Our November GlossyBox focuses an awful lot this time on the make up side of things, with four of the five items in the box being… yep, make up items. It’s a great little set to make yourself look pretty over winter whether you’re going somewhere, or just want to doll yourself up anyway! While I personally like the even mix of items in each of these monthly boxes, this is still a really nice, affordable box.

This is also the first month GlossyBox tried out letting us Glossies pick one of the products (or at least the shade of one of the products) before the boxes were sent out. It worked for me and I got my chosen shade, and I think this could be a great way to add more variety to the products, as I sensibly suspect we don’t get things like foundations because of colour picking. But maybe that’ll change?

The first item I’m going talk about is the ‘pick your shade product’ in question, and it’s Revlon’s Super Lustrous Lipstick. There were four shades to choose from, if I remember rightly the choices were; a nude, a pink, a red, or a dark red. Since I actually have quite a few red, pink, and coral shades of lip wear I thought I’d go bold and pick ‘477 – Cherry Red.’ This is a full size lipstick weighing in at 4.2 g, in a traditional twist up tube with a clear plastic top, and it costs £7.99. It has a really nice, creamy formula – thanks to being enriched with vitamin e and avocado oil – so you’re not only getting pretty colour, but these are going to moisturise the lips too. Great for winter! The lippy itself can actually be worn really shear, or as a more full on application, and another thing that’s made me really glad I picked it, is that I can blend this with other lip products to make more colours, or to do some real fancy lip contouring. Oh yeah.

Next up is the MUA (Make Up Academy) ‘Undressed’ Palette. Most people consider this a passable dupe for the Urban Decay Naked Palette (the first) – though I don’t actually own one of those to tell you outright. I do, however, have a few MUA palettes already, and they’re very nice, very affordable palettes – they’re really good for the money you’re paying specifically. In this full size palette you get 12 shades, with a total combined weight of 9.6 g, so assume 0.8 g per pan of colour there. This palette is valued at £4. So, you get some really light nudes and browns, different metallic tones, and some darker shades. Most of the colours are shimmery, with a few mattes – which is fine by me, as I love those shimmery ones. It’s a very user friendly palette, you can use most of these shades on their own for simple looks, and they all work together really well for some more dramatic ones. The only real downside I think you could say with these palettes is there aren’t that many different looks you can do – a lot of the shades are a bit samey, baring maybe the last two – but then if you love these tones on your eyes, who cares, right?

I also did some quick swatches here so you can see what you get, and it shows which are matte (fawn and Hazel) and which aren’t. ‘Fuel’ on the almost furthest right is a matte black powder with little bits of glitter in it, rather than a straight matte shade or a shimmery shade.

Next up is our first travel or deluxe sample size item, and it’s the Emite Diamond Heart Primer, which is a brand we’ve had before. This is a cute little 15 ml tube of quite warm toned primer, the full size is valued at £29.90, however, I couldn’t reliably find out what the ml measurement is for the full size item to break down that price. Diamond Heart does refer to the shade – this primer comes in two shades, and this is actually the darker of the two annoyingly, as I would have prefered the lighter one. However, it is a very nice, light formula, and I can use just a little on my face along side moisturising and it blends right in. As such it does only really give a light priming feel – my skin does feel nice, soft, smooth, and matte after using this, but I don’t think it really offers any sort of coverage, beyond perhaps a tiny bit of colour correcting. It is nice enough, but like the blush/bronzer fiasco last time from Emite it’s just not the right shade – because one shade does not suit all, obviously.

The second travel size/deluxe sample is from Royal Apothic, another repeat brand for me, and it’s their Cutting Garden Cream Creme Body Lotion. This is a little metal tube of rich body lotion that is made with milk proteins and lactic acid to smooth, soften and hydrate without a greasy feel. And it does do all of those things – it’s a nice rich cream that smooths onto the skin well and leaves it feeling lovely, and has a nice ‘beauty product’ type smell. I would say that compared to the lip butter we received previously this is less exciting (it had cuter packaging and smelled amazing), but it is really lovely. This little travel size is 35 g, and is valued at $14 on their own websites (not the £14.50 the GB card states) which translates as around £9.37. I personally don’t buy moisturisers at this price point however – I prefer to spend around £10 and get a decent 200-400 ml, so I don’t think it’s for me.

