like this), I started requiring way too much hair spray on a daily basis to keep paying $13 a bottle when Herbal Essences gets the job done for a measly $3.50. This will be handy for when I fly next month, being all TSA-approved-sized and all.

I don't really have a need for any more make up bags, but this one is a little bit bigger than the first two I got, so I can definitely find more use for this. Besides, it's got a super cute blue and white star lining on the inside. Darling! 

Inside the makeup bag were the following two products:

Josie Maran 100% Pure Argan Oil (full size is $48)

I was kind of excited to get this oil, because it's something I have been eyeing for over a year now. I've heard you can use it on your hair, your skin, your cuticles or your bath, so I knew it had to be good stuff. I've only used it on my hair though, and yikes: a little goes a long ways, ladies! I put a little on the ends of freshly washed and dried hair and I was tempted to just wash it all over again. It made my ends very oily and dirty looking! So I think next time I'll use this only the night before I wash my hair and see how it works. I'm all about hair treatments, especially a nice product like this!

Nailtini Nail Lacquer in Frappe (full size - $13)

Another polish from Nailtini! The gold one I got a few months ago was decent, but I was a little cautious of this. I have zero patience for a polish that requires more than two coats and isn't opaque. I just hate streaky-looking nails that you can see through. But I tried this out on a night I was feeling especially patient and painted three coats, plus a top coat and this was the result:

Not too shabby! Still a little see-through in my opinion. I ended up painting a coat of tiny silver sparkles a couple days later because I just couldn't get past the sheerness of this polish. But I'm enjoying the look.

That's everything! I wasn't too impressed with Ipsy this month. There wasn't anything I really felt like I'd use a ton other than the Argan oil, but it's still kind of a mystery product to me. I am trying to be more proactive about using my samples from past Ipsy's bags and Birchboxes! I collected all my old samples and am keeping them in a box next to where I put makeup on every morning. If I'm going to spend $20 a month on makeup samples, I suppose I oughta use as much of them as possible, right? :)

Anyone else subscribed to Ipsy? How'd you like this month's bag?