Birchbox Revisited

One of the posts that gets the most views on here is my Birchbox vs. Ipsy post from last summer. Most of those hits come from Google. High SEO value there, I guess. I wrote that when I was getting pretty sour on Ipsy and excited to be going back to Birchbox. But lately BB has been kind of lackluster for me, so I thought I figured I write an update. I don't want to mislead anyone when I'm not quite so into it anymore.

Is it just that the honeymoon period is over? I don't think so. When I compare the first few boxes I got from Birchbox, like this one (I ended up really loving the No. 4 hair product) or this one, with what they're sending me now, the more recent boxes really do seem much less interesting. My profile says that I prefer makeup and nail polish over everything else, and that my style is "adventurous" and "trendy." (Maybe that's a lie, but I have enough "natural" and "classic" products in my hoard already. I want to try something new).

See what you think. Here are my boxes from January and February:

In January I took advantage of their new "pick your sample" option to choose a Tocca hand cream, which I was really looking forward to trying. Then my box went missing in the mail, and they sent me this as a replacement. Apparently the sample I had chosen was out of stock. This contains a strongly scented peppermint body lotion which is the kind of thing you'd find in a mid-range hotel. I mean that literally: the brand that makes this (Gilchrist & Soames) is all over hotels, and it's the kind of product you use out of desperation when you realize you didn't remember to bring a better lotion from home. There's an AHA mask, which I guess I will try out. They sent a black eyeliner, which is boring, but useful, I suppose, and at least it's full size. The bottle on the left is aloe face wash, which again is boring but will be used. And the tub at the bottom is some kind of "invisible daily tint" (how is a tint invisible???) with no eeeeeeeevil chemicals like silicone in it. It's absolute shit. It's too dark for me (as most samples of this type are), so it's certainly not invisible. Beside the color making it not invisible, it is streaky and  fucking chunky when you try to spread it on your face. Lovely! Give me all the silicone, please, if this is what natural gets you. In this entire box, there is nothing that interests me in the slightest, much less excites me.

Okay, so that was a replacement box, and maybe they had run out of all the good stuff at that point. But in February I got the box that was supposedly tailored to me, so it should be better, right? Check it out:

This time I chose the Marcelle eye makeup remover as my sample for some reason. I don't usually use eye makeup remover (I just use Cetaphil lotion), but it's a Canadian brand, and I've heard good things about it, so it sucked me in. At the left side of the box are shampoo and conditioner samples. Maybe not thrilling, but I was at least satisfied with the big bottle of shampoo, because I'm running low. This saves me from having to buy more for a week or two. In the middle: more Gilchrist and Soames - body wash this time. So cheap they couldn't even be bothered to put the tube together correctly so that the label would be centered. Then that tiny Benefit lip balm that is twisted all the way up in this photo. That's how muchactual product  is in that huge package. What a waste. It's barely tinted and smells like roses. Yawn. And a perfume sample. I do not like getting perfume samples, and I ticked the box in my profile asking them not to send me more than 6 per year. Unfortunately, I think that means per calendar year, and since I signed up for my year subscription in July, I could technically get one every single month I'm subscribed. So far there's only been one box without perfume. Not cool.

So does this box say makeup + nail polish + trendy + adventurous then? I guess lip balm is sort of like makeup, but is mostly-clear balm trendy or is it adventurous?

Birchbox is supposed to be a service that introduces me to new, exciting products so that I will buy them from their suppliers. They're not sending me exciting things, and they're not sending me things that fit my profile.

I don't know if choosing a sample is the problem. There are apparently limited box combinations, so if you choose a sample, you have to get one of the predetermined combinations that includes it. But I started choosing samples in the first place to ensure that I would get a least ONE thing in my box that I liked, because the previous couple of boxes had also been blah.

If I were paying the full $10 for each box, I would probably be even more frustrated. Luckily I signed up using that really good deal that appeared briefly last summer, so I'm making back most of the cost of each box through points. It's really the points system that still makes BB come out ahead of Ipsy. With a normal $10 a month subscription, you get $5 a month back in credits. And if you shop for things you would be buying anyway in the BB shop, you get more points, which are worth more than points you'd get from other stores, like Sephora, because you can shop with them.

Here's some of the stuff I've got using my credit over the last few months:

These are things that I just never could have afforded to try right now if I had to use real money. (Of all of them, I recommend the tea the most. Yum.) I did have a couple of referrals (thanks!), but the vast majority of the points were earned through the usual monthly reviews of products, and I used promo codes and sales to get good deals. To be honest, even if BB keeps womp-womping me with the boxes, I might stay subscribed after my year runs out, because of the points. But the conspiracy theory part of my brain wonders if they are sending me less interesting things, because I have already paid for a year, and they don't have to worry about enticing me to stay. That's impossible, right? It's all automated, right? And computers can't decide which beauty products are less exciting. Right??

