ipsy Glam Bag review ($10 beauty subscription)

ETA: For an update, check out this recent post comparing Ipsy and Birchbox.

I've been getting the Glam Bag from ipsy for 9 months now, so I feel pretty confident about making some sort of general judgements about its quality. (I pay for my subscription myself, just to be clear.) In the past, I tried Birchbox (which I subscribed to for about a year) and I tried BeautyBox5 for one month, and Glam Bag is by far my favorite. I haven't been disappointed. It's only $10, and you always get fun stuff.

It includes an average of five products per bag, and there is always makeup and/or nail polish, plus a few other things including skin and haircare products. Added up, what you get is definitely worth more than $10. There has been the occasional wtf-provoking product, but they are rare, and never anything silly like cardboard coasters or protein bars, which I got in Birchbox. I also appreciate that there are very few anti-aging creams - in fact, I don't think I've ever got one. I never use those. And perfume samples are rare.

This month's bag just out of the envelope.

I have to admit that I like getting the shiny pink package in the mail, but shipping it in a bubble mailer instead of a box means that powders can arrive broken and any cardboard boxes inside might be a little squished. If you get a broken product, you can contact their customer service for help, but I haven't personally haven't received anything that was broken or had any other problems at all, so I can't tell you what it's like to deal with their customer service.

Each month, you get a zippered makeup bag in a different design, but almost always the same size/dimensions. They're smallish, but usually have a very cute design. The bag is good quality. I am now amassing a collection of these, but they're useful.

You always get one or more full-size product, and even the sample sizes are very generous. They're not those fucking tiny envelopes or packets, you know? Up until this month, everyone got mostly the same things in their bag, but they just started doing some some customization based on coloring, etc., so fill out your profile if you sign up. There's a lot of other interactive shit you can do on their website, like upload photos and video and review things, etc., but I have never bothered to do any of it, so I can't comment on that aspect either. I just like getting the bag. But you can earn bonus products (often Urban Decay) by being active in the "community".

A full range of brands represented in the samples you get, from things like Benefit and Anastasia, to Sation and theBalm, to Coastal Scents and NYX. You also get discount codes for the brands that are included, usually 10-30% off. It's good shit.

Here is what I got in this month's bag:

First of all, a full-size Zoya in Neely! It's from their Spring 2013 collection. I realize that they are probably trying to clear out excess stock, but I don't fucking care. I'll take a slightly less popular bottle of Zoya polish. That alone would cost $8 at full price. Then there's some self-tanning lotion from Pacifica. I don't really use self tanner, but whatever. Apparently this is pretty light, so maybe I will try it on my ghostly legs. This is a mini tube, but it's very generously sized. I have a tube of Pacifica body butter this size that I got in a previous bag, and I've been using it for a couple of months. Next to that is a full-size lip gloss from Juice Beauty in Fig, a pearly natural shade. It's quite nice, smells like oranges, and isn't like anything I already had. And then there's some Nu-Me Finishing Serum for hair. Another generous mini, and I like hair serum, so sure. Finally, on the top right is a concealer sample, which I haven't tried out yet, but it looks like it might actually be light enough for my pasty ass. Or face. All this for $10? Yes, please.

Here are just a few of the things I've got in previous bags that I thought were particularly cool, though there are many, many more products I've really enjoyed, since I've got 9 bags already. This is just what I grabbed in the course of a 20 second scan of my stash:

There's a Josie Maran 100% Pure Argan Oil mini bottle, full-size Mirenesse Lip Bomb Glossy Lacquer Stain (like a glossy liquid lipstick), mini POP Beauty mascara, NYX Ultra Pearl Mania gold pigment, an extremely generously-sized MICA gel eyeliner in black, really gorgeous full-size Be a Bombshell blush in "Sweet Cheeks", Mirabella eye/face primer, and a lovely sheer candy apple red full-size Be a Bombshell lip gloss in "Hot Mess". Cool, right?

I'd definitely recommend this beauty subscription over the others I've tried. It's a lot of fun, and the shit they send is actually useful and interesting. I've tried a bunch of brands and products that I wouldn't have otherwise known about this way, and I've never got a bag where there wasn't at least one thing I liked. I really think it's worth it if you like makeup and getting mail and surprises. If you don't like surprises, you can look at the website a few days in advance to see what's coming.

Do you get Glam Bag? What do you think? Do you have another beauty subscription? How does it compare?