And last up in the box is a full size set of Eylure false eyelashes in the variety ‘Naturalites’ – these are a very pretty, natural looking pair – though not too natural looking to be not worth wearing. They come with the usual latex based lash adhesive, and some instructions. I haven’t used these yet, but I have used Eylure before, and they’re very nice, straight forward lashes that are readily available to buy. Like with most things putting on lashes takes practice to get right, and I usually find the important thing for me is to trim them down a little, as they’re usually too long, and they’ll either not stick on at the end or come off after a little while without a little trim. One of the neat things you can do is re-use that little trimming either stacked over the lashes or on their own at the outer end of the natural lashes. These are worth £5, and while you can get cheaper, they’re really nice quality, affordable enough anyway, and can be reused if cleaned.

So, that’s it for this month’s box – a really nice, affordable collection of make up items and some high end travel sized items. I like that they’ve put in a whole palette, though obviously if MUA isn’t a brand you like, you won’t feel this way. The total box value is £26.36 without counting the primer, as I don’t have a good price for it. And while this is a pretty low value box compared to others, I still actually really like this box and will use up all the items, as the content matters just as much as the pound value.

I’m really looking forward to the December box, it’s going to be a Limited Edition Rose Gold box, with six items instead of five. Yay!

Until Next Time.

Our first autumnal box of the year is here, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a very high value box – the highest, in fact, that I’ve ever had over the 16 months I’ve now had a GlossyBox subscription. This box has a nice set of five full size items with some pampering products, an accessory, a brush, and some interesting new colours for our autumn make-up.

First off is the Bellapierre Shimmer Powder in the shade ‘Whesek’ – this is a cute, ‘loose foundation’ style container with small holes to tip and tap the product out of. It’s a shimmery silver with hints of greys, blues, and whites, and at 2.35 g in weight it’s valued at £12.99. We’ve had some Bellapierre before – in the form of a popping red lipstick, and a nifty multi use lip & cheek stain – and we’re getting what I’ve come to expect from the brand, a really nice, easy to use product with good colour pay off. You really only need a little to get a vibrant colour. Wear wise, since this is a loose powder it does have fallout i.e. the powder drops all over yoh face as you apply it, but it’s not the worse I’ve seen and you do pretty much expect it from this type of product. You can very easily apply it wet – either getting the product on the brush and then wetting the brush, or tipping some powder into the lid and spraying it in the lid, which is how I tend to prefer doing it if I can. Applying it wet removes the fallout problem entirely, and makes for a very different look. Either way it’s a really lovely eyeshadow/shimmer powder – more expensive for sure than a high street single eyeshadow, but it has a bold colour, it lasts well, and is pretty versatile.

Next up is the Marsk Eyeshadow Brush Pro. It’s a nice, pencil sized eye shadow brush, with a smooth, well made feel, and soft, dense, firm bristles in a packed together, rounded tip that’s great for carefully applying shadows, and can be used for blending – though other brushes are better for that job. Tip to end it measures about 14.5 cm, and the bristles measure about 1.5 cm long. It’s valued at £16.70. We’ve had some Marsk before – a nice single eyeshadow pot, similar to the shimmer powder above – and it’s a nice, premium brand. It’s probably not something I’d buy myself, but it’s solid brush that I will use.

The third item in our box, and this is the lovely pampering one – Maria Nila’s Luminous Colour Hair Masque. It’s another Swedish brand like we’ve seen featured in the last few month’s boxes, and it’s really neat to see these new brands and products in the box – they’re pretty exciting. So, this is a large twist lid tub with a plastic seal inside – full of genuinely lovely hair masque. You get 250 ml, which is a fair amount, and it feels heavy – it’s valued at £18.95, making it the highest value item in this box. It’s a really thick, cream consistency masque with a sweet smell which you’re directed to apply to towel dried hair for anything from three to ten minutes depending on how much pampering you need, after shampooing but before conditioning. And of course like most hair products you’re definitely recommended to use them with the rest in the series. It does really feel good, both as you’re using it, and after – my hair and scalp (’cause I can never be bothered with the whole ‘don’t get conditioning type stuff on the scalp thing’ – I just get it on and rub it through) feel nice and pampered, my scalp doesn’t feel dry, my hair feels really nice and soft. It is a bit of a pricier hair masque, but does seem to really work, so if you were looking for a bit of premium pampering I would recommend this – it’s pretty much my favourite item in this box (in close competition with the Nails Inc Polish), I have short enough hair that this large tub is going to last a good while, so I can see the long term effects, and probably talk about that in whatever empties it ends up in – but so far it’s been a much better experience than the August 2014’s Elasticizer – which wasn’t suitable at all for my fine hair.

