Ipsy February

It seems like all my February subscription boxes have been coming early... Or maybe it's just that February is a really short month, so it seems everything is coming quicker than usual. But in my mailbox today, was February's Ipsy bag.

Ipsy is a $10.00 a month subscription makeup service. It's much more makeup oriented than say Birchbox. You sign up, there's a waiting list. The waiting time is about a month, but if you connect it to your facebook account, you tend to skip the line and become a member quicker.

You get 5-6 makeup products per bag, some are full-size, some are deluxe size, some are sample size. You also get a cute makeup bag every month. Your matches are based on a quiz, and they match your products based on a profile. I find Ipsy tends to send better products for me, than other services.

The bag was pink and Valentine's Day friendly, this month. I don't like pink. I was pretty sure it was going to be filled with pink and red and purple girly makeup. So I didn't really know what to expect... But Ipsy spoiled me this month.

My first sampler was Überliss RituOil, which is supposed to help with damaged hair. February seems to be the month of hair oil. A full-size is $19.50, I got a sample, which is worth about $9.25, because it's about a half of a regular size. So I guess this can technically be considered a deluxe sample. I have horribly dry hair with awful split-ends, so any product that will make my hair slightly less awful, is worth a gander in my book.

A 9 Pan Shadow Compact in Behind Blue Eyes from Jessie's Girl, full-size, worth $3.99.

I'm very excited that my entire palette is ice blue colors, medium blue, and silver and gray colors. These are all colors that I would wear. I am so happy I didn't get the Tickled Pink one, or another color combination. This combination is so me. I've never tried Jessie's Girl products before, but I always love eye shadow, so I'm very happy with this. I didn't swatch all the colors because I'm lazy though. 

 

Mally eyeliner in Starshine. Mine is full-size. It's worth $15.00... 

It has a nice tip, similar to the Urban Decay 24/7 eyeliner crayon tips. It's also waterproof like 24/7 is.

The color is a beautiful sparkly silver... I CANNOT WAIT TO WEAR IT, I LOVE SILVEREYELINER!!! It comes out nice and thick too, which is awesome :)

A full-size Zoya Nailpolish in Odette. Worth $9.00. It's an orchid color. It's a light pink purple color. I've heard lots of good things about their nailpolish, and I love purple polishes, so I'm excited to try this one out.

A Pop Beauty Plump Pout in Peony Petal. I think mine is full-size, which retails it at $15.00. I'm meh about lip color.

It's also a very dark and thick pink color and not something that I think I would wear. But I really can't complain... It's the one product I wasn't excited about in my bag, and it's only one product.

Math time. My February Ipsy bag was worth: $52.24 AND THAT'S WAY MORE THAN I PAID FOR IT!!!

I really really really liked my Ipsy bag this month. It wasn't all pink and girly... YAY!!! And I'll use most of the products, minus the lip product. 

For $10.00, Ipsy is really worth checking out :)

 

Birchbox: February 2014

Wow, Birchbox, you came early this month... Or maybe you just came really late in January, so it just seems like you're super early... Not that I'm complaining.

I especially liked this months box. It had pretty stars. I like pretty stars. Apparently this month was a collaboration with US News, although I'm not sure how that really affected my box this month. It pretty much is the same it always is.

 

FYI, Birchbox is a subscription box. It's generally one of the cheaper ones, along with Ipsy. It costs $10.00 a month. There's a waiting list, but I think I got off of it in about two to three weeks, so it wasn't a long wait.  They send you a variety of beauty/lifestyle products based on a profile you fill out on their website when you sign up. I'm not quite sure if their boxes really go with your profile because I've gotten some items, where I'm like WTF, but there's always a variety. It's more varied than some of the other subscription boxes. This one has makeup, hair products, skin products, makeup tools, hair tools, perfume samples, and there are 50 different boxes each month that you can get.

Here it is... Under the wrapper.

 

Sorin seemed especially interested in my birchbox this month.

The magical list.

At first glance. My first impression wasn't bad. I did see a bottle of liquid and for a minute thought it was a huge perfume sample and got pissy, but luckily it was not. I don't wear perfume and I loathe it when I get useless perfumes samples.

I actually think Birchbox did a decent job with my box this month... That's two decent boxes in a row, which is much better than all the random boxes I had gotten before. I think their New Year's Resolution was to really try to improve on their boxes, and January and February have been surprisingly not as sucky, as previous boxes.

