February Glossybox

I never really jumped on the beauty box bandwagon. This was probably mainly due to my allergy to aloe and the fact there was no way of knowing what products let alone their ingredients I would be receiving.

For those of you who don't know a beauty box is rather like a magazine subscription but instead of a magazine you receive a box containing beauty products. Some are samples, some travel minis, some full sized. The idea is that you can, for a small subscription fee, try before you buy. Most of the brands listed on the websites are high end. Glossybox is probably the leading UK if not international beauty box at this time.

A Glossybox subscription currently costs £10 a month plus £2.95 P&P. If you pay up front for 3, 6 or 12 months it becomes cheaper. You get five beauty products supposedly tailored to your individual beauty profile you fill in when you subscribe. Not too sure about how much attention they do actually pay to this however.

So I ordered once and cancelled in around November. I was actually quite impressed with the contents despite one being unusable due to containing aloe. So when I heard that they were going to be doing a Valentine's special for February I re-signed up.

 

Box Contents:

- A3 fold-out leaflet detailing box contents and a lip tutorial

- Heart Shaped Lollipop

- Micabella Cosmetics Mineral Blush Powder in Siera Suede  

(0.8g sample, full size 9g retails at £34.95)

 - Voulez-Vouz Warming Body Oil in BubbleGum

(10ml sample, retails at £20 for a set of 6)

- MeMeMe Cosmetics FatCat Lengthening Mascara

(Full size product, 8ml retails at £7.99)

- Helen É Cosmetics Moisturising Lipstick in Caribbean

(No size writen on the product but I would assume full size, retails at £8 for 3.5g) 

- Narciso Rodriguez L'Eau For Her Eau De Toilette

(Sample size 0.8ml, retail price £23 for 30ml, £46 for 50ml, £66 for 100ml)   

Overall I can't really say I was impressed by the box contents. The box itself was cute, nicely designed and the leaflet and lollipop were nice touches. But I can't say it was anything special. MeMeMe Cosmetics are drugstore. I would probably consider £7.99 fair game when it comes to trying out a new mascara, I'd spend the cash and if it was awful it would be one of those things. I don't however want to spend £20-30 on a Dior or YSL mascara for example and find they don't work for me. This is the reason I signed up to Glossybox in the first place, or to try brands I wouldn't normally come across in Superdrug or Boots. At the same time I can pick up perfume sample vials free at counters in Debenhams or Selfridges. I don't need to pay a subscription to receive them. 

I haven't yet tried the Voulez-Vouz Body Oil, looking at the packaging I'm thinking it could be a bit of a disaster when opening and I can't say the idea of bubblegum scented oil excites me, but I have tried all of the others. The MeMeMe mascara is disappointing, it's a big wand, good for quick application, not clumpy, but it certainly doesn't live up to it's claims of creating "lashes full of volume and alluring depth". The bulky wand struggles to reach those fine inner corner and bottom lashes and I certainly won't be repurchasing this. It will possibly make it as a back-up mascara for when all of my other back-ups have run out, and certainly never make it to my main mascara of choice. The perfume sample was nice, nothing more nothing less. It was a light citrus/floral scent that would be nice on a cool summer's evening. Quite how it found it's way into a wintery February box I'm not sure although scents do read differently from person to person. It doesn't particularly stand out to me, it isn't something I would fall in love with and have to buy.  

The lipstick and blusher weren't particularly good colours for me. The blusher is a kind of reddish brown with fine glitter particles. It has a nice blendable texture and is very soft but being fair I couldn't wear this sort of shade. In my Glossybox profile when asked my skin tone I stated fair so why I was sent this I have no idea. The lipstick is quite an orangey peach red more suited to summer (again it's a winter box) and a tan. It's very soft and almost greasy, it hasn't any stain as such and just slips and slides about meaning smears and smudges are likely. It doesn't last long either.

So overall a big let down from Glossybox this month. I was planning on cancelling but they appear to have already taken the money for the March box even though we are still in February. Naughty. So we shall see if the next box is any better...