So that is my current view of Birchbox. Boxes = meh. Points = yay! I just wish they would make some sort of effort to send me things that matched my profile. Wouldn't that be in their best interest? I can't remember the last time they sent me a sample of something that I actually wanted to buy from their store after trying it.

If you want to roll the dice and play the points game, here's my referral link. If you do decide to sign up, you should definitely google for a promo code that will get you 100 points when you do. There seem to be new ones every month. Maybe you can crack the secret to the perfect profile setup. Because telling them what you actually want apparently isn't the trick.

Birchbox vs. Ipsy

Disclosure: Affiliate/referral links.
I recently decided to cancel my Ipsy subscription, which I've had since 2012, when it was still called My Glam. Instead, I've decided to start getting Birchbox again. Because I am sure that this is as exciting a development for everyone else as it is for me (ha), I thought I'd write up a little post about why.

I really preferred Ipsy for a long time. When I quit Birchbox in January 2013, it was because I was getting fed up with getting tons of little foil packets of things and perfume vials all the time. It looks like the samples they are sending now are more interesting, and they also have an option to only get a maximum of 6 perfume samples a year. Nice! Another reason I quit Birchbox in favor of Ipsy at the time that I did was that I was really into makeup and not particularly interested in other things like skin or hair care products. Ipsy seemed to be much heavier on the makeup/nail polish, while I kept getting moisturizers I didn't want from BB ("I'm plenty moist already!"). These days, though, Ipsy has been including more non-makeup items, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm finding myself more interested in skin care than I used to be, and my skin has been getting drier, so I am even fine with moisturizer samples.

Ipsy was also great for me when I had a smaller makeup hoard, because it sort of forced me to try out products I might not have considered. Like I probably wouldn't have picked out a bright red lip gloss for myself at that point, but it turned out to work really well (and got me hooked). Plenty of those products were full sized, and so they really made up a useful part of my collection. I think it this point part of the problem is that I own so much shit that most of the makeup they send me is either going to be a duplicate of something I already have or something I am really, really not interested in. I am rarely getting unusual and unique products from Ipsy anymore - or at least that's how it feels. Instead, I'm getting more black eyeliner and mascara or neutral lip glosses from brands I am already familiar with, etc. This month's bag was kind of the last straw for me, because there was absolutely nothing of particular interest to me. The only full size product included was a cheap green apple scented lip balm that I probably would have turned my nose up at in middle school. I think it might have glitter in it. Fuck no. (Snob.)

Here are the other things I got this month in my Ipsy bag:

(GlamGlow YouthMud TingleExfoliate Treatment, Absolute You're the Balm, Urban Decay Pervesion mascara (you can buy this sample for $10 from Sephora), Lord & Berry eyeliner, Manna Kadar Sheer Glo highlighter)

In which I wear orange lipstick and don't look like a clown corpse

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
There were two truths that I once thought I knew about myself: I don't really like lipstick, and I can't wear orange makeup. I look okay in orange clothing, so I've always felt like I should be able to wear orange on my face, but it always goes horribly wrong somehow. Orange eyeshadow = fresh zombie. Orange blush = consumption victim. Orange lipstick = clown recently murdered by jealous competitor. I've given orange lip products that look dreadful on me to my sister, and she looks great in them - despite the fact that looking at us, you would think we had very similar coloring, and we've even been mistaken for twins (although I am 4 years older, haha, sucka). Even coral on the orange side has been a disaster.

I've eased up a bit on the lipstick hate lately, though I still prefer a stain or a gloss or a balm, etc. But I'm still not completely sure what compelled me to spend my precious Ipsy points (shout out to whomever used my invite link!) on an orange lipstick. In the photos and swatches that I found online, bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up looks pretty bright fucking orange. Exactly the kind of thing I've never been able to wear, and yet I ordered it. Morbid curiosity?

When I got it and opened up the tube . . . yeah, it still looks pretty fucking orange. An orangey coral, but definitely orangey. As I should have expected. Yikes.

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up

By the way, I find the locking mechanism on the tube somewhat annoying. I guess it would help to prevent it from coming open in your purse or whatever, but this way you have to flip it upside down, slide the little knob, then flip it back over and pull the lipstick out. It's 5 seconds, but it seems unnecessarily gimmicky. I'd prefer a regular lid that just clicks into place.