Beauty Protector: Protect & Oil, a full-size retails for 25.95, and I got about 3/4th's of an ounce according to my high school math teacher fiance. That makes this worth about $5.00, again according to him. I've never tried hair oil. My hair is oily enough. It smells nice. It smells like vanilla. Since I live in Houston, the humidity capital of the world, and I spend a shit ton of time outside, at the pool, with my kindle, reading so bad they're good dark-hunter sex novels... I think this product could prove itself very useful in the hotter months. AND YAY IT'S NOT PERFUME!!!

Ruby Wing Color Changing Nailpolish in Kitten Heels. Full-size retails for $10.00, and this is literally half the size of full-size, so it's also worth $5.00. I've always liked color changing nailpolish. My parents would always bring me back that Costa Del Sol stuff whenever they went on a cruise, and I loved it. These colors are rather bright for me, but they're probably really good for a summer pedicure, especially when I can wear my cheap Target flip-flops 24/7. I would have preferred one of the glitter colors.... because glitter makes the world go round, but I'll take it :)

Coola Tinted Matte SPF 30 for Face. Full-size retails for $36.00. Mine is .17 ounces and worth $3.60. I happen to really like Coola products. Birchbox sent me their cucumber scented facial sunscreen in the summer, and it was a nice cooling relief that got me through a day at Schlitterbahn with barely a facial burn... My shoulders on the other hand... They were as red as a lobster. I don't think I would do a Tinted Sunscreen just because I don't like skin-color products. I don't wear foundation or cover-up or anything like that. So this isn't really for me, but it is a brand I do highly recommend for facial products with SPF.

On the left is the product squeezed out of the tube, and the right is it blended into my hand. It blends in well. It was a great match for my skin-tone. It's also sort of mousse-like, which is a nice and light fluffy texture. It's not oily at all. I'm not sure if I'd buy a product like this, just because it's not me, but it is a good product, and a great brand.

 

 Smashbox Full-Exposure Mascara in Jet Black. Full-size is $19.50. Mine is .14 oz, which is worth $7.08. I love me some mascara, especially black mascara. I have non-existent lashes, so mascara is my friend. I haven't tried it yet since I have TONS of mascara, but I will work into my rotation as soon as one of my tubes runs out. I have heard good things about this brand though. 

My lifestyle extra was a Smashbox Cosmetics Full Exposure Palette.

It's a sample of ten colors. The top are Crease-resistant, long-wearing shimmers. The bottom is velvety-smooth matte colors. I didn't swatch them or anything because the samples are so tiny. The top colors are more glittery than the bottom colors. The full-size is $49.00, I'll says these are like a tenth of the full product and round it up for $5.00, since it's hard to put a price on it. I do like that they're mostly nude colors, which gives me a lot of options for wearing them, since I tend to keep my makeup tame for school and such.

The math total is: $25.68, which is more then double the cost of my birchbox. So for just ten dollars, it's a pretty good deal.

I was very pleased with my Birchbox this month. I definitely think they're upping their game since 2013, and I'm eager to see what else awaits me.

 

 

Happy Chappy

I did say this was a teaching and glitter blog, right?

Let me introduce you to the best frakkin thing I've ever done in pre-k, and yes it sort of involves makeup.

This is Happy Chappy, I saw this at a training, this year, so I can't exactly take credit for its discovery, but it's amazing!

Every time my pre-k students behave themselves, whether it's at workstations or at circle time, I take one of the Bonnie Bell lip smacker flavors, dot it on their hand, and say they made me happy and this is "happy chappy."

They love it. They sniff it, they try to guess the flavor, and they love happy chappy so much that they want to behave, especially since they never know what flavor I'll give them.

Pre-K students are also gullible, so when I lie and say watermelon is gummy bear flavor or vanilla is cupcake flavor, they totally believe me, so even though I don't have unlimited flavors, I do have a creative imagination.

My class has crazy students, and happy chappy even works for my behavior problem children.

It's the best reward/motivation I have ever discovered.

Try it, you won't regret it, and you can get Bonnie Bell, or even any other flavored lip gloss for kids- Hello Kitty, etc- at any place really, Target, Walmart, a drug store, the supermarket, etc, and it's pretty cheap and will last you awhile since you're not exactly wearing it.

I've also discovered if I go "time to stop, hands on top", no matter what my students are doing, they'll stop it and put their hands on their head and listen to me.

And on an unrelated note, one of my students today, felt my hair, and told me "Your hair is so beautiful, it's long, and it's smooth like a baby's bottom", while I question the origin of that comment, it's another point for Deva and the wonderful things it does for my unruly crazy curly hair.