   As much as I love shopping, nothing can top the feeling of walking out of Sephora with that black and white striped bag feeling like a million bucks (when, in reality, you just dropped nearly a million bucks). Lets face it: nice makeup is expensive, and not everyone wants to take the risk on drugstore products. Despite the price-tag, nice makeup is worth the splurge. However, if I shopped at Sephora every month for five products, my bank account would quickly run into the ground. This is what lead me to ipsy- a beauty bag subscription service that sends a monthly bag of five beauty samples for $10. Not bad, right? Using a combination of answers to your personalized beauty profile and customer reviews, ipsy customizes a bag to contain five products for you. Plus, the little makeup bags the products come in are super cute!
(Photo by Ipsy via Facebook)
   I had an ipsy subscription for probably four or five months, recently cancelling my subscription because I got the gist of the company and no longer wanted to drop that $10 every month. In this time, I received products from face masks to makeup brushes to nail polishes. Of course, there was actual makeup thrown in there too: lip gloss, primer, highlight, eyeshadows, and blushes. These were actual branded makeup products. Tarte, Ciate, and Bobbi Brown are just a few of the top brands featured in ipsy bags. Once you become a member, the full size versions of the products are available for a discounted price on the ipsy website. While not every single product was a perfect match for me, I never got a product that I completely hated or had zero use for. For instance, while I wasn’t a fan of one of the nude nail polishes I received, I gifted it to my mom, who would get more use out of it than I would.
   Although, I generally like all things beauty. Even if I won’t use all of the products very often, I still enjoy having them in my collection because, let’s face it, I already have too much makeup as it is. However, if someone were using this service to genuinely get products to use every day, I don’t think this service would allow for that based on the size of the samples and the unpredictability of samples. The beauty profile quiz is only to get an understanding of ipsy’s customer, not to pick out specific products.
   Despite some negative reviews regarding ipsy customer service and products received, I would encourage anyone curious about beauty subscription services to give ipsy a try. For only ten dollars, five products is not a bad deal considering the nail polishes and makeup brushes were full size. Not only the products, but the makeup bags the products come in are always super cute! And, if you’re like me and have too many makeup bags to begin with, ipsy bags are perfect for donation. One such repurpose is the organization Clutch, which I’ve written about multiple times. The ipsy bags are perfect for packing pads and tampons in in order to allow young girls to discreetly and without shame take care of themselves during the school day.
   All in all, ipsy is worth at least a month of splurge since subscriptions can always be paused or cancelled on their website.
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