Review: May Birchbox

Last month (May) I received my first Birchbox. If you've followed any YouTube "beauty gurus" in the last year or two, you'll have heard of Birchbox or other similar subscription services (e.g. Glossybox, Beauty Army, She Says, Joliebox). The idea is that you pay some monthly fee to be sent a box filled with sample products ("deluxe" or full-sized samples) to try out, and usually some deal on shipping from the website for the full sized products that month. 


A Birchbox costs $10 a month (counting shipping), or $110 a year. You can stop your monthly subscription at any time, so if you only want one box you don't have to continue paying. I thought that $10 was a manageable amount to spend to pull me out of my cosmetics rut, so I ordered a single box. What follows is my unboxing (the above image is from the actual shipping box) and my thoughts on the box.

Box and exterior sleeve. This month was the Gossip Girl edition. I don't want the show, so I wasn't really excited and felt that this was a bad month to start a trial after I found out about the theme. 

This is the actual cardboard box. It's about 1.5"x5"x7", pretty sturdy. I could see myself using this for storage, but it is a little tricky to open (the lid fits on very snugly).

A blurb about the theme of the box (they accidentally stuck two cards in the box). I recieved the "Downtown Book Party" box, although I don't know what that means in relation to the show.

On the back of that card, a description of the products and the full-sized prices.

The products! I was so excited when I saw these-- I've been wanting to try a BB cream for a while (I don't like wearing liquid foundation and I just feel like a lightweight cream would be nice). And that is, in fact, a full sized Stila liquid eyeliner. 

Dr. Jart+ Water Fuse Beauty Balm. I'm a little skeptical about the one-color-fits-all thing, but I'll give it a shot. When I held the container up to the light, though, I laughed. The package is so large for so little product! I have no doubt that it does, in fact, contain 2mL of BB cream, but that container could easily hold 5mL.

 Stila Sparkle Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner in Curacao (this is a reference to the country in the southern Caribbean). Please excuse my nails-- I took off my polish halfway through taking these photos. I don't wear liquid eyeliner often because I'm picky about the shape and not all that great at application, but this is exactly what I needed to inspire me to try something new. 

Swatched. I'm a little green (fair and olive skin tone), but the upper line is after one pass and the lower is after building two or three swipes. It builds up beautifully, but it's not a very smooth formula-- as you would expect with a glitter liner. It's just something to note: this is not going to give you an incredibly smooth line. It does, however, wear pretty well. It doesn't run off when it's wet, and it stood up pretty well during my workout, but if you rub it it can flake but mostly will get glitter everywhere. 

The not-very-smooth line, as seen in my fancy-pants eye swatch. As with most colored liquid liners, I put a thin line of Urban Decay's 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner in perversion (black) at the very roots of my lashes to keep the color from overwhelming my eye (my eyelashes are still rather prononced). 

On a side note, I don't like this mascara very much (Maybelline's One by One Volume Express: I got it as a bonus at Ulta). I had it on from earlier because it's my lazy day mascara; I don't feel like I need to wear eyeliner with it because it doesn't do a whole lot. Additionally, I don't like to buy Maybelline (or L'Oreal, or Covergirl) products because the company tests on animals.

This is what I found when I opened the pink tissue paper!  

Karastase Cristalliste Lumiere Liquide (luminous liquid). It's a hair serum, which I'm not too excited about but will be nice for travelling. 

Kerastase Cristalliste Luminous Perfecting Shampoo and Luminous Perfecting Conditioner samples. I love these sorts of samples for the gym, so if I ever go back to hot yoga I can bring these to shower afterward (we'll see about that though, I'm sure my next trip to a bikram yoga studio will be followed by a rant). 

Color Club professional nail lacquer in Disco Nap. I think this is about half of the size of a normal nail polish, but that doesn't really bother me because I have a good amount of variety of polishes for someone who doesn't paint their nails very much (they get brittle and so most of the time I have to leave them alone). The swatch is after one coat (why are swatches ever done with more than one?). It seems like a pretty ordinary formula, but I like the color fine, and the polish dries very quickly. I have a similar color from Butter London (the Full Monty), but I could see myself travelling with this when I don't want to lose that extraordinarily expensive polish.  

And then there was this outdated contest, which I wouldn't have participated in anyway, so it doesn't really bother me.

 And it came with a black note card, which I promptly recycled, because I will never want to say "thank you" to someone with a card that says "XOXO" in a hot pink envelope.

Overall, I'm thrilled with this month's Birchbox and am very tempted to subscribe to next month's box as well. I've heard that some boxes are better than others, but I'm sure that for June they will have something appropriately summery. The problem is, I really don't need any more beauty products and am not sure if the excitement is worth the cost of the box and of new storage. I'll have to sit on it for a few days, but will let you know.