January Birch Box

While my first Birchbox is somewhere in Eastern Montana right now my friend received her first Birchbox tonight and she shared these photos with me.  Will I get the same January box once mine arrives?  We're pretty excited about the Birchbox Find, Burt's Bee Lotion and the Mascara.  Shampoo from London sounds fancy too!!  Definitely worth $10!

 

First Julep box!

My first Julep box came on Friday!

Pros: It came really quickly.
Cons: I don't know what's going on.

Everything is super fancy. I got two fancy bottles of fingernail polish and a very fancy bottle of cuticle stuff, and a sample packet of face stuff. One of the fingernail polishes is sparkly silvery, and the other is sparkly blackish. Or is it dark green? It's hard to say. Is that green? Or is it black? Regardless, I never would have picked out either color. At first with the sparkly silvery stuff I was like, ehh, this isn't all that great, but then I put it on my big toe! It's like a golden mirror! Wow! And, the dark color, it's the color of poop after you've taken Pepto-Bismol, is what it is.

Julep is very fancy, and very complicated. They send you an 8-page introductory booklet to help you figure out how it works. You're in a category. During the "reveal" you get to see what items your category will get and you can switch to a different one if you want to. And you can add in additional things. And then your box comes. Apparently I didn't know what was going on when I ordered this. I didn't see any of these colors as options when I made the order. So I guess this is an intro box, and the colors I saw when I ordered are the ones coming in the next regular box, which ships in a couple days. I just missed the whole "intro" aspect, which, I believe, is a sign of old age, not being able to use the internet and coming home from the store with things you didn't mean to buy.

According to Julep, I am a Bombshell. I am a confident frill-seeker with magnetic appeal. I adore bold, glam colors and anything that sparkles. This is good information to have. Now when I meet people and they ask me to tell them about myself, I can say, "I am a confident frill-seeker with magnetic appeal. I adore bold, glam colors and anything that sparkles." Then I will show them my fingernails, and they will understand. Or, in cover letters (I'm looking for a new job), I can write, "I am a confident frill-seeker with magnetic appeal. I adore bold, glam colors and anything that sparkles." I believe this information will open up untold professional opportunities.

Blush Mystery Beauty Box for Beauty Box Virgins

The Blush Mystery Beauty Box is making fancy pants KC into a fine fine Lady and improving her french. Not to mention her growing horde of luxious face creams and beauty products was making me envious so I parted with $19.95 ($5 discount on the first box) and subscribed to my first Blush Box.  I'm hoping to become a woman soon.

I received all the same items as KC except I received the KLORANE Mask with Desert Date instead of the Leave-In Cream which KC received.

The number cruncher in me likes to see what the retail value of all the products are so I've listed them below.  I googled every product and most of them are for sale at various sites including amazon.com

Osmosis Skincare Harmonized H20 for Digestive Health Full Size 3.38 oz $30
The label says it Normalizes Bowel Function - I'm scared to ingest this.  The ingredients on the label read: Distilled Water, Multiple Vibrational Frequency Blends.  So there is nothing in this product but water??  It tastes like water.  Smart marketing.  Sell 3.38 oz of water for $30.
Update! Thumbs down for marketing distilled water for $30. 

Klorane Mask with Desert Date Full Size 5 oz. $24 retail at drugstore.com
I'm super excited to try this on my hair since it's supposed to revitalize dry hair.  The packaging only lists European countries so it must be c'est magnifique.  It smells like a bakery.
Update! This product made my hair very silky and shiny.

Goldfaden MD Wake Up Call Sample .16oz $7.50
A full size 1.7 oz retails for $80 on Amazon.com so this stuff must be good.  It says it hydrates, restores and revives your skin while you sleep.
Update! Decent moisturizer.  It didn't do miracles liked it claimed but I'll use the entire sample.

Gytone Hydrating Eye Cream Full Size 15ml $30
You can never have too much eye cream.
 Update! Will use this product.

Jane Iredale Just Kissed Lip Plumper - Tokyo Tiny sample size $5
This color is something my Aunt would wear.  The only think I like about it is the name of the shade "Tokyo". I don't feel very Japanese wearing it.
Update! This isn't really my color plus it tasted like old lady lipstick.

Le Edge Exfoliator - $8.70 on amazon.com
As Seen on TV Product - Looks very cheesy
Update! Just like most as Seen on TV Products this didn't do anything.

