Rambling on about books, baking and beauty…
This was a random purchase (especially as I don’t have a bath tub) but would make a great present.
It contains several products that I will definitely make some use of.
– 3 sachets of Dr Organic Dead Sea Mineral Mud Mask.
– Roques Oneil Therapie Himalayan Detox Salts.
– Kneippe Herbal Bath Balancing in Lavender.
– Orange and Clove 100% Plant Wax candle.
– Sanctuary Spa White Lily & Damask Rose Body Lotion.
ramblingmads
This month’s theme is Free Your Mind and so Birchbox have sent out a colour-it-yourself box.
Personally I think they’re just jumping on the adult colouring book fad, which I do as part of treating my anxiety but isn’t for everyone. This box feels both try-hard and lazy at the same time.
On to the contents.
As well as your booklet on the items this month’s cloth bag features;
– Mirenesse Mattfinity Lip Rouge in a deep pink. Weirdly it seems to have dried up despite never having been opened so I’m not really impressed.
– Lumiere d’hiver reconstructing face masque in a sachet. It says it’s 100% vegan but worryingly for me the second ingredient is a form of alcohol, which I try to avoid in skin products as it has drying properties that inflame eczema and sensitive skin.
– Parlor Moisturizing Sea Salt Spray – this has been discussed on a lot of blogs and there seems to be a concern about whether this will wreck your hair or give you the tousled surfer babe waves it promises. Sea water is not your hair’s best friend and neither is salt so I totally get the questions. I have to quite naturally wavy hair so it’s hard to tell if it had any effect. My furry assistants thought the noise it made was interesting but less so than their dinner. So the jury’s still out.
-RMK Point Make Up Remover. This is a Japanese brand and helpfully no one translated the information on the bottle and my kanji reading skills are non-existent. It’s an oil remover, which have become increasingly popular but I’m still not sure about. The last one I tried made no difference to my skin and still needed a cream cleanser to actually take my make up off! However after the hand incident (see next product) I used this to remove the make up with just a tissue so maybe oils need another go round!
– Caudalie Vinoperfect Tinted Moisturiser SPF20 in 01 Light. I am very pale and this is way too dark for me. As you can see in the below photo of my hand. I squeezed a blob out that could coat my entire hand but be way too obvious, not something I want for a product designed to be subtle.
This month’s ‘choose your own’ product was from a line up of WAH nails items. I chose a nail art pen as I have so many polishes and don’t wear stick on nails. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet but it is a very deep blue so I’m not 100% sure which nail polishes it would work well with.
– Finally the lifestyle item. A pack of 6 mini colouring pencils to decorate your box with. Needless to say I think that’s pretty pants. None of the decorated boxes on their Instagram were done using just the six colours and some were done with pens and paints. Pencils cost pennies. It would have been nice to have something that spoke a little more to the theme.
Do you subscribe to Birchbox? What did you think of this month’s products?
ramblingmads
This is a limited edition box in conjunction with the CEW Beauty Awards.
At £19.95, it’s not a bad price considering how packed it is.
Philip Kingsley Elasticizer sample size
Benefit They’re Real! Push-up Liner sample
Vita Liberta Luxury Tan sample and applicator mitt
Aurelia Miracle Cleanser sachet
Too Faced Better Than Sex mascara sample
Encore Noire Sport pour homme sample (men’s smellies in a women’s box?!?!)
Bee Good Honey & Propolis 2-in-1 Cream Cleanser sample bottle with face cloth and 20% off voucher.
Elemis pro-collagen marine cream full size (30 ml)
Dr Organic Bioactive Skincare Organic Snail Cream full size (50ml) – not suitable for vegans, contains snail secretions but no snails are harmed.
20% voucher for M&S selected beauty and fragrance
Booklet about the products.
Plenty of things to try, including two full size products. Definitely worth the cost, as long as you make use of them!
Get yours here and remember it’s limited edition so they won’t last.
ramblingmads
You Beauty is an off-shoot from the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine.
The box is £6.95, significantly cheaper than most beauty boxes. You only get four sample size products however.
Yours Truly Organics Fix Me! Repairing Serum sachet, Tisserand Aromatherapy Bath Oil, Deborah Mitchell Heaven Chamomile Desensitizing Hydrogel & Linwood’s Milled Flaxseed, cocoa & berries sachet.
