October 2014 Birchbox Overview

*Birchbox is a monthly subscription box that has both a Women’s and Men’s box. The Women’s box is $10 a month that sends beauty and lifestyle samples. The Men’s box is $20 a month and includes grooming and lifestyle samples.*

Hi everyone! I just want to start by saying that I am extremely disappointed with my October Birchbox and I’m starting to think about unsubscribing. Most of the products I received this month just aren’t appealing to me and I am getting tired of seeing some of the same brands over and over again. Furthermore, the past three months I have received at least one product by Harvey Prince and in the last two months they were both perfumes. I don’t mind receiving perfume samples every once in a while but at least send me two perfumes by different companies!!! Why in the world would Birchbox send me three Harvey Prince samples back to back to back?! Seriously, this isn’t helping me expand my knowledge on new products and companies but rather making me dislike a certain brand all together. Here are the samples I received this month:

Price Breakdown:

• BeeKind Body Lotion (Value: $1.88)
• Dr. Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner (Value: $11.25)
• Harvey Prince Petaly Noir (Value: $1.30)
• Lord & Berry Paillettes Glitter Eye Pencil in Black (Value: $3.50)
• ModelCo Party Proof Lipstick in Kitty (Value: $8.00)
• Total Box Value: $25.93

I’m extremely upset with the Lord & Berry Paillettes Glitter Eye Pencil because it’s just so tiny! Is it an eyeliner for ants?! I received this exact same eyeliner in the shade black in my July ipsy bag and the liner smudges after 30-45 minutes of wear. I won’t even bother to try this one especially since it has glitter in it.

The only two items that I’ll be using are the ModelCo lipstick and the Dr. Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner. The ModelCo lipstick just seems very cheap to me, I’m honestly not impressed at all. The shade is nice with a cremesheen finish but the wearing power is about one hour and that’s ONLY if you just sit there and look pretty. Dr. Brandt products have positive reviews on most sites so I’m going to give this product a try and see if it works any magic on my skin.

The Harvey Prince perfume is just disappointing because I’ve just seen so many Harvey Prince products that I really just want to try a different company 🙁 Finally, the BeeKind Body lotion has a good size for a sample but I own almost a whole year’s worth of body lotions.

**Disclaimer: I will now go on a huge rant about something that I noticed this month so beware.**

One of the item that was sent out to multiple subscribers was the BeautyBlender + Pure Solid Cleanser (Value: $25). This item alone is worth the same as my whole entire box. In addition, most of these boxes included the Dr. Brandt Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner (Value: $11.25) and the ModelCo Lipstick in Kitty (Value $8) plus two other miscellaneous items. Of course, there were variations among these boxes, some might have only included the lipstick or the cleaner but many pictures I’ve seen have included all three. The value of all three of those items in one box is $44.25, ALMOST $20 more than my box’s value, and that’s not including the two other misc. samples. I know beauty boxes won’t always have the same value for each box and I don’t mind if the difference between box values is around $5-$7 but a difference of over $20 is where I draw the line. I do not think it is fair for that gap to exist. I might just be overreacting but honestly, I would’ve preferred to receive one item in my box that was close to the value of the BeautyBlender to make up for the gap differences. We all pay an inexpensive amount of $10 a month for these boxes; we should all receive our money’s worth in samples. This is just what I think and if you think otherwise I would love to hear your thoughts and maybe that’ll calm me down. OH and I just noticed that my box contained two items from this month’s sample choice which is awful because that means that someone else could’ve received the ant-sized eyeliner and actually been happy with it since I only chose the ModelCo lipstick. It’s unfortunate that this occurred and I’m going to swap the eyeliner and hopefully give it a good home.

Now that my rant is over, thanks for reading and let me know what you got in your Birchbox. What did you think of it? Was it worth your $10? I don’t think mine was but that’s life! You win some and you lose some. Well catch you next time, peace to the outtt.

-Purchased by me-