Ipsy Review - September 2014

Ipsy:
Box Type: Beauty
Cost: $10/month

Yay! My Ipsy bag finally came! I was on the waitlist for at least three months before I finally got my bag.

This is one of the subscriptions that I was just so super excited for! I think it's such a great deal. I mean, I'd almost pay $10 for just the cute bags themselves! But then they're loaded with tons of goodies :)

For only $10 per month, you get a different makeup bag filled with different beauty products.

"Each month, subscribers will receive a beautiful Glam Bag with deluxe samples and full-sized beauty products. Members can watch and play along with the stylists with the same products that they are using." - from the website

The theme of the bag this month was Street Style. Here's what the bag included:

Pacifica Natural Waterproof Eye Pencil  in "Fringe" - $5.50

This eye pencil seems to be about half the size of what a regular sized eye pencil would be, so I'm guessing it's probably worth around half of the full-sized price ($11). I don't normally use neutral/natural colors, so I might not use this too much. But if I just want a light touch-up to bring out my eyes without looking like I have a ton of makeup on, I might use it.

Cailyn Art Touch Tinted Lip Gloss Stick in "Basic Instinct" - $19.00

Once again, I don't normally use a lot of neutral colors. But this lip gloss really surprised me! It gives my lips a perfect subtle color that I just never would have expected. It seems to be pigmented perfectly. It looks so good! I was honestly disappointed when I saw the color that I got, but it's really the best lip gloss I've ever had, hands down! And the value of it is almost twice what I paid for the whole bag! This was definitely my favorite item this month.

Briogeo Don't Despair, Repair! Deep Conditioning Mask - $4.95

I don't know much about hair masks, to be honest. This is one of three samples that I've used. I normally have REALLY dry hair and bad split ends, though. Since I have a lot of hair, I only got two uses out of this little sample but it seemed to do a good job for a couple of days. My hair was noticeably softer afterwards.

I know this is an awkward picture haha but I needed to angle the eye shadow so that you could read the top without the glare being so bad. My dorm room doesn't have the best conditions for taking pictures, unfortunately.

Crown Brush Deluxe Infinity Shadow/Crease Duet - $6.99

This was a pretty nifty tool to add to my brush set. It's really convenient to have both the shadow brush and the crease brush at the same time, especially when you're blending colors. I'm the kind of clumsy person who drops brushes when she has to switch back and forth, and I've been an artist for years. This kind of product helps people like me! :)

NYX Hot Singles Eye Shadow in "Burlesque" - $4.50

This isn't an eye shadow that I'll probably use very often. First of all, I really don't like purple. Secondly, this just doesn't seem very pigmented to me. To be fair, I didn't use any kind of primer before putting it on...I don't know. Maybe I would have liked this more if it was a different color :P I do like the cute bow clasp on it. That's about it.

Overall:

I'm basically super excited about all my future bags from Ipsy already, because I definitely don't want to quit this subscription! The value of the contents of this bag (and not even including the bag itself!) totals out to $40.94, which is a complete steal if you ask me! Ipsy is by far my favorite beauty subscription yet! 

What was in your Ipsy bag this month? Comment below and tell me what you thought!

-Amanda

Julep Maven Review - April 2014

Julep Maven:
Box Type: Nails/Beauty
Cost: $19.99/mo

Julep Maven is a really neat nail and beauty care subscription box where you can get either two bottles of nail polish and a full sized product, three bottles of nail polish, or two full sized products every month for $19.99! What's awesome, though, is that you can get your first box from them for free! Just enter the promo code FREEBOX when you sign up, and you'll only have to pay about $3 in shipping. :) And every box comes with at least $40 worth of merchandise! Not only that, but you'll also get a discount off of everything in their store and you'll be able to start collecting Jules, which are like a points system to help you get free/discounted products :)

When you sign up, you'll take a quiz that will help them to determine your style, and then Julep will select products for you every month based on that style. It's easy to customize and it's really fun, too!

