Saturday 13 August 2016

Birchbox July 2016

Reminder: this box is £10 a month + £2.95 P+P.

First impressions:
Hermes, the courier of choice for Birchbox, really screwed me over this month by losing an irreplaceable order from another company. I wasn't on great terms with them, and then to ice that cake when this box turned up it was damaged. It's one of the nicest box designs I've had so far, but one of the corners is smashed in thanks to the idiot delivery driver. Birchbox offered assistance only if the items themselves were also damaged and they weren't, so now I have a damaged box in my collection. Not exactly delighted about that. 

For the products themselves, I was excited to see that I had a sheet mask in this box as I've never tried one of those before and they are everywhere right now. I was also glad to get a facial sunscreen - I have Benefit's Dream Screen but I get through facial sunscreens pretty quickly, so another to lessen that blow was greatly appreciated. I was also happy to get the John Frieda product: we got to choose which one we wanted out of two possible options and this was the one I chose to get. That alone pays for the rest of the box, so this month definitely had a good value. With the exception of John Frieda, whose products I had tried in the past, I know all the brands from previous boxes except the face mask, which is a new one to me. 

Here's what I got this month! 




1) LOC x Millie Ultra-Gloss Lip Pencil in Bohemian Rose 2.5g - RRP £9




3/5
My worries about this suiting me turned out to be correct: this colour does not fit with my colouring at all. It's far too pale and just looked weird on me, in my opinion. It's much paler on the lips than it looks like it would be. Outside of that, I like that the crayon shape made for easy application, particularly on the corners of my mouth. It allows for a more precise application around the edges of the mouth, which I liked. The colour itself is not overly glossy but definitely not matte either: it's somewhere in between. It felt like any other lipstick on my lips, with a little of its own moisture to stop my lips from being overly dry. Unfortunately, it's not remotely long lasting. It transfers and smudges easily. It's harder to tell with paler colours but I think it bled a little too. It definitely would need to be reapplied for all-day wear. I don't wear products like this much. I have a few stick lipsticks already and I do prefer to just use a regular lipstick if I'm going to need to reapply it anyway. Application with the stick may be more precise but it also takes longer and it's harder to do without a mirror to hand, so touch ups aren't as easy as they are with a regular lipstick. I would definitely use this more if the colour was nicer, and I'm curious about the other colours now for sure, but I'm not going to reach for this particular one that often. I'm sure it looks great on people with paler skin or cool undertones but it isn't really me.


2) John Frieda Frizz Ease Forever Smooth Anti-Frizz Primer 100ml - RRP £9.99




5/5 
This is pretty much the size of the Birchbox, which goes to show how many products it's not possible for them to send in their standard size box, since there's plenty of things that would be bigger than this. As you can see from the picture, this product has a pump on it, but this pump is also locking: once you have opened it you can lock it again, so it's absolutely perfect for travelling. I don't keep products like this in the bathroom, they stay in my room, so a locking pump that stops product getting everywhere was very much appreciated. I have tried Frizz Ease products in the past (years ago, though) and honestly I don't remember liking them very much. They definitely aren't something that I buy now. I will be changing that and hunting this down when it runs out though. Even with my ridiculously long hair, I only need to use a pump and a half of this, so it's going to last a while (I've since had 4-5 inches of my hair cut off and now I need one pump, with a bit extra if I feel my hair needs it, so people with shorter hair will get a lot of use out of this bottle). There is a noticeable difference in my hair when I use this and when I don't. It makes my hair so much smoother and softer, even before the cut when the ends of my hair were clearly sick of existing, and this also makes it get less tangled at the ends. Overall my hair is much easier to work with, either if I want to style it or leave it long, and it looks and feels a lot healthier, too.



3) Nails Inc Nail Varnish in Sloane Street 4ml/0.13 fl. oz - full size RRP £15




5/5
First off, this is so tiny! The Nails Inc polish I got in my first Glossybox is a full sized one but this is a little baby nail varnish. I never use varnishes up though, so I suppose it doesn't matter too much. I should still get a few uses out of it. As for the product itself, it's very different to the other one I got. Not just the colour - hot pink! - but the formula, too. The other one is very thick whereas this one is very thin. It dried super fast and instead of being glossy, it has a matte or maybe satin finish. It would probably be glossy with my usual top coat, but I wanted to test it without. I actually really like the finish! I don't have any polishes that dry like this so it's really nice to try one. It's thin but super pigmented: I did two coats but I could have lived with just doing one. It was hard to get a full coating from one dip on my thumbnails but I assumed that was because the bottle is so tiny; however because of the thinness of the formula it was very easy to blend the brushstrokes together. The nails dried flawlessly. I am confused about why it's so different from the other one I have though. This one says it's £15, the other said it was £11, and one called itself a polish and the other a varnish, so I'm not sure if they're from different ranges or not. I definitely I prefer this one, but I'm not sure what I'd need to look for if I were to buy any. I suppose it will now be in the Birchbox shop, so I'll have to have a look when this gets used up. 

