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I’m in love with all things hair, makeup, fashion and beauty. On this blog you can find anything from reviews on lipstick to supplements, as well as recipes alongside tips to protect your hair this summer! I’m your average girl. I get break outs, I have dry skin, and I like looking and feeling good. I hope I can help you by sharing what I love! If you have any questions let me know by filling out the form on the right hand side of the page!

Beauty Subscription Boxes

There are like a million beauty subscription boxes out there right now. I wrote a post a while ago comparing Ipsy and Birchbox to one another, however since then I have had subscriptions to beauty Box 5, Beauty Con Box, the Allure subscription box and Boxy Charm. There are more coming out every day I swear! Even Walmart has their own beauty box now! Most people like the fun of getting surprise products every month, but they also want a good deal. Beauty Boxes can introduce you to products you wouldn’t have tried otherwise and help you find your new favorite beauty must haves! I wanted to give my personal opinion on all of them! I have had at least 3 boxes from each of these brands now and I am canceling my subscription to all but one today! Find out which I am keeping at the end of the article.

This is one of the boxes I actually got

 Beauty Box 5
This was easily my least favorite box. I tried this one about a year ago, so since then it may have evolved. The company certainly advertises high end products now, however when I got the box I got a lot of cheap stuff. In my 3 months of subscribing I never got one high end brand. I got a few Sally Hansen Nail Polishes, some nail files, I got a chapstick brand lip balm in one of them. I think it is safe to say that the quality of the items I received were not up to snuff. Plus there was no

A box that they advertise

customization and the packaging was ultra cheap. Since then this box has gone up in price and advertises differently, so I am not 100% sure if they have stepped it up, however the reviews remain disparaging. After looking at some more recent unboxing videos it does look like their items have stepped up. They have several similar items to Ipsy, but Ipsy is $10 a month while the beauty box 5 is now $12.

Birch Box
Birchbox is one of the first beauty subscription boxes ever. You get a combination of high end and low end products. You can customize your Birchbox by telling them what kind of lifestyle you live as well as rating products you have received. Birchbox gets big points from me for having a really awesome rewards points system and great customer service. I personally prefer to get makeup in my subscription boxes, it is just more fun. Birchbox gives you are lot of fragrance (which is my least favorite to get personally) compared to all the boxes, and it also gives you hair and skin care often. I get that, because skin and hair care are usually universal, however I wish I got more of what I wanted. I also got a lot of nail polish, which I don’t personally love. However it is only $10 a box so even after I stopped being obsessed with it, I kept it for a while because it was fun and cheap. But if you want a box with a lot of polish and fragrance, skin and hair care and a cosmetic every so often this is your box!

Beautycon Box

This box is my least favorite for sure. It is the most expensive box of them all at $35. A new Beautycon Box is created once every season instead of every month. Each box is curated by beauty professional or celebrity (like Bunny/Grav3Yard Girl, or Kandee Johnson) and is valued at over $150. These boxes have more than 8 products, where the other boxes never have more than 6 items. All of the other boxes have a lot of “deluxe sized” items (which is code for travel or miniature sized), with the occasional full sized item. This box had a lot of full sized items. However the other boxes have a lot of high end and indie brands. I was bummed to see a Neutrogena eye make remover, Benzac Acne treatment and an Olay moisturizer as full sized products in one of my recent boxes. All of those were in the same box and they are all cheap Walmart brands that contain ingredients I don’t love. I may use the Makeup remover because I wash my face after using it, but the others I will get rid of. I felt like I had a lot of drugstore full sized products that Kandee Johnson would never really use (despite her being the supposed curator of the box). I also get a lot of NYX from Beauty Con, and while Nyx is a fun brand, it is a cheap one too. In the end I realize I got a lot of high end products throughout ALL the boxes but each individual box had more low end product than high end items. After I got each box I would look at it individually and I ask myself “If you saw these bundled together at ULTA for $35 would you buy it?” My answer was always no, because there were to many things I will never use. However Beautycon’s Box has one redeeming grace and that is that once the box has released you can usually get it for at least one month, and as soon as you order it they ship it. So you can unsubscribe from the box and then every season wait one week after the release and then you can go online and see some people unboxing theirs and decide if the products in the box are worth the money to you. If they are you can go and resubscribe, snag your box and then quit again.

Boxy Charm

So one of the things that really sets Boxy Charm apart is the box has only full sized products in it! No foil samples or “deluxe sizes” or anything like that! They also only do high end items. Sometimes I get things that are a little weird, like once I got a hand cream, but it was like a $30 hand cream and it is amazing! This one is more expensive ringing in at $25 a box after shipping and it is monthly. This box has no customization, what you get is semi-random but everyone gets the same things for the most part. That is the feature that bothers me most. It’s a $25 box and I can’t even tell them I would prefer not to get nail polish or fragrance? I found there is at least 2 items in every boxy charm that are complete throw away for me. However my first Ofra Liquid Lipstick was from Boxy Charm and it is easily my favorite liquid lipstick brand on the market right now. But you get A LOT of nail polish and fragrance from Boxy Charm (at least once per month). In the end I am canceling this one because I suppose I feel like when I get a bummer box that doesn’t have a lot of stuff I love in it, it is such a waste of money! I mean $25 is FIVE Little Caesars Pizza’s! I have had a few “So Worth It!” boxes, but several boxes with a lot of throw away products I have never touched! If it had any customization factor, I would probably keep it.


The Allure Box
This one was on par with Boxy Charm for me. I will say I got some really high end stuff in this box! Some really kind of kitschy levels of fun stuff like a caviar infused eye serum. However the products in this box are not full sized, and you are not guaranteed high end products. If I had to choose between the Allure Subscription or Boxy Charm I would choose Boxy Charm for sure. They are also both about the same price point.

Ipsy
This one is my favorite. This choice is controversial, I have met people who agree with me and those who do not, however let me explain my reasoning. I like that I get a makeup bag with every month! It is just fun okay!? And I have given them to my nieces or used them when I give someone a few polishes as a gift, so they are also useful! Second, usually get smaller, sample or deluxe sized products in your ipsy. I would say once a month is the average amount that I get a full sized item. However I end up not using some items so I don’t care if they are small or full sized, and frankly who needs 5 new beauty products a month? This kind of subscription thing is for beauty junkies and makeup hoarders, so do any of us really need any of this? If this new incredible moisturizer or hair spray is only a travel, as much as I would love it to be a full sized product it is okay, because I have like 12 hairsprays and 2 full moisturizers in my bathroom. Plus I am getting 5 more next month!

I do get a lot of NYX items from Ipsy and you are not guaranteed high end items with this subscription either, however it is $10! As I mentioned earlier with birch box, I like this one because it is cheap and fun. On months where I don’t like anything in the box I might be bummed but it was just $10. When I have a month like that with Boxy Charm I am upset that I just wasted $25! One big bummer for me with Ipsy is that the rewards system is pretty lame, like way lame. But they are super great with the whole customization thing. You do have to go online to review your products every month (which racks up points) but after like 4 months I usually got products I loved! I rarely got fragrance or nail polish and they were sending me products in shades I like. When you sign up you do a personality quiz that really helps them decide if you should have more skincare or more makeup in your bag and then if the makeup you do get should be fun shades (blues and purples) or neutrals. The big differentiation between ipsy and birch box, is birch box has the better rewards program. Ipsy has the makeup bags every month AND they have more makeup than birch box. After being off Ipsy for a year I am starting up again! I miss it and I am ready to break up with expensive boxes! You can try Ipsy for yourself here! 

What do you think? What have you tried? What did you like? Tell me in the comments below <3

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