When I took the quiz, I kept getting the "Boho Glam" style but I'm not stupid and I know that's the last choice I would have picked lol. So I chose to do the "Bombshell" box instead because I like bold, sparkly colors and not boring natural colors.

Mighty Nail & Cuticle Serum ($28): Out of everything in the whole box, I was really looking forward to this. I've only used it a few times, and it says you're supposed to use it twice daily for two weeks for treatment, and then follow up with doing it once per week for maintenance. So far I've only used it for a day and a half so I haven't seen results yet. My nails are really fragile and brittle so I'm really hoping that this serum really does what it says it does.

Orange Nail Buffers ($2): To be honest, I probably will never use these. I rarely ever buff my nails and I don't really need more buffers haha. It was a cute extra, but it is of no use to me.

Here are the two polishes I got, which I will describe in greater detail below:

"Kendra" It Girl Nail Polish ($14): Honestly, I think this nail color is kind of gross. It's like a weird green color that's almost black. Or maybe it's just a dark grey that has a green hue to it in the right light. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it is just completely not my style, and I will never use it. I'm not quite sure why Julep sent me a nail polish from the It Girl collection, either. Do they normally mix the collections like that? It's definitely not something I was expecting, that's for sure. 

"Jane" Bombshell Nail Polish ($14): I don't normally wear colors like this, but I thought this was a really pretty color and is a great addition to my collection. It's like a glittery copper color and could go well with many outfits. I tend to stay away from more neutral-looking colors, but I think this color gives my nails that gentle sparkle that says, "I'm pretty, but I don't want that much attention."

Overall: I thought that the value of this box was awesome! I got $58 worth of products for only $3 because I used the coupon code for a free box! What a great deal! And while I might not be totally crazy over certain colors, the quality of these products is still really nice. I put on both of these colors the night before I wrote this review, and they both withstood the "shower test" (aka they did not come off in the shower like a lot of polishes do) so it seems that they are durable. I would definitely recommend this subscription to anyone who likes to pamper their nails and get other beauty products as well!

If you want to sign up for Julep Maven, use my referral link!! :) and don't forget to use the code FREEBOX to get your first box ($40+ value) for free!

Tell me about your subscription with Julep, or any other suggestions you might have! :)

-Amanda

Greetings!

Hello!

As you can see, this is my first post on this blog! I'm just starting things up around here, so it may be kind of messy for a while. However, I'm working really hard to set things up. (The perfectionist in me is causing this process to take forever!)

The title of the blog is supposed to be a play on the phrase "(such and such) rocks my socks!" ;) Hehe. Subscription boxes rock my socks...right? Eh? I'm trying! Haha. (You'll quickly find out that I'm quite an awkward person!)

This blog will be dedicated to reviewing subscription boxes. I plan on trying out a whole bunch of different ones! For now it's not totally in my budget to try a whole lot since I'm in college and not working at the moment, but I'll post what I can! Please keep in mind that this blog may also detail personal happenings of my life, so you never know what might get mixed in! But I will try to keep those kinds of comments to a minimum and focus mainly on what I came here to do--share subscription boxes with you!

Subscription boxes are a great way to try a variety of new things without having to search for them or pay for the full-sized products that you haven't tried yet. I like to be able to make the pros and cons of these products available to you, too! I'll do my best to give an honest review for every box I get so that my readers can have the best idea of what's out there and what you might want to subscribe to. I'll also try to calculate an accurate value for what's inside each box, and compare it with the price paid for the boxes so you have a good idea of whether or not you're getting your money's worth out of them.

For right now, I only have one subscription, and I haven't even received the first box yet! But when I do, you can be sure that I'll update this blog! I'll try to be as frequent as possible and update as quickly as I get boxes in. Stay tuned for some awesome stuff. I appreciate any comments/suggestions! :)

~Amanda