Since I already spoiled the end of this fascinating drama in the title of the post, I'll get to the results, where - surprise! - this lipstick actually doesn't look terrible on me.

bareMinerals Marvelous Moxie lipstick in Light It Up

When it's on my face, it looks like it has a lot more pink in it than it does in the bullet. Its definitely a coral shade, not a pure orange. Quite bright, and yet there's something about this one that does not turn the rest of my face the color of death! I don't know what it is. Needs more research.

The formula of the lipstick is pretty nice. It's creamy and goes on opaque. The best way to apply it is to put on one coat, blot the fuck out of it, and then add another coat. If you just do a single layer, it will show lines and dryness much worse. Two layers evens most of that out. Because it's very creamy, it will settle into lines slightly as time passes, but honestly, I am pretty damned picky about that sort of thing, and I don't think it's noticeable unless you look extremely closely. The creaminess also means that it will transfer easily. This is definitely not a long-wear lipstick, but nevertheless, the color lasts several hours (I'd say 5+ even if you drink a cup of coffee and eat a snack or something), and the creaminess means you can press your lips together and keep it spread around as the day goes on. It wears off pretty nicely, not patchy. Because of the texture, it feels great on my lips and isn't drying, which I appreciate. The lipstick has a light vanilla-mint scent, kind of like mint-flavored white chocolate, but it's very subtle and dissipates quickly.

If you got a POP Beauty lip gloss in a recent Ipsy bag, you should probably throw it away

There seems to have been some kind of problem with the ingredients used in manufacturing, and people have reported burning and redness after using their gloss. More info here, here, and here. I got one, and I didn't have a reaction to it. I threw it in a drawer somewhere, because I didn't like the color, but I'm going to dig it out and toss it. Not worth keeping around if the company doesn't even know what fucking ingredients were used to make it.

The quickest/laziest waves (in which I try out a hair tutorial from xoVain and it is actually useful)

Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.
I don't know why I sometimes feel compelled to read xoVain when it usually just fucking annoys me, but I do. A while back, however, I found something good there: a use for some of that "beach hair" spray, which had me pretty stumped (I got it as a sample from Ipsy), and the fastest and easiest way I've ever come across to add waves that will actually last to my normally stick-straight hair.

You can see the original article here, and my own version of it below as further illustration. I wanted to add to the information available on xoVain, because I think the article there doesn't emphasize some of the major advantages of this technique. But I also want to be clear that this isn't an original idea I came up with independently.

I've posted before about techniques for curls/waves that work for me. For whatever reason, the kind of hair that I have just does not respond to heat styling. I mean, okay, I can make it even straighter, but it rejects curling with heat, whether from a curling iron, hot rollers, or whatever. 20 minutes max after curling, it's straight again, regardless of temperature or product. So the best luck I've had in the past is with putting curlers in overnight. I still think doing it that way has the prettiest results, but this method from xoVain will also work when I want some extra texture in my hair, but I don't want to wash it and then wait 8 hours+. This takes half an hour tops, and most of that time you can spend doing something else.

So this method has the advantages of: (1) not requiring any heat; (2) not requiring wet hair; and (3) being really fucking simple and quick.

It does need a specific product, though, whereas you really don't need anything but water and some rags to curl your hair overnight. For this you need a surf/beach/salt spray. You can google recipes for making DIY versions, but I haven't tested any of those, so I can't tell you how well they work. The one I have is Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Renewal Beach Hair. I could not figure out what to do with this shit when I got it. The package says that you can just, "spray on to damp hair and let dry naturally or blow dry with a diffuser for all over texture." If by texture they mean making your hair feel somewhat rougher and crunchier than usual, then sure. But it didn't do anything else for me. It may be that to use it as instructed you have to have hair that is already prone to waviness or something.

But it works great for making waves with dry hair twisted into buns! It's not utterly pointless! (Also it smells like old school suntan lotion. Yum.) I can't think of another product that will work quite like this: dries/sets extremely quicky, not goopy or sticky, etc. All you do is spray it all over your dry hair, twist your hair into 2-3 buns, and wrap an elastic around each of them. Wait 15-20 minutes (maybe longer depending on how thick your hair is), and then finger comb the waves. I have photos of the steps below the cut. (I am not, in fact, naked in any of the photos. It's a beige cami, okay?)

Dupe update

Full-size bottles of Zoya nail polish are probably my favorite things to get in an Ipsy bag. A recently-released $9 nail polish in a $10 subscription (along with 4 other things)? Yes please. And Zoya is one of my favorite nail polish brands. This month, I got my third bottle from Ipsy. Fuck yeah!

