September Birchbox First Impressions

As far as Sundays go, sitting eating cherry pie and writing about beauty boxes isn’t a bad way to spend some time! And yes beauty boxes plural, because I have two new subscription boxes to try out and compare for you this month, along with my usual Glossybox!

First up, is Birchbox. My parcel arrived Friday evening and I took a quick peek at it, but as I’ve been really busy I’ve only sat down and had a proper look at it this afternoon. I have to say, I’m quite impressed!

Each month, the box has a theme to it and this month’s theme was Happy Days. Inside, I had a welcome flyer, as well as one which lists the products inside the box. The box itself is designed to be reused as a picture frame, by putting your favourite photos inside and attaching them to the wall. There’s instructions for this in a booklet I found tucked away at the bottom of the box.

The products are presented in this canvas draw string bag, which could easily be reused to put in a few items to take away on a holiday. I quite like that it’s in the bag, as it adds another layer to unwrap as you go through. The first thing that jumped out at me when I opened it up was the beauty blender! I’d been hoping I’d get one in my box!

Here’s all the products that were in my box! The first thing you’ve probably noticed is that they’re not all beauty items! This is because Birchbox actually markets itself as a beauty and lifestyle box. This month’s box came with 4 beauty samples, a full sized beauty product (I think) and 2 lifestyle items.

Agave Healing Oil Treatment

This is a 4ml sample, there are two sizes available for this, starting from £16 for a 60ml bottle. This is described as a lightweight oil to smooth hair, build resiliency and boost shine and colour. 4ml doesn’t seem like a big sample, but it says you only need a 5p sized amount for each use, so I might get a couple of used out of this. I’m not currently looking for a new hair treatment, as I love my argan oil, but I am happy to give this a go and see if it compares at all.

Benefit It’s Potent Eye Cream

Although I’ve seen Benefit’s skin care products on their counters, I’ve never tried them and I can’t think of seeing any reviews of it either. As you’d expect from Benefit, this is clearly a premium product! Even this little 3g sample comes in a little glass jar! I got given a small sachet of this when I got my brows done, but I haven’t tried it out yet, so I think it’s about time I gave this a go. This cream claims to banish dark circles and smooth fine lines, things I definitely need. A full sized jar is 14.2g and retails for £25.50

Premae Mild Dermabrasion Face & Body Scrub

This is marketed as a skin-loving body scrub containing olive granules, which is gentle enough to use on the face too. It’s not often you see a product recommended for both face and body, so I’m intruiged by this. I’ve not heard of the brand before, but the scrub smells okay. This is a 20ml sample, a 100ml tub retails for £25.

ModelCo Lip Laquer in Viva

This is a long-lasting lip gloss, providing colour, hydration and shine. First of all, I have to say that I love the colour! It’s a lovely nude pink, which is my go-to lip colour so I’m happy to have this little addition to my collection. The description on the Birchbox site calls its non-sticky, which I disagree with. It’s a gloss, of course it is sticky! It’s not the stickiest gloss I’ve ever tried though. But it does feel hydrating and has good pigmentation and shine. I’m not sure how much product is in this sample, but you can see from the picture that it’s quite little. A full sized 3ml gloss is £15.

Beauty Blender & Blender Cleanser

This I’m pretty sure is a full sized product, worth £26. From what a quick look online has shown, beauty blenders are available in two sizes – normal and micro mini – but the full sized one is pink and the mini is green. First thought upon seeing this was YES!, then wow that’s smaller than I thought it would be. Then I noticed the cleanser too which is great because I don’t have anything to clean my brushes or anything with at the moment. When soaked in water to use, these blenders are meant to expand a lot so I think that’s why it was so much smaller than I expected. Surprisingly, the blender smells of lavender. I don’t know why. However, I’ve seen many good reviews about this little sponge and I am really excited to give it a go. Plus its worth over twice what I paid for the box!

Urban Fruit Perfect Pineapple Snack Pack

This is the first of the lifestyle products. I’ve tried some Urban Fruit before, but not the pineapple. This is a 35g snack sized bag of dried pineapple, which doesn’t contain any added sugars, preservatives or anything else, like most dried fruit does. Therefore, this is a healthier alternative to many other dried fruits. As the pack suggests, I’ll probably take this into work with me to have at lunch. I love the packaging for this and if this is as good as the strawberries and mango ones I’ll probably like it! They sell a multipack of 6 in all the flavours I’ve mentioned for £13.20, so it’s not the cheapest option!

Happy Days Photo Clip

The final lifestyle product, is the purple photo clip at the bottom of the picture. My bedroom is purple which is a happy coincidence! I’ve used these clips in the past and found my photos curled up, but as I now have a polaroid camera (and many little snaps which are currently in a box with nowhere to live) I think I’ll put this to use with one of my instax shots. I’m hoping that the smaller and thicker picture will be sturdy enough not to curl as a normal photo has in the past.

That’s everything I received in this month’s Birchbox and I think you can see why I’m so impressed with it! I got 7 items in my box and its advertised a sample service, but I have a beauty blender with cleanser included too! I used a promo code to get my first box for just £10! Normally, a box is £10 per month plus £2.95 P+P. I’ve worked out that my box is worth around £46 which is great value for money! Obviously future boxes can’t always be this good, as the beauty blender has really boosted the value of this box, but I really can’t complain about that.

The code I used for my first box is still active, so you can get your first Birchbox for only £10.00 by entering NEW14 at checkout. Birchbox also operates a points based rewards system, so if you sign up using my unique link then we both receive £5 worth of rewards points, which can be used on their online shop! Click here to sign up, or use this link:

http://birchbox.co.uk/?raf=56142