disappointment

Why I canceled my ipsy subscription

Sophia Ravenna
A recent Glam Bag.

A recent Glam Bag.

Earlier this month I canceled my subscription to ipsy’s Glam Bag. I really loved the idea of getting cosmetic samples every month, but the reality just didn’t live up to the hype. Nearly every month I was only getting 1-2 items I really liked, and a lot that I didn’t. Invariably, if I got an eyeshadow, it was a neutral (often a really pale highlighter color), and if I got a lipstick or a nail polish it would be pink. I kept getting untinted lip balms, sticky pink lip glosses, stinky cleansers, and hair products designed to be used in conjunction with a blow drier (which I don’t own). Really, the only items I received that I’ve been using regularly are a couple of pretty decent makeup brushes, and the bags themselves!

I feel like I really would have enjoyed ipsy a lot more if I felt like they paid any attention to the ratings that I gave items. For instance, you can see in the above image that I received a product from dr. brandt. I’d received a similar product from that brand in an earlier bag and I rated it poorly because I don’t really care about minimizing pores, and I hated the smell. Also, how many times do I have to rate various pink cosmetics “this shade is not for me” before they would stop sending me pink items? In my last bag, I received a rosy gold eye shadow, a nudy pink lipstick, and a nail polish so violently pink that it looks like they melted down the Barbie Dream House and poured it into a bottle.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll subscribe to another beauty box program. Glossy Box and Julep are both looking good. If you have any recommendations or horrible warnings about any beauty subscriptions, please let me know in the comments!

Orly Color Amp’d Two-Part Nail Color

Sophia Ravenna
Nail color and top coat.

Nail color and top coat.

Ok, so here’s the deal. I wrote a long, detailed post about this product and then WordPress ate it. It’s already 1pm on a Friday and I don’t have time to re-write everything I wrote, so you get the short and not very sweet version instead.

Orly Color Amp’d is a gel-style nail system only available at Target. It claims to last for up to a week but starts chipping within days. The first time I tried it, I had significant chipping in less than 24 hours, and I hadn’t done anything ridiculous to my nails, I just dared to take a shower.

The one thing it has going for it is a very fast dry time. It claims to dry in 8 minutes and both times that I tried it, I found that 8 minutes after applying the “flexible sealcoat”, my nails felt completely dry and did not get smudged or dented as I went around the house doing normal stuff. I found that my manicure was more reliably dry and damage-proof than it is when I follow my normal routine of applying drying drops and waiting 10 minutes before doing anything.

Color Amp’d seems very over-priced for what it is. A regular bottle of Orly brand polish is .6 fluid ounces and costs $8 at Ulta. This stuff is $9.99 for only .37 fluid ounces. Wouldn’t you expect a product that they’re selling at Target to be cheaper than what they sell at Ulta? It’s more expensive than Sally Hansen’s similar system, which Target also carries. It’s like they’re expecting chumps like me who like Orly’s regular polish to be suckered in by the fact that one of their favorite brands is finally available at Target, and that we’ll ignore the price tag and the weird smell of the top coat and the fact that you can’t actually see what color the polish is because it’s in an opaque bottle with a colored wrapper around it that doesn’t properly display the color you’re buying.

I’m seriously disappointed by this stuff, guys. They claim that it lasts 88% longer than a normal manicure, but my nails look just as bad as they would have looked if I had used normal polish on Monday night and wore it until Friday morning. They might even look worse. Add to that the fact that I am really not excited about the color selection, as it’s mainly a bunch of plain cream colors and not the cool iridescent glittery shimmery shades I usually buy from Orly.

Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is a pretty cool orangey gold/pink duochrome, but the only reason I have it is that I opened the bottle in the store and saw that it was not the simple metallic coppery color it appeared to be.

I don’t know what Orly was thinking when they came up with this product line, but I can’t help but feel that they knew it was a dud, and that’s why they’re only selling it at Target instead of offering it alongside their regular line.