4) Caudalie Polyphenol C15 SPF20 Anti-Wrinkle Protect Fluid 15ml/0.5 fl. oz - full size RRP £29




5/5 
I loved this! I need to use an SPF on my face here, even in winter, so I was really happy to see one included in the box this month. I usually make sure that if I'm going out, there's SPF in my makeup, but sometimes I just don't feel like wearing makeup, or I want to use something that doesn't have its own SPF, so things like this are a must. As I said above, I already have and use Benefit's Dream Screen for this purpose, so it was nice to have something to compare it to. This has a thin consistency, similar to the Benefit one, so it will last a while. It's spreads nicely over the skin but you don't need a huge amount of it. I wore it when I went out painting for the day because I hadn't wanted a face of makeup to sit out in the heat all day, and it held up really well. I didn't get burnt and my skin felt nice and soft all day. Even with oily skin, it's not a remotely greasy formula. It feels mattifying and I couldn't really tell that my skin had anything on it. It sinks in really quickly. My face can catch the sun if I'm out all day, but it was fine with this. Sometimes it can feel dry from the sun once I get inside but I didn't get that with this either. I can definitely do a light makeup face for summer with this, a powder, a mascara and a lip balm and I love that. The sample is a pretty decent size - I still have loads left - but it's definitely going on my wishlist.


5) Skin Republic Collagen Infusion Sheet Mask - full size (10 masks) RRP £19.95




5/5
I'd never tried a sheet mask before I got this, so this was a little scary. I can see now why people are practically addicted to them. I used this at night after cleansing my face as a nice pre-bed relaxation thing. The sheet itself was easy enough to unfold even with all the product on it. The product helped it to stick down to the contours of my face so everything was evenly covered. I was worried that the mask would be sliding all over my face, but it's actually pretty well anchored once it's on. I did lie down while I had it on just because I wanted to relax, but I could get up and wander around and it didn't move. I sat up a few times and it didn't fall off or budge at all. It sticks really well. This mask has a few different types I think, and I got the collagen one. Once it was on, my skin started to tingle a little bit. It definitely didn't sting or hurt, it just felt like it was doing something. I kept the mask on for around 20 minutes and when it was time to remove it, it peeled off my skin easily. As per the instructions, I massaged the excess product into the skin on my face, neck and hands. There was quite a lot of product, considering. I had enough to cover my skin and then some, so I did end up wasting some of the serum. My hands feel butter soft after having that on them though. Once I'd rubbed it into my face, when I looked at my hands they looked like I'd been rubbing them into highlighter. They were very, very glowy. The serum is quite oily, so it's definitely not something I'd want to use at any other time of the day. It does sink into the skin to a certain extent, but it definitely leaves a decent glow behind. I only got one mask, so it's going to be hard to tell if it breaks me out or not. It works out at around £2 per mask, though, which is really good when compared to other single use facemasks that I've used before. These are definitely on the wishlist, I'd love to try more of them. It was very relaxing and my skin feels like I've just had a facial. 


Overall Impression:
This was a great box to get in the summer! I love the hair product and the facial sunscreen - I think a good facial sunscreen, especially with oily skin, is much harder to find than a sunscreen for the body, so I'm really glad that I got this instead of the sunscreens that Glossybox went for. I'm also happy about the inclusion of a full size hair product. Haircare seems to be the thing to ignore when it comes to beauty boxes, so it's nice to see that it wasn't ignored here. There's a lot of good quality brands in here as well as good quality products. I can definitely see myself regularly using 4 out of the 5 products in this box.

I really wish Birchbox would send better quality makeup items, as it makes these boxes more about skincare and haircare for me otherwise. They only usually send one makeup item: if you're only going to send one, make sure it's a really good one. I understand that the LOC product was a collaboration, but it's a bit weird that they didn't seem to think that maybe that one colour won't suit a lot of people. It would have been much better if they'd done a few colours and sent them out according to individual beauty surveys, or let people choose like they did with the John Frieda product. The LOC pencil isn't a bad formula, but it's not going to get used very often. I'll probably end up using it out of obligation because I got it in a box and I don't want that product slot in the box to be wasted. The rest of the products are great though. I loved getting a face mask, even if it was just a single use one, and there's definitely a lot of new favourites in here.

Box average: 4.6/5
Cumulative box average: 4.3/5

Sneak peek for next month is that it's a Birchbag! No box this time, it's a white/greyish makeup bag with a coloured zip. There are four colours but we don't get to choose which colour we get, so I really hope I get a blue or a pink one. We also got an email asking us to choose which Marcelle waterproof eyeliner shade we wanted - either expresso or mulberry - and I chose expresso, so I'm excited for that! I have two brown eyeliners I think, a Clinique one and a Bodyshop one, but it'd be nice to get another as I do use brown quite a bit. It's less scary than a black and I'm still very much learning eyeliner. No other previews for other products, so I'll have to wait and see! 

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