My
November Birchbox (
bought here) has arrived, I had to hold myself back from trying everything right away so I could take some nice pictures for you all! If you haven't heard of Birchbox, it's a monthly
beauty subscription box. Every month I pay £10 (plus P&P) and a box full of lovely goodies is delivered to my door. There are loads of different subscription boxes out there, and each one is affiliated with different brands. Birchbox is personally my favourite, they send me brands that I either already love or am eager to try and unlike some subscription boxes I'm always happy with my monthly selection. The downside to beauty boxes is sometimes you may not like the products, but I've always liked at least 4 out of the 5 beauty products in my box and really think it's value for money. Especially if you're a beauty junkie who wants to try new things without committing to the full price item!
So onto this months Box. The theme for the November box is 'cosy at home', it's getting colder and we tend to spend a lot more time indoors, so November is the perfect time to have a bit of a pamper! Here's what
Birchbox picked out for those cosy at home days!
Dr Jart+ V7 Turnover Booster. Full Size 50ml Worth £32.
When I first opened this I was frantically looking all over the packaging to try and figure out what it was, a full size skincare product? Amazing! (Regular readers will know how I love me some skincare!) But I couldn't actually work out what it was for. After turning to the handy Birchbox sample info card, I found that this is basically a lightweight gel serum. Phew.. serum, I know what to do with that! It's a gel formula that quickly turns into liquid on the skin and absorbs pretty easily. I am left with a slightly sticky residue for about 10 minutes, but as soon as I apply a moisturiser on top, all is fine! The only thing that confused me slightly was a few day's later when reading the sample info card again, it said to follow this product with toner and moisturiser.. huh? Use toner afterwards? This is not how I've been using the product... maybe this is why I had a sticky residue! There's no direction on the actual packaging of this product to say you should use a toner afterwards, but this is what Birchbox recommend. I personally had no problems when I left it on under my moisturiser and it feels such a waste to take it off with toner so I've been carrying on doing it! I've used this in place of my usual serum and although I wouldn't say my skin looks any different, it seems to be doing the same job that my current serum of choice does, so I'd say a pretty good product! I'd love to hear from anyone who has been using toner after this to see your views on it.
Beauty Protector Protect & Detangle Leave in Conditioner Sample.
Ok, onto a product I have no confusion over using, I can't find an amount in mls for this so it's difficult to give you a proper idea of it's worth, but the full size product is 236ml and worth £14 (I'd take a guess that this is approx 30-40ml). I really like this leave in conditioner, it does exactly what it says on the tin and smells gorgeous, I could actually still smell it the day after I washed it which never normally happens! It is great at detangling my hair making combing through a doddle. This could possibly replace my Aussie favourite.
OPI Nail Lacquer Turn on the Haute. Full Size 15ml Worth £11.95
This sparkly silver nail polish is perfect for those pamper sessions. I love spending a bit of me time painting my nails and this shade is perfect for the upcoming party season! OPI is a great brand too so this full size polish was very happily received this month! The other two colour options were A Grape Affair, which was a deep purple shade or Coca-Cola Red, all of the colours are part of OPI's limited edition Coca-Cola collection.
Lord & Berry Mini Bronzer in Sienna.
I really love the colour of this bronzer, I'm all for the matte shades and not a fan of too much glitter in my bronzer so I thought this was a win. My only quibble was the tiny size! It's quite hard to get the colour on my bronzer brush with such a small sample. I suppose Birchbox have done their job though, as I definitely want to purchase the full size product of this! This is £19 for 12g.
English laundry Signature for Her EDP Spray Sample.
Ok, so from the sound of this I thought it was going to be terrible, I mean, English laundry? It really doesn't sound like a perfume I'd opt for, but boy was I wrong! I love this perfume! It's much more floral and sweet than I was expecting with a musky undertone. This little sample is perfect for weekends away. It's slightly on the expensive side for perfume at £60 for 50ml, but do remember it's an Eau de Parfum and not Toilette. I'm sticking this one on the wish list for when my sample runs out. (Apologies for the out of focus picture, I really need a macro lens!)
Drinkwel Multivitamins
Finally onto the lifestyle addition to the box. I have to say this is usually the item I'm disappointed with. I would say my blog is as much lifestyle as is beauty so I'm not biased against products like this, I just never find them very exciting and can normally take or leave them. Not gonna lie, this falls into that category. These are basically vitamins for people who drink. Apparently they help your body recover from those gruelling drinking sessions. I love a good night out and to enjoy a drink but I really don't feel these would do anything for me. As long as I eat well and have plenty of water the day after a night out, I'm fine. You can buy these vitamins for £39.99 a bottle if you happen to be interested. Another option for subscribers this month was chocolate, think I'd have preferred this! Did you hear we're
running out of chocolate?!
Anyway, I'm quite happy with this month's Birchbox, two full sized items which I'll definitely use, a great leave in hair conditioner and the discovery of a (teeny tiny) bronzer I want to go out and buy! As I've said, I have never felt that I've wasted money on a Birchbox and the products you get are always worth well more than the £12.95 for the box and delivery. The two full sized items alone come to £43.95 this month!
As an added bonus, Birchbox give you rewards points, and if you complete surveys or refer friends you get points to spend on their full sized products! You get 12 points per month from simply subscribing (£1.20) and a further 5 points (50p) for every survey completed (£3 a month if you review each product), then you also get points if you buy products from their online shop!
With that said if you'd like to join up and use
this link we'll both get £5 worth of points to spend in the online shop... and I'll be on my way to a full sized Lord and Berry Bronzer! :)
What do you think of this month's Birchbox? Do you subscribe to any beauty subscription boxes?
