Hi Everyone,
For the past two years or so beauty subscription boxes have
been all the rave. I jumped on the bandwagon in August 2013 by subscribing to
Birchbox and Ipsy. I quit my Birchbox subscription about this time last year,
simply because it wasn’t worth it to me. Birchbox did (and I believe still does)
a lot more in the skincare part of beauty. For me I can’t use skincare products
because of acne medications I’m using.
So I decided to stick with Ipsy, heck in January of 2014
when I dropped Ipsy I chose to get Glossybox instead. By June 2015 I had ended
my Glossybox subscription that one had more to do with my financial state and
not the actual box, I decided to keep the more inexpensive beauty subscription.
So why after a year and a half of having Ipsy am I choosing
to quit?
There are multiple things that finally pushed me over the
edge to choosing to end my subscription. I’m going to list them from least
important to most important to me personally.
1.
The shipping service used. Ipsy uses a shipping
service called DHL, which I had never heard of until Ipsy. I’m not sure if Ipsy
is to blame or the service but I feel like I get my bag days and even a week or
more later than everyone else. I’m assuming Ipsy has two different warehouse
locations for bags, on in California and one in Georgia. We’ll take February’s
bag because as I’m writing this post (2/20/14) I’m still waiting on my bag.
As you can see from the image above I received
my notification on the 9th that my bag was being shipped out for
delivery. It wasn’t actually received by the company until four days later. It
didn’t leave there until the 16th. On the 17th it arrived in Kentucky. On the 18th
they told me that it was given to USPS for future delivery.
As you can see on the 20th the
USPS website is still showing me that their last interaction was on the 16th
when it was leaving Georgia for Kentucky. Now based on previous bags travel
routes, it still has to go to Illinois before it makes its way up to me in
Michigan.
Now I could be nice this month and give
them the benefit of the doubt that they are delayed because of the winter
storms. Except fun fact, they have been in areas that weren’t even affected by
this storm to the high velocity that places like Boston were. I live in
Michigan and since my package is coming from Georgia it should not be going
through the area most affected. We’ve had one absolutely horrible day here in
Michigan when it came to weather this past week (14th, tow trucks
were behind 6 hours).
So why is my package moving so slowly? Also
why isn’t it showing in USPS when it says it’s been transferred there already?
The thing is it normally takes about four-five days to get to me. It’s been
eleven already, and that seems to occur every few months.
2.
The bags themselves. To be honest I rarely use
my Ipsy bags, I have a stack of them sitting on my shelf just collecting dust.
I gave one to a cousin for Christmas and I occasionally use one as a clutch for
“fancier” outings. However, I just don’t use the bags. So if that was the
reason why I was sticking with Ipsy because it gave me a bag with my goodies it’s
a bad reason since I don’t use them. Plus the bags are hit and miss with me,
more often a miss.
3.
The products. I have either used up or currently
have in my collection and use fairly often (or once a month or so for nail
polishes) 20 items out of 90. That’s approximately four months bags worth over
an 18 bag period or about 22%. If I’m using that little amount that means I’ve
wasted about $140.40 on products I’m not using. That just seems illogical to
me. A lot of the products aren’t tailored to skin tones which for a pale girl
like me means most products with color aren’t going to work.
4.
They “have” a quiz to help personalize products
more towards what you’d like to see in your bag. For the past 6 months since I’ve
been on this acne treatment I’ve had skincare taken completely off my quiz on
what I choose. Plus I always give bad reviews on them because I just can’t use
them. So how is it in the past six months I have received six skincare products
for my face alone? When I know that they aren’t in everybody’s bags because I
watch a lot of unboxing YouTube videos.
5.
I’m not a YouTube guru or a large named blogger
so my bag will never be worth as much or as tailored to my tastes. That’s right
I will come out and say it, Ipsy purposely sends out high-valued bags to
prominent names on YouTube and in blogging that are subscribed to them. Take a
look at Ingrid Nilsen for example, she’s a prominent vlogger who I adore but
lately I feel as if she’s a spokesperson for Ipsy. Every get ready she does
around the midpoint of the month uses every Ipsy product she receives in her bag.
Fun fact, I can almost promise you that she
will not use at least 2 or more of those products again, and after this one
video she never mentions Ipsy products she claims to “love”. Now like I said I
adore Ingrid, I think she’s adorable and quirky, but I think she’s straight up
lying to her followers about Ipsy and the products she receives to get them to
subscribe. She also receives the most expensive items of the possibilities that
you can possibly get. A lot of it in my opinion has to do with the fact that
she is basically a spokesperson for Ipsy.
For us normal girls we are stuck being
disappointed month after month with our bags because they aren’t as good as the
Youtubers we watch. I think the only Youtuber who sees our struggle is Andréa
Matillano, she has mentioned in her unboxing videos about how she debates
unsubscribing because she just isn’t happy with the products she receives. Yet
it seems if you write a bad review of Ipsy, they find your name and make your
next month spectacular so you stay subscribed and continue to make posts.
So what now? I love writing blog posts about my subscription
boxes and I think it’s an area that I feel might be beneficial to others. I
love receiving a package every month. So I’m going to cancel my subscription to
Ipsy, its just time even though I know I’m getting an awesome bag this month I’m
sick of the ups and downs of the bags. Instead I’m going to try different
subscription services, starting with Boxycharm. It is an additional $11 a month
(so $21 a month), but it offers full-sized higher-end products than Ipsy does.
For me that seems perfect, I’m personally willing to spend
the extra money for something that I’m probably going to love more than Ipsy.
Now please don’t get me wrong Ipsy is a good subscription service but it’s just
not for me. A lot of the reason why I chose to end it this month versus waiting
another since this is a good bag is the fact that I was originally told Feb 16
(President’s day so I assumed the 17th), and then the 20th
(aka today) and it’s still not here and not showing any updates for two days
now. Personally I’m just getting too frustrated.
I hope this wasn’t a huge Debby Downer but I felt the need
to explain why I was quitting Ipsy. Let me know if you have a subscription to
recommend.
♥♥♥,
Aub
