When it comes to beauty subscriptions, Ipsy usually comes in at the top of the list, for good reason. It’s one of the lowest priced ones around, and has a variety of brands to choose from. I joined a long time ago, then took a break for a few years to sample other boxes. In the end, I came back to Ipsy because the price for the value simply can’t be beat.

Pros-

★ At $12 for 5 products and a makeup bag per month, it’s one of the lowest beauty subscriptions you can find.

★ Ipsy offers a good mix of products, from high end brands to up and coming indie brands. This gives you the opportunity to find a lot of new products, some that beauty editors are just noticing themselves.

★ Deluxe sample sizes. For some, this might be a con, but for me, it’s a plus. Since my intention is to try a lot of new items, I don’t want full size products everywhere that I might hate or might not use. The deluxe size samples are the perfect size to get a few good uses out of to know whether I love the product or not, then move on to the next one to try.

★ The ability to pick one sample a month. Unlike some boxes where you get sent a random assortment, Ipsy lets you pick one of your samples, so you can choose something out of the options that you really want to get. The other 4 options are chosen for you.

★ The beauty quiz is actually used at Ipsy. Other places have a questionnaire of sorts, but in my experience, it isn’t used… or not used well. With Ipsy, you can adjust your quiz to tell them what products you don’t want to receive, what products you want to receive more or less of. Even down to your favorite colors that you wear and the type of hair you have. With other subscriptions, 3 people in the house with vastly different quizzes all received the same box. With Ipsy, our boxes are drastically different every month, and fit our profiles to a T.

Cons-

☆ The makeup bags can sometimes be kind of ugly. They also pile up fast. While we use them for organizing things at the house and for making quick gifts for teens, it’d be nice to have an option to forgo them. I’d love an option to skip the bag but add another sample, for example. That way, if there’s a bag I really dislike, I could skip the bag for that month and try a new product instead.

☆ Customer service is a mess. You can get your account closed randomly for no reason. When you contact them, you’re told they noticed “suspicious activity”, but they won’t tell you what it was so you can fix it. You’ll get stonewalled by every customer service avenue until you basically just give up. I love the bag enough that I started a new subscription with a new credit card, but I lost my list of all my previous bags and samples I’d gotten. At the time, I’d referred a family member that lived with me, and also was catching up on reviews. I have no idea which, if either, of those activities may have played a part, so it’s something to be aware of.

☆ Some items can be repeated if you’re a member for awhile and you buy the sample add-ons. This can be a pro or con, depending on if you loved or disliked the product, but it’s also something to be aware of. They do tend to favor some brands and run them often, so you’ll start to notice that. However, a lot of them are great brands, so I haven’t come across one that I wouldn’t want to sample something else from yet.

Favorite Items-

Tarte Shape Tape Concealer

Touch In Sol Glass Skin Balm

Smashbox Oil & Shine Control Primer

Kokie Cosmetics Soft Glow Highlighter

Benefit Cosmetics The Porefessional Pearl Primer

Tarte Maracuja Tinted Hydrator

Overall Thoughts-

I like Ipsy, and I think it’s a great value. For $12, you almost always get over $50 of product with the deluxe size samples. Most bags even have one full size item, whether it’s a lip balm or gloss, or an eyeliner, a makeup brush, or something like that. There are some top brands included, like Tarte, Smashbox, Benefit, MAC, and Elemis. It’s a great way to test products before splurging on a full size item that might not work with your skin. I also really do like trying the newer indie brands and brands I’ve never heard of before.

I’ve never spent much on makeup, but I loved the Touch In Sol Glass Skin Balm so much that I had to go and buy the full-size one. It was a definite first for me. I’ve fallen in love with Tarte products through sampling them with Ipsy… never would have even glanced at them in Ulta because the prices were something I just wouldn’t have been able to afford, now I know quality is worth it because the difference is SO noticeable.

I guess the real statement is that I had such a bad experience with customer service on my first account, and had such fear of missing out (FOMO) that I couldn’t blacklist the company from my list of brands to work with and had to go make another account. That tells me they’re doing something right, because I couldn’t stand the idea of missing a bag on principle.