Category: birchbox

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Birchbox Birthday at Selfridges

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As part of their ongoing birthday celebrations Birchbox have teamed up with Selfridges to offer you the chance to build your own box.

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For those unable to get to Oxford Street before the 27th, Birchbox has put together a special edition box available on their website for £20.

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Featuring 8 fabulous products, including four full size treats, this is a seriously great collaboration.

Cowshed Knackered Cow Relaxing Bath & Shower Gel – with a blend of lavender and eucalyptus this smells heavenly and I like the cheeky name.

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Eyeko Fat Eye Stick in Gilt – use this as shadow or liner, smooth and with a hint of glitter, this will make your smoky eye pop.

Nuxe Crème Fraiche de Beaute Mask – this is a brand beloved by beauty boxes and it’s not hard to see why. With plant proteins and white blossom, this hydrating, moisture-packed mask is quick and easy to use.

Philip Kingsley Body Building Shampoo & Conditioner – travel sized, volume boosting, builds thickness and body, and gets rid of those annoying flyaways.

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Regenerate Enamel Science Advanced Toothpaste – an unusual item in a beauty box, and while I’m happy with my usual toothpaste, if you’re looking to boost your teeth’s whiteness then this could be the one.

Soigne Nail Lacquer in Petale de Rose – this very soft pink polish from French brand Soigne, is very pretty but more spring than autumn.

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Wild About Beauty Lip Pencil Duo in Fiona – this lip liner and lipstick pencil duo are soft and creamy. The colour isn’t quite ‘me’ but would work well on someone a little darker than my vampire-like visage.

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Top - Eyeko crayon in Gilt, middle and bottom - Wild About Beauty lipstick and liner

This is a nice collection of products, and worth over £80 if bought separately.

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beauty, beauty boxes, birchbox, haircare, make up, reviews, skincare

September Birchbox

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A fellow September birthday, Birchbox is now five!

And to celebrate there’s a box full of birthday treats. All of which hail from the US – where Birchbox was born. Subscribers can also pick their beauty box design.

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Bliss Lemon and Sage Body Butter – this smells quite light and pleasant, contains coconut oil and vitamin E.

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Laqa & Co Cheeky Lip Pencil in Humble Brag – a 2-in-1 item in quite a hot pink, probably more likely to be on my lips than my cheeks.

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John Masters Organics Citrus Neroli Detangler – this smells almost good enough to eat – but teamed with the next item should leave your hair shiny and tangle free.

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The Birchbrush – a handbag sized tangle teezer style brush

Beauty Protector Beauty Wash – this very cute body wash will be useful in my washbag.

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Benefit the Porefessional: License to Blot – one of Benefit’s newest products this little blotting stick promises to keep your complexion shine free for up to 6 hours.

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Birchbox have also launched an app – on Apple and Android, and entered all subscribers in a draw for a trip to New York City. Finally, if you can get to Selfridges in Oxford Street, you can build your own Birchbox for £15 up till the 27th September.

This is a nice selection of items, in the last few months Birchbox has definitely upped its game.

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Birchbox for Brides

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Wedding season is almost over but I know at least two brides who still have a bouquet to toss before Christmas, and these make fab gifts.

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Birchbox has teamed up with Benefit cosmetics for three boxes – for the hen do, the wedding day and the honeymoon.

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Each box features a range of samples from Benefit’s glamorous range of make up and a little bonus gift.

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To be honest, even if you aren’t getting hitched anytime soon these are great, especially if you’re a Benefit fan.

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August Birchbox #beautyjunkie

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This month Birchbox have decided to cover their boxes with emojis and yes that’s so 2014!

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Inside is a sheet of emoji stickers, which would be great if I was still 12, I hope this isn’t this month’s fake tattoo trend.

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Inside is 6 beauty samples. All of them are really diddy. 

Formula 10.0.6 Over Night Success Spot Minimizing Patches – 21 single use patches to shrink and fight off spots. Not sure how well it will work on the monthly ‘guess what time of the month it is?’ lumps I get, especially as it’s formulated for young skin and mine is getting older!

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Rituals Fortune Scrub – sweet orange and cedar scented, although to me it smells like hubba bubba.

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Kebelo Clarifying Shampoo – now I am fussy about my shampoo – it’s taken a while to find one I like, so I don’t chop and change. I never quite see the point of shampoo samples as everyone’s hair is different.

Lord & Berry Blush in Lotus – this is a teeny sample – it would have been nice to have at least one full size product.