There’s also a card offering you an opportunity to win a luxury spa day and a booklet about all the products you could have had in your box.
Their USP is that you can select two of the items, however things go very fast and I didn’t have a huge selection to choose from.
I think this is an OK starter beauty box and not all of the brands were familiar to me. If you’re interested, check out May’s options here.
ramblingmads
Contains: Liquid Facial Soap, Moisture Surge, Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion, Take the Day Off Make-up Remover, High Impact Mascara, Happy perfume & Chubby Stick in Plumped Up Pink.
Bonus; £10 voucher for Clinique.co.uk
Free make up/skincare test and free gift.
I really like Clinique products but the price tag puts me off splashing out too often. I like the fact that they’re allergen free, contain no perfumes or any other nasties that set off my sensitive skin.
This box, curated by the British Beauty Blogger, has a nice mixture of sample sized skincare plus a full size mascara and chubby stick.
I love a chubby stick, but this one is very pink so might not get used as much as some of the others I’ve acquired.
At the moment this box is sold out on Latest in Beauty as it is hugely popular. But if you’re interested in it, keep an eye on the website for a re-stock.
The £10 voucher is a nice touch, allowing you to buy your favourite product at a discount, direct from Clinique. The other bonus item is a free skincare or make up session at a Clinique counter plus a mystery free gift. Again, this is nice, it means you can test out more products and see how they work in combination.
The box was £19.95 but contents value is about £45 according to my very quick research.
If you’re a fan of Clinique or looking to test the products this is a nice, easy way to do it.
ramblingmads
This month’s My Little Box finally put in an appearance (thanks Mr Postie) and it’s a good un. The theme is dreams and they’ve curated a really lovely box.
The packaging is gorgeous, they pay a lot of attention to details.
Inside is a selection of lifestyle and beauty products.
As well as the usual My Little Magazine, there’s a cute cotton bag containing a My Little Beauty branded hair mask, Lip Balm Loved By Lou Lesage in a creamy rouge, Soft Perfumes by Sabe Masson in Copacabana (a solid perfume stick).
It also includes two lifestyle items. A necklace in a cloud, which when opened is a charm necklace with ‘Bonne Etoile’ engraved on it. Another cute packet contains a stamp pad and rotating stamp with 12 different designs.
In total the box is worth £58 but I only paid £13 including P&P.
At the moment this is far and away my favourite beauty box. They are always beautifully put together and a good mix of beauty and lifestyle items. The box itself is sweet and reusable, so less rubbish is generated. It doesn’t have the largest selection of beauty products but they’re all fullsize this month.
ramblingmads
This month Birchbox is celebrating the fact that a woman who married into a dynasty full of cousin marriages, dodgy relatives and scandals is fertile enough to get pregnant with a ‘spare’ heir to the throne.
As you can probably guess I’m a bit cynical about the Royal Family and think the obsessing over them is a bit insane.
Anyway, back to the beauty box.
I got the blue box but some were pink. Presumably they contained the same stuff, which didn’t include a mascara (thank heavens – every other one seemed to). Instead there was a little cloth bag containing:
Liz Earle Hot Cloth Cleansing sample – I’ve got a couple of these now – not tried it yet.
Percy & Reed No Oil Hair Oil sample – I’ve used this before and it’s OK, but I prefer my Argan Oil.
Laura Mercier primer sample size, this month you could choose a Laura Mercier product and as the others were mascara and eyeliner I picked this.
Exclusive to Birchbox Lola nail polish in the ubiquitous nude shade (it’s everywhere at the moment)
Korres Bergamot Pear Bodymilk – sample size. The packaging is quite sweet, couldn’t get the foil seal off for that all important sniff test!
And a Befine warming clay face mask instead of the slightly rubbish ‘lifestyle item’ (last month it was a chapter sample of a novel & a teeny tiny note pad).
To be honest I was pretty sure it was all over for Birchbox as last month’s was really disappointing, but this one is a lot better. I can see myself using the products and the box is a good size for reuse. This was the standard size box but a letterbox size is also available.
