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I signed up for a new (to me) beauty subscription service called Choix a couple of months ago, so I thought I would post a review. This is a subscription that allows you to choose five high-end products a month, and they create small samples of them for you. ETA: OUT OF BUSINESS.
I bought my subscription kind of impulsively, but while I was briefly researching the service, I didn't find a lot of reviews from people who hadn't been given the boxes by the company. Most of the time I think reasonable people can give objective reviews of products they received for free, but in this case, when considering whether or not the service is worth the cost, I think it makes a difference if you're paying for it yourself. Up front, I will say that for me it's worth $10 a month, because I bought a discounted annual subscription for $120. But $20 a month, the regular price, would be too much (ETA: see note below on price). Nevertheless, I can see why Choix might cost more than other subscription boxes like Birchbox or Ipsy, even though the sample sizes are fairly small. Instead of getting most of the products for free from the brands and then just sticking them in a box, Choix is (I assume) buying products to sample, and then there is the equipment and packaging costs required to create the samples, as well as the labor involved.
ETA: The price has been lowered permanently to $15 a month.
I suspect most people will either think that it's ridiculous to pay money for small samples of products, many of which you could get for free at Sephora or a department store, or will think it's a brilliant idea. Either that or you will be like me and start out with the first view and eventually move closer to the second. In fact, a lot of the products you can request couldn't easily be taken home as samples from stores, like the powder products, for instance. In addition, you may live far from a mall and not have much opportunity to even swatch products on a regular basis (like me). Of course, you can only try out the actual product--you won't get a sense of the packaging from these samples. That is totally fine with me, because I prefer to avoid being seduced by a pretty tube or compact. It makes it easier to filter out the bullshit--I
don't care much about my makeup being luxurious. I want it to be functional. Another part of the appeal for me, due to my bizarre interests, I suppose, is to be able to compare high-end stuff with my usual products, which tend to be drugstore or mid-end (that's not a word!). Both to avoid buying dupes, and also just because I'm curious.
The range of brands available from Choix is a bit limited now (you can see the list
on their site under "Shop"). The majority are designer brands--i.e. makeup branded with the name of a fashion house or designer, but there are some others like Nars, Hourglass, Bobbi Brown, Laura Mercier, and Benefit. I hope they will eventually add more brands that I would put in the same category as Benefit, like Urban Decay, Tarte, or Too Faced.
Here's what the shipping box looks like when you first open it:
And here at the contents of my April box:
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| The bits of white fuzz come from the packing material. They are impossible to remove for a pretty picture, but they don't get into the products. |
For the first month I chose
Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer in Chantilly, Nars blush in Orgasm, Nars Audacious Lipstick in Audrey,
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Diffused Light, and
Guerlain Meteorites Pears in 2 Clair. Not a lot of variety really--three Nars products and two finishing powders--but these are things I've been curious about for a while.
(I'll add a cut here, because this is going to be a long post. I'm going to review the subscription as a concept as well as (briefly) the individual products from my first two boxes. Lots of photos!)