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Huygens Face Scrub – French brand, tiny pot of face scrub, it says to use a coin-sized amount, so that’s the whole tub then!

TheBalm@ cosmetics – desert bronzer – I don’t think I have an applicator small enough.

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I found this box disappointing – so many wasted opportunities for a really nice selection and the lack of full size items is frustrating as they usually include at least one. Last month’s was so good, shame the quality slipped.

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Birchbox – July Birchbag

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This month Birchbox has dispensed with boxes and has instead sent out clear plastic bags in a selection of colours.

To be honest they look cheap. Mine is pink (not my favourite colour) and I don’t see it getting used at all.

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However the items inside make up for it somewhat.

Benefit Dream Screen SPF 45 – sample sized. Benefit is one of my favourite cosmetic companies, I love their quirky packaging and product names. This sunscreen is formulated to absorb quickly, leaving your skin hydrated and protected.

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Balance Me Congested Skin Serum – a targeted spot shrinker and break out preventer. It contains chamomile, lavender and aloe.

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Unani Aloe Vera gel – useful as after sun or just to soothe irritated skin (from bites or the heat).

Pop Beauty eye shadow trio in Peach Parfait – summer smoky eyes, here we come. Instead of dark greys and blacks, it’s peaches and creams.

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Jelly Pong Pong – Glow Getter Luminizer Gel – a full size facial illuminator for a subtle glow – perfect for fresh summer skin.

Pure Vida lace headband in Aqua – a bit like pop bands, this is a stretchy lacy band, to be honest I only use these to keep my hair off my face when applying a face mask.

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A nice selection of summer themed products in a slightly disappointing package. 

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June’s Birchbox – Step Outside with French Sole

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This month’s gimmick was select your box design. I went with the pick ‘n’ mix pattern.

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To be completely honest I am not impressed with this month’s selection.

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Temporary tattoos! I last wore these age 6 or 7. I am far too old and more likely to get a real one than wear these.

Another mascara – I think I get one of these every other month. I can’t even use them. There were other make up items hinted at, but no, another mascara.

Oil is an ingredient in much of the rest of the box.
Nude ProGenius treatment oil – applied after cleansing to boost skin’s hydration.
Beauty Protector Protect & Oil – hair oil that claims to protect against UV and heat damage.

English Laundry No. 7 For Her – perfume sample – adapted from a men’s fragrance, this is quite musky and a little too heavy for me.

Cowshed Body Lotion in Knackered Cow – contains essential oils of lavender and eucalyptus.

ModelCo Powerlash Black Mascara – another mascara, hot on the heels of the last one.

STYLondon Temporary Metallic Tattoos – nope, not even going there.

Bonus lifestyle item – a shoe bag designed by French Sole in matching design to the box. What a disappointing item – don’t see it getting much use.

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Not shown - temporary tattoos - they seem to have run away!

Birchbox seems to vacillate between good and pretty poor. This wasn’t my favourite by a long shot. I think they’re not entirely sure who their customers are – which is weird considering you do a questionnaire on the site.

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May Birchbox – Free Your Mind

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Do you subscribe to Birchbox? What did you think of this month’s products?

  

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Birchbox – A Royally Good Box

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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.

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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.

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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 🙂

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March Birchbox – Habitat

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New month, new beauty box from Birchbox. This one’s in association with homeware store Habitat.

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Again it’s the slimmer letterbox size, although as it was delivered by courier that didn’t really matter.

Inside there was a selection of goodies.

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A massive packet of Serenity Skincare Dead Sea Bath Salt, I don’t have a bath, I live in a flat with a tiny bathroom, but my feet will get a nice long soak.

Sample size Benefit They’re Real! mascara. I like Benefit and this is one of their new products.

Philip Kingsley Elasticizer (sample) a pre-treatment for hair.

Lord & Berry Bronzer – I don’t really use bronzer, it looks a bit odd on my very pale skin.

Catherine Malandrino eau de parfum sampler – not sure whether I like this yet, but will wear it for a bit to see if it’s a grower.

Birchbox & Habitat notebook – a tiny red notebook, perfect to pop in your handbag and scribble thoughts and ideas in.

Chapter sample of Penny Vincenzi’s new book A Perfect Heritage. Funnily enough I picked up a copy of this the other day. I enjoyed her book No Angel, and this one, set in the world of beauty companies as three women vie to run a prestigious cosmetics firm seems to be just a good. I do like a decent doorstep novel.

All in all an eclectic selection of goodies. Wonder what next month will bring?

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