Ipsy October 2013 Glam Bag: The Art of Beauty

This month's Ipsy Glam Bag was so stuffed that not all of the products even fit inside it:

The theme for this month is "The Art of Beauty," and the cosmetics bag for this month is printed with a quotation that reads: "Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art." I liked this quotation and thought that it expressed some of the sentiment of the Aesthetic movement, but a little Googling informed me that this quote comes not from an aesthete but a transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. I wish that Ipsy had printed the source of the quotation on the bag since I hate unattributed quotations, but it's a small quibble.

The reason that my bag couldn't hold all of this month's products is that many of the products I received in month were larger in size, which is quite nice:

I was probably the most excited this month by the product that didn't fit in the bag: the La Fresh facial towelettes. I usually use facial towelettes instead of a liquid cleanser since they allow me to cleanse and remove my eye makeup in one step, and I opt for natural personal care products whenever possible. The La Fresh towelettes are 99.25% natural, and so far I like them just as much as my go-to Burt's Bees towelettes for sensitive skin:

The Be Delectable Strawberry & Cream hand cream from Cake Beauty is also marketed natural, but it's not quite as chemical-free as the La Fresh line. Still, it's got a handful of botanical ingredients, including real strawberries, and it smells exactly like Stonyfield Farm's organic strawberry blended yogurt. I haven't used this yet, but as the weather gets colder and my hands get drier I'll definitely give this a try:

The Big Sexy Hair blow dry gel isn't marketed as natural, but it's got a lot of botanical ingredients in it. Unfortunately I don't blow dry my hair so I won't be trying this, but I passed it along to my mother since she does style her hair:

Nail polish is really difficult to get in natural varieties. When I saw that there was nail polish in my bag this month--Zoya in the color "Giovanna"--I was disappointed at first, because I assumed that it would be too toxic for my liking. After a little research, though, I found out that Zoya nail polish is one of the biggest brands to be marketed as non-toxic and natural. It's not quite as natural as the water-based formulas I've tried, and it does have a bit of that nail polish smell, but on the other hand I've found that water-based formulas are a pain to get off once they've cured. I'll be interested to see how Zoya's formula compares:

This color also happens to go exceptionally well with a green velvet dress that I bought on sale for the holidays, so that makes up for it being a shade that I wouldn't wear for everyday:

There was only one makeup item in my bag this month, Bare Escentual's Buxom Lips polish in "Dolly". It's more mauve-y than I usually go for in a lip color, and the packaging said something about "plumping," which always frightens me a little. It seems to me that products claiming to do this really mean "swelling" when they say "plumping," as they use ingredients that tingle or irritate. I may not try this one at all, since for this consistency of gloss I'm happy with my regular Burt's Bees product:

That's it for this month's bag--I hope that you found this post useful if you're looking for product reviews or are interested in joining Ipsy. For full disclosure, any links to Ipsy in this post are affiliate links--if you sign up for their service after clicking one of my links, I'll earn points to put towards bonus products. I never see any information regarding your identity.