Except remember how I recently bought Wet N Wild Bite the Bullet to quench my desire for Zoya Odette? Sure enough, Ipsy sent me a bottle of Odette this month. How could I have known? How could they have known?

Oh well, now I can do the comparison that I couldn't do a month ago. Check them out:

Wet N Wild Bite the Bullet and Zoya Odette.

Messy swatches of Wet N Wild Bite the Bullet on index and rings fingers,
and Zoya Odette on middle and pinky fingers.

That's two coats of each without topcoat. As you can see, they are really very close. Odette is a bit darker and maybe a touch browner. The formula/application is pretty much identical. The comparison between my index finger and middle finger above is the most accurate, since the flash seems to have washed out my ring finger a bit, for some reason. They're not exact dupes, but I think that if you are interested in one, you'll be happy with the other.

If you're interested in signing up for Ipsy and would like to use my invite link, that would be pretty cool of you. But you're still cool if you don't do it, I promise.

Ipsy has a new points system for earning free shit (plus: swatches of Zoya Giovanna)

Disclosure: This post contains referral links.

Zoya Giovanna, from my Glam Bag this month
(see more below).

Birchbox has had a system for a long time now where you could earn points a variety of ways, the easiest of which was to rate the products you got in your box. Those points can be used toward purchasing things from their shop. It was really the only thing I liked about Birchbox. I kept getting annoyed by the crap in my boxes, but I also earned enough to get a few free full-size products from the store.

I like the Ipsy Glam Bags much better Birchbox, since I prefer the larger sizes and the fact that there is more makeup than skin care. I got so many moisturizers from Birchbox. So many. I AM MOIST ENOUGH OK? (Though Ipsy's customer service could use some definite upgrading.)

Anyway, blah blah. My point is that Ipsy now has a points-earning system in place too. You earn 250 points for a referral, and 10 points for each review. Since you get 5 items per bag, you can earn 50 points per bag. When you collect 1000 points, you can redeem it for a free gift. Right now there are three to choose from: a Benefit mascara mini, some of those stupid hair ties, and the NYX Bronze Smokey Look kit. Obviously it's going to take a while to get to 1000 point at 50 point intervals, and it's not as good as Birchbox's deal, but hey, it's better than nothing.

30% off Butter London (polishes starting at $7)

Ipsy has a 30% off code for Butter London, single use: IPSYbl. Expires Oct. 31. That makes a bottle of polish just a little bit cheaper than the $10 ULTA offer on Butter London happening this Saturday, and there is no limit to the size of your order, and you have more time to decide. Also, these products are already on clearance, so you can get them for even cheaper ($7).

I don't think you have to be a subscriber to use the code, but if you want to sign up, you're welcome to use my invite link, and you might get a Butter London polish in your bag in the future. I didn't get one this time, though. Boo hoo.

So apparently Ipsy has kind of shit customer service this month . . .

Remember how I said I didn't know anything about their customer service?

A bunch of people didn't get their May bags yet, even though they got tracking numbers two weeks ago. The tracking numbers are invalid. They're not getting help via email, and there's no customer service number to call. On Facebook they say they are "experiencing a high number of emails" and to be patient, but really, over a week's response time when they have already charged people for the bag is not cool. They should stop expanding if they can't handle the business they already have.

Anyway, I wanted to update you on that. I'm not canceling my account or anything, but I think that's pretty shameful behavior on their part. I hope they sort it all out.

ipsy Glam Bag review ($10 beauty subscription)

ETA: For an update, check out this recent post comparing Ipsy and Birchbox.

I've been getting the Glam Bag from ipsy for 9 months now, so I feel pretty confident about making some sort of general judgements about its quality. (I pay for my subscription myself, just to be clear.) In the past, I tried Birchbox (which I subscribed to for about a year) and I tried BeautyBox5 for one month, and Glam Bag is by far my favorite. I haven't been disappointed. It's only $10, and you always get fun stuff.

It includes an average of five products per bag, and there is always makeup and/or nail polish, plus a few other things including skin and haircare products. Added up, what you get is definitely worth more than $10. There has been the occasional wtf-provoking product, but they are rare, and never anything silly like cardboard coasters or protein bars, which I got in Birchbox. I also appreciate that there are very few anti-aging creams - in fact, I don't think I've ever got one. I never use those. And perfume samples are rare.

This month's bag just out of the envelope.

[gallery]

Okay, “myglam” changed its name and sent me an email to tell me. I’ve heard Glam Bag is awesome, but I haven’t got my first one yet.

But no. Fuck no. Some people actually know Latin, people - you can’t just make shit up like that.