Below are the bonuses I received

Dermstore Lip Quench $12
Fancy Chapstick - Do people pay full price for this stuff?

Sample of Ren Hydra-Calm Day Cream and Youth Complex Anti-Aging Cream.  One time use samples.

Total retail value $117.20!  Great steal for $19.95 and this box has brought so much happiness to my life. Video to be posted in a few days. Good value for this box since I love the hair mask and I will use the Eye Cream and Wake up Call.

Mid-month lull

It's the 21st of the month. These are dark days. No beauty box is on the horizon. I usually get my Blush Mystery Beauty Box around the 10th, which means I just got one, which means I have a few weeks until the next one. Which means it's time to sign up for another box!

So... now I'm signed up for the Julep Maven subscription box. It comes with fingernail polish! A few months ago I never would have signed up for a fingernail polish subscription box. But I have to wear colored fingernail polish for medical purposes now, and since I've been wearing the fancy nail lacquer I got from the Blush box I can't possibly go back to the cheap stuff. The pictures on the Julep website look mighty, mighty fancy. It's okay though! I'll unsubscribe after one or three months, depending on the level of awesome that arrives. When will it get here! I'm dying.

I can't really tell what's going on with Julep. You answer questions (such as "Which of these shoes would you wear for an evening out?" and my answer is none of them, I don't wear heels, you can't run in heels) (you never know when you might need to run, it could happen on an evening out), they assign you a profile, and you get certain items based on your profile, but you can change which box you get even if it's not the one you're supposed to get, and then you can add add-ons, and so basically I don't have any idea what I'll be getting. Also, Jules. It's so complex. I like that Blush just sends you whatever the crap they decide to send you. No customization at all! So simple.

If you are a fine lady who is subscribed to unnecessary beauty boxes and who has too much bathroom stuff, a strategy you might want to consider is to call your landlords and tell them the knob in your bathtub is leaking. A few days later you will come home to a new shower and a new wall in your bathroom, and a fine coating of construction dust on everything. You will then have to go through every single thing in your bathroom and dust it off. And you will find that a lot of the bathroom items you've had for years are super crappy compared to the fancy new items you've been receiving in your Blush Mystery Beauty Box and why do you even still have this crap, and you will get rid of a lot of stuff. You're welcome!

I wrote this yesterday

BEAUTY BOX NEWS

In the Blush Mystery Beauty Box this month:

Le Edge razy thing: I used this in my new shower last night! I am exfoliated today? I am soft. This is so weird it might be great.

Osmosis Skincare Harmonized H2O for Digestive Health: You're supposed to take a few drops of this water with water and it will help your gut and your life. I have no idea what it will or won't do but after I tried it the first time I had to pee and then I had to pee again right away, and after I tried it the second time I got really really thirsty. Some of the people on the internet are pissed about this because apparently it's just distilled water. The people on the internet dispute the claims on the Osmosis website, but remember what I thought about that eyelash crap? And it turned out to actually work? So, you know.

Glytone Hydrate Eye Cream: Hooray! At this rate I'll never have to buy eye stuff because I'll just skate from sample to sample. This is full-sized.

Goldfaden MD Wake Up Call: What? This is stuff that you're supposed to put on your face at night. It does stuff to your face. Good stuff, hopefully.

Jane Iredale Just Kissed Lip Plumper: This is a very fancy teeny-tiny tube of lipstick. It's so tiny it's cute. It's so tiny that some people on the internet are mad. Why do ladies have to have "plump" lips? Isn't that kind of gross? When you look at this stuff you think it's too pink, but when you put it on, it's basically just lip-colored but a little darker. And pinker.

Klorane Leave-In Cream with Desert Date: This confused me so bad, 'desert date'? But a desert date is a date that grows in the desert, not the date you need to desert by. Genius. This is stuff to leave in your hair. Well, good, except that it stinks. But once it's dried it doesn't stink. It's nice I suppose, except that my hair is sticking up today. Which I cannot blame on this desert date crap.

Cetaphil cleanser and lotion samples: Okay.

This month's products were not as terribly fancy as previous months but my criteria for "fancy" is the packaging. While these products were packaged in a more plebeian fashion than previous products (gross!) it's the crap that's inside that's actually the important part. Again, Blush Mystery Beauty Box, A+++. Very exciting! What will come next month!

