February’s Birchbox and MyGlam beauty product reviews

Posted on February 23, 2012 by admin

This month was kind of a double-feature. I got my usual Birchbox, but it was also my first month getting a MyGlam bag. MyGlam is a service that is very similar to Birchbox: you fill out a beauty profile and for $10/month, they send you an assortment of products to sample.

Birchbox

The moisturizer in this month’s box was really nice. It makes your face feel baby soft and smooth as well as smells very lightly and refreshingly of berries.

My only qualm with the make up remover wipes that came in the box is that I really had to scrub to get my Blinc mascara off (but I think that has more to do with the mascara than the quality or the strength of the make up remover). It cleaned off all of my make up and left my face feeling clean and refreshed. I will probably pick up a container of these (only $9 for a pack)

Now for the part that was kind of a disappointment… I haven’t tried the eyeliner tatto-things. They’re kinda weird to me. I don’t do the whole fake eyelash thing so I have no experience gluing/sticking stuff to the area around my eyes nor do I really wear eyeliner. So the product is just kind of wasted on me. And the mineral foundation in the box? They said that it was for light/fair skin, but it left me looking like Snooki.

MyGlam

We got a $100 gift certificate in the bag for NuMe hair extensions or hair styling device. I think I may pick up a curling iron since I have a new hair dryer/hair straightener and have never really using a curling iron.

The Nyx body/eye/whatever roll-on glitter is actually kind of pretty. I received the gold one in my bag and an equal amount of color and glitter showed up (which is nice, since my experience with these types of products is that my entire face becomes covered in glitter instead of just the part where I applied it). On the first try, I used an eyelid primer before putting on the color and the result was getting a very bold bronze color on my lid. On the second, I tried it without the primer and it was a more subtle (but still noticeable) bronze/gold color. If you end up putting on too much, it’s really easy to blend/lighten with a brush.

The X-Out shine control moisturizer was easily my favorite in this month’s bag. I usually have pretty oily skin (especially across the forehead) and this moisturizer did a great job getting rid of the shine without completely drying out my face (it’s still a little dry, but using a little bit of oil-free moisturizer afterwards helped with that). I will most likely buy this product on my own.

It also came with two face masks (Freeman’s Goji Berry moisturizing masks and Cinderella Mask by Dead Sea Premier), but I haven’t gotten around to trying them yet, so I really cannot speak to their quality/effectiveness.

November Birchbox Review

Posted on December 2, 2011 by admin

I’m a little late with this review mostly because it took me a while to try all of the products (that and I was a little to lazy to write a review about all of this stuff. November was full of “Nah, you can always write later” moments). So, without further ado, here is what I got in this month’s Birchbox.

Going from left to right: ChocoPod chocolate, LaROCCA Champagne and Shimmer Acai Sugar Polish, Zoya nail polish in Noel), Klorane soothing eye makeup remover, and Oscar Blandi Jasmine Protein Mist.

The chocolate was…weird. It started off as dark chocolate. Then it had a faintly salty taste (which was fine), but then it turned spicy (it has chipotle in it). And on top of all that mess, it had pop rocks in it. Pop rocks, y’all. There was just way too much going on in this for me to like it. If it had the salt to chipotle, that’s fine. Dark chocolate and pop rocks? Cool. But all three? It was like a fail orgy in my mouth (sorry for that, mom). The shimmer was nice and got rid of the dry patches of skin on my elbows, knees and helped the heels of my feet a little bit. But it retails for $35. Not really worth it, in my opinion. I got a similar (if not slightly better) result from a Neutrogena scrub Kita let me try out. And the Neutrogena one costs $30 less. Jes’ sayin’. The Zoya nail polish was a really pretty color, didn’t chip (which is an issue for me sometimes), was easy to remove (not always the case with nail polishes), and my nails felt soft (almost conditioned) after removal. A+, would buy again. Similar to the LaROCCA shimmer, the Klorane Soothing Eye Makeup Remover was ok, but I can find similar (if not better) products at the drug store, but cheaper. The Protein Mist is something I will definitely be picking up regularly (once I’ve completely used the sample). It makes straightening my hair a lot easier (cuts down the amount of time it takes to straighten it) as well as makes it feel soft after the straightening. Which is awesome, because straightening my hair every day tends to leave it feeling dry and look like straw.

tl;dr? The protein mist and Zoya nail polish are worth buying. Everything else was meh or can be found cheaper at a drug store.

Shameless begging for free points: If you are interested, pretty please use my refer-a-friend link? Thanks!

Review: October’s Birchbox

Posted on October 18, 2011 by admin

I know that I’ve spoken about Birchbox a few times before (mostly tweeting about it excitedly when they arrive), but I think I will also do little posts on it as well. Just to give people a better idea of what it is and what kind of stuff you can get with it (also to shamelessly plug it since I love it). I signed up for it in August after finally using the refer-a-friend link that Nikita sent me, got my first box at the beginning of September and am now hopelessly addicted.

Anyways! Going from left to right I got: AHAVA mineral foot cream, blinc mascara, a lash card, Ouidad Climate control heat and humidity gel, and Pangea Organics facial scrub.

Not all of the products I get I end up using, but it’s $10/month. If I end up using even one of these items every day, I consider it worth the money since they’re usually higher-quality items.

The foot cream is just that, foot cream. I don’t really use it because I dislike looking at/touching my feet. I’ll just go get a pedicure once in a while and call it good. The blinc mascara is by far my favorite item this month. It puts little tubes around all of your eyelashes and doesn’t come off or smudge at all! It stays nice and clean-looking throughout the day until I wash it and apply pressure (just pressure or just water isn’t enough to get this stuff off, which is pretty spiffy). The lash card, in my opinion would be good for younger girls just starting to use mascara or for those of us who have a mascara we love, but that makes your eyelashes clump together. Otherwise, it’s kind of useless and a waste (the cards are supposed to be one-time use things before tossing them). I can’t really comment on the Heat and Humidity Gel yet because I’ve only used it once and am not sure if it doesn’t work or if I applied it wrong. I will give it another try in a few days, though. The facial scrub is also pretty awesome. It has a lemon-y clean scent and you can feel that your face is lighter/cleaner.

All in all, I think will be picking up full-size versions of only the mascara and the facial scrub. The others will probably just go into my (now) ever-growing collection of forgotten beauty products.

Shameless begging for free points: If you are interested, pretty please use my refer-a-friend link? Thanks!