I’m going to blow the surprise right here, right now.

This bag was amazing. Hands down the best one I’ve had yet. There isn’t a single product in here I won’t use (aside from that hideous, HIDEOUS pink froofy makeup bag that everything came in) and every single one of the products performed way, WAY beyond my expectations. Here’s what I got:

The most exciting product to me was the bareMinerals eyeshadow duo in The Inspiration in a baby-sized palette. The light pink shade is Muse and the purple shade, which has some lovely gold sparkle in it, is Passion. Having never tried any bareMinerals products before, I was super pumped to try these out. And man oh man, did they ever live up to their hype. These went on my eyelids like a dream and the colours were perfect combination to stick in a duo together. After the amazingness of this duo, I will *definitely* be looking into more bareMineralsproducts in the near future.

*GASP* I love this product so much. I’ve always oogled Benefit‘s lip and cheek tints, but never took the plunge, so I was downright squealing when I got the Elizabeth Mott version of it in my bag. And this product seems to work equally well on both my lips and my cheeks. I believe Cherry is their own colour so far, and it’s a stunner. It smells faintly of cherries, but not that horrific cough medicine scent that I usually associate with artificial cherry scented things.

Much to my surprise, this lasted throughout the entire work day on my cheeks. The colour is just the colour I want for summer too – slightly pinky-red, so it looks like I’ve been running around and got slightly sunburned. I will say that it seems to eat a bit at my foundation since it’s a liquid product, so be aware when you’re applying not to be too rigorous with your blending. (I blended it in with a Real Techniques Expert Face brush.)

On my lips it comes out slightly more pink, but still… *amazing*! The colour is beautiful and settled onto my lips beautifully. It’s slightly drying, but that’s to be expected of a stain. It does look rather natural, as most stains do on me, so I find this really easy to wear.

I’m so pleased that this worked out so well on both areas it’s supposed to work on. Usually you hear about dual-location stains as really only being any good for one area, not for both.

Another winner! I wasn’t expecting to like this (never mind love it) after the disaster that was the Be A Bombshell mascara from last month. Pur Minerals is a brand I’ve seen often at Shoppers Drug Mart, but never really looked into their products in depth.

First off, the brush wasn’t something I thought I’d enjoy. It’s bulky, rubberized and the mascara kind of clumped around the wand. And then I put it on my lashes and I shut right the hell up with my complaints. This sweeps on easily and coats all my lashes. It lengthens them. Thickens them. And from some angles I look like I’m wearing false lashes. AND it’s truly waterproof. Getting this off was hard work, but I appreciate that because when I need something to be waterproof, I need it to not. freaking. budge. And this definitely did not budge. No flakes throughout the day either, which is something I’m prone to. When I run out of this, and finish up all the other mascaras I have kicking around, I will definitely look into picking this up. (Side note: The top of the packaging has that bubbled on wet look that MAC just made famous with their Alluring Aquatics summer collection this year. Just thought that was really neat!)

This product confuses me. It’s labelled on some sites as a moisturizer and as a sunscreen on others. Pur~lisse‘s Pur~Protect smells heavily of sunscreen (it does have 30 spf after all), so I feel like I’d use it more as a sunscreen than a moisturizer. However, I did use it as my only moisturizer under foundation yesterday and my face didn’t feel especially dry. I’m always happy to receive sunscreens, particularly ones for the face, so even if I don’t use it as a moisturizer I’m still happy with it. (Plus, this is an expensive product on its own in the full size tube.)

Marrakesh Endz is an argan and hemp oil therapy (but really, it’s a cream product) split end mender and preventer. I don’t truly believe that it can mend split ends (hair is dead after all, and if it’s split at the ends it’s sure as hell not going to re-grow back together again), but I do think it can help my split ends “feel” better.

At the moment I have some really “crackly” ends to my hair. I only get a haircut about once a year and something happened to my hair about two years ago that made it go really crispy (wish I knew what the heck it was). Most of the crispy-ness has thankfully grown out by now, but the last inch or two of my hair still has this horrible straw-like texture to it that I really need to get cut off. All that to say… this stuff actually helped make the ends feel better. Less crunchy, as it were. I think it’s a purely artificial feeling, but hey, I’m not complaining!

The smell isn’t bad either. It’s quite pleasant – the usual argan smell mixed with… cinnamon maybe?

Ipsy July 2014 Breakdown (all prices in USD)

• bareMinerals READY Eyeshadow 2.0 in The Inspiration ($7.40 for 1g , full size is $20 for 2.7g)
• Elizabeth Mott Tints & Sass in Cherry (full size, $22.99)
• pur~lisse pur~protect essential daily moisturizer with 30 spf ($13.63 for 15ml, full size is $55 for 50ml)
• Marrakesh Hair Care – Endz (smaller bottle size, $5.99)
• Pür Minerals Big Look Waterproof Mascara ($13.60 for 3.4g, full size is $20 for 5g)

BAG TOTAL = $63.61

My Thoughts

This was the highest value bag from Ipsy so far, and the only one I’ve had to break $60 worth in goodies. As I said at the start, this one was an absolute winner of a bag. Get any of the products if they look like they’re up your alley and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!