P.S use this link to get yours 🙂
ramblingmads
This month’s Glossybox is themed around Old School Hollywood Glamour, from Marilyn Monroe to the Hepburns, via Elizabeth Taylor and other fabulous women.
The box is quite pretty with Monroe pouting on the front, inside is a quote from Taylor, the presentation is all very pretty but unfortunately the contents had shifted in transit and escaped from the tissue paper and ribbon.
There are five products inside, again inspired by the glamour of Hollywood’s hey day.
Lord & Berry lipstick crayon in Kiss – meant to be the red of Monroe’s perfect pout. I like an eye crayon and adore Clinique’s chubby sticks for lips so certainly will give this a try.
Astral Original face and body moisturiser – a classic product, still made to the same formula since the 50s. I am very fussy about my moisturiser, and this is not one I’ve tried, although I’m sure my mum used to.
POP Beauty Kajal Eyeliner Pen – kohl pencil in sooty black with a sponge at one end to smudge your line. As frequent readers will know I am not very confident about eyeliner, and there are hundreds of unused eyeliners in my make up past.
Colour Club barely there nail polish – another nude polish – they are literally everywhere. The decal on the bottle is a mess, and the colour is one I have several variations of at the moment.
Nougat London Soothing Bath Pearls – baths don’t happen in my flat – there isn’t one. This smells quite nice and will probably work well as a foot soak too.
Not overly enamoured with this box to be honest, feels a bit repetitive, would be nice to see unusual brands and colours, I think the first Glossybox I had was the best.
ramblingmads
If you were thinking of trying Birchbox, use this link https://www.birchbox.co.uk/invite/8hh7s
Here’s my last two boxes
April’s is in the post as are a couple of other beauty boxes. My three month trial is ending and I have decisions to make. This month’s boxes will be the clincher. Stay tuned…
ramblingmads
BuddhiBox is a yoga lover’s beauty and lifestyle box from the US.
They don’t currently ship to the UK as a subscription but you can buy the boxes through Etsy. Which doesn’t make a huge amount of sense and costs a lot more than the equivalent on their website, before shipping.
I also had to pay a hefty customs charge, which means until there’s an easier way to order this box, I probably won’t again. Which is a shame because their Instagram is full of lovely things included in their monthly boxes.
Anyway, back to this one.
It’s not a huge box but it is quite full. I said I didn’t mind which box I got, this is March’s. April’s is curated by a yogi called Jo and contains different items.
I received a small pot of rosewater ghee face & skin cream, which intrigues me as ghee is more commonly used in Indian cooking.
An organic sanitizer spray for use after yoga to kill any bacteria that transfers from the mat to your hands. I recommend giving your yoga mat a spritz of anti-bac every now and then and hanging it outside every now and then to air it so that feet smell doesn’t linger. This will probably end up in my bag, I like to carry hand sanitizer when commuting.
A fancy bottle of nail polish in Namaste, this has no formaldehyde and other not very pleasant chemicals and is a nude shade.
There was also a small yoga strap, which is used to assist with poses.
A small malas or Buddhist prayer bead bracelet to aid in meditation.
A recipe card for a dish called kitchari, which seems to be a bit like dhal with mung beans and rice.
A yoga pose card – tree pose, which is one of my favourite poses as it’s a big stretch to the sky and you have to focus to maintain your balance.
The card listing the box’s contents has a great quote on it “you are the sky. Everything else is just weather” – Pema Chodron.
Loose leaf oolong tea, custom blended for BuddhiBox. It also has a reusable muslin tea bag, which is a clever idea. I don’t drink black tea or coffee, mostly just water and herbal teas so this will come in useful.
There are a couple of business cards from the different companies involved – some with discounts and then the randomest item. A temporary tattoo.
I don’t really get the need for this item and would have preferred something else. This seems to be a bit of a trend because I’ve had at least one beauty box recently with temporary tattoos in them. I remember they were all the rage the summer I was 9, I think a cereal company were giving them away, but I don’t see many grown women feeling the need.
All in all it’s a bit mixed and not all of the items seem connected to yoga or meditation. As I said at the start this was pretty expensive so I’m a little disappointed at the contents. Hopefully they’ll start shipping internationally through their website soon and the prices will be comparative to the US.
ramblingmads
ramblingmads 