NEWS ABOUT MY FINGERNAILS

I am sorry to report that, despite these months of purple fingernail polish and incredible successes with the cessation of biting, my teeth cannot be trusted alone with a fingernail. On the plane out of Juneau they descended upon the middle finger on my left hand (their favorite one, for some reason) and bit the shit out of it. I was hoping I'd be able to wean myself off of the purple fingernail polish (because goddammit, purple fingernail polish?) but it seems that, at the moment, I cannot. And so we continue. New purple fingernail polish has been applied and my teeth have been punished.

NEWS ABOUT MY FACE

My chin, it's ruined. Something is wrong. Do you think it could be the fancy Chinese moisturizer? Shoot. I've started using the Coola moisturizer instead. I'll use it for a week and see if my chin returns to normal. If it does, we'll know that it's the Chinese stuff. Too bad, because that moisturizer is so fancy and nice.

Waiting.

Constantly checking order status and tracking information for my boxes.  When will they get here?  Will $24.95 per month really buy happiness?  In the mean time here is a photo of my cat.  He's hoping to get a Purr Pack or a Meowbox.

Anticipation...waiting for that first box.

I'm a newbie to the subscription box world and have learned fascinating things like "unboxing" is the correct lingo for unveiling my box (future videos to come) and you can get a Pop Sugar Neiman Marcus box for $250.  Yes, $250 and you have no idea what is in the box.  The big appeal to me is your getting a higher "retail value" then what you paid and the surprise.  I've seen many facebook ads for Birch Box and Nature Box and I'm ready to jump in.  

I'm anxiously waiting for my first:

Birch Box $10 per month

Graze Box $5 per box ($1 for the first box with a discount code)

Blush Mystery Beauty Box $24.95 per month with subscription ($5 off with TRYBLUSH promotion code)

If you are interested use my subscription links above.  My Subscription Addiction has a great guide on subscription boxes. Why is this so appealing to me?  I love getting things in the mail (I'm sure amazon is losing money on my prime subscription), I'm a secret product whore (I'll go to M.A.C.   and Bare Mineral stores and buy loads of stuff because I like the packaging or the colors but never actually wear any of it or tell anyone about all the makeup I have)and I like surprises!

new news updates of little import

My Blush Mystery Beauty Box will get here after I've left for Alaska. :( The revealed item this month is basically a very dull razor that you drag over your body when you're in the shower. It won't shave off your hairs. It will exfoliate your body, your forehead, and the sides of your nose. This very dull razor will last for a year. I don't know why it wouldn't last longer - it's a piece of stainless steel that you rub on your skin. Probably it gets all gunked up with dead skin cells. Gross! Now I don't know for sure, but this item may be the answer to all my problems. Or it might not be. The person who was the... curator, or whatever, this month, is a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. What other items do you think will be in the box! Hopefully something like... super nice tweezers, or a new kitten. I've cheated and read a review of a person complaining that there was a hair mask in it. I have hair and look forward to that.

And now, if you will, please indulge me while I talk about some previous beauty box products.

The Lisa Hoffman Madagascar Orchid Moisturizing Body Cleanse is amazing. It is made with magic and silk that will make you magically silky. It costs $30. Is a bottle of soap worth $30? No, that's ridiculous. But if you were a person who wanted to spend $30 on body wash, this would be the shit to buy. I do not receive any compensation for this review.

As you are well aware, I've been using the SmartLash Eyelash Enhancer, which you can get for either $125 or $30, depending on how controversial you want to be. I can't tell, is this doing anything? Maybe it's not fair to the SmartLash crap to have used the Lipocils Expert stuff before this. I don't even know. Did that stuff work? I can't tell. I have eyelashes, that's all I know at this point. I guess what I mean is, I kind of thought I could tell a difference with the Lipocils stuff, and I kind of can't tell any difference with the SmartLash stuff. But that's probably because my eyelashes are so amazing already, any improvement would cause earthquakes or similar.

The LVX fingernail polish remains a hardworking friend. My fingernails are long and strong like they've never been. This shit is for real, friends! Use and prosper.

I have been using the pūr~lisse pūr-protect Essential Daily Moisturizer for a few weeks and me gusta, hombre. My chin broke out mysteriously and grossly a few weeks ago but if it were from the moisturizer the rest of my face would have also broken out, so I think it's unrelated. This moisturizer has a silly name that only the cool kids know how to pronounce, and that's off-putting and obnoxious, but the product itself is lovely.