Our accessory in this box is a set of Invisibobbles – these are described as traceless hair rings, which you can wear without damaging the hair, pulling at the scalp, or splitting ends but they still hold well. The traceless part I’m a bit confused by – I think it means you can wear it without it showing, but my hair is pretty much too small/too short/too fine to wear it like this, and I have to double wrap them anyway. It’s a shame I’ve gotten something that’s a bit unsuitable to use now that I’ve had all of my hair cut off, but I can see how it would work – it’s a squishy, flexible, telephone cord like material with no metals bits, or sharp, single edge to grip the hair – so these could be good to use if you have the hair for it. I can’t really tell you definitively since I can’t really use them but I will keep them to use when my hair grows out. You get three in a box, they seem pretty hard wearing, and are valued at £4.

Lastly, is the Nails Inc Nail Polish in the shade ‘Battersea Park’ – this month was a coin toss between getting this shade, a kind of grey/green Khaki, or a blush pink colour. I’m pretty glad I got the more interesting colour here, I have a lot of pink and red shade nail polishes already from GlossyBox so it is nice to get something more unusual and more seasonal – it’s a cool, bold, autumn colour. And again, it’s what you can expect from the trusted brand – it’s a rich colour that applies well, and dries fast, staying nice and shiny afterwards, and wearing well. You could get away with a single coat for day to day wear – since most people don’t really look that closely at nails – with the colour being so richly pigmented. With two coats you’re totes ‘Instagram close up of my nails’ ready. You get 10 ml, and it’s worth £11, both of which are the usual deal with Nails Inc – I really like the colour, and I’ve already worn it a few times so I’m pretty happy with this. I’d definitely consider buying it for reals.

So, that’s the whole box; five items with one brush, one eyeshadow, a hair masque, a set of hair bobbles, and a nail polish. In total the box was worth £63.64 – making this the highest value box ever, over taking October 2014 (so nearly a year’s previous) box value which was around £60. I really like this box, and all the stuff in it – though yeah, some of it is more useful than others – but it really is worth way more than the monthly cost of the subscription.

We also have a sneak peak for the October 2015 box, our second autumn box – and it’s full size day cream from a luxury French brand – I’m looking forward to this since our French box we had in July has some really lovely skincare things. Until Next Time.

August is sadly over, and while we haven’t had that sunny or indeed summery a summer this year, it still feels like summer ends when August does. On the one hand I love the fall and winter for all the dark colours and winter clothes I can wear, but summer has it’s good points too, right? Anyway – here’s the last summer GlossyBox of the year, the August 2015 UK box. This one is just a regular pink box, with five items inside and you can see my un-boxing here.

It’s a nice understated box, with a high value and some nice items. The cards list it as having four full size items, but really it’s five, the fifth item has the same amount of product, but cheaper packaging, compared to the version you’d buy in-store. I think this totes counts, as we’re really here to try these things out – and more product means you can try it for longer and really see what it’s like (and it’s better for the box value).

First is MeMeMe’s LipGlide in the shade ‘Playful Peach’. This is another neat, pencil format, easy to use product (like the blue eyeshadow pencil received previously in May) this time for the lips, and in a relatively neutral coral shade. It has a creamy matte finish, and it’s about what you’d expect size wise from a lipstick pencil – it’s big enough that you get plenty compared to a lipstick but not so big you can’t carry it around easily. Like other chubby style lip pencils I have it’s not as dry as wearing just a traditional lip pencil or as wet and movable as a traditional lipstick (so you don’t have to blot, set, repeat apply if you want it to last) – I really like these pencils because of this happy medium. It does smell a bit like a crayon if that sort of thing bothers you, but I don’t mind it personally. And like with other MeMeMe items it’s really good value for money at just £6.95 – I’ll definitely be tempted to buy more in another colour, and it’s really nice to try this brand in GlossyBox since it’s an online only store.

Next up is the Manna Kadar Lash Primer – a US brand which is a new type of product for me – it conditions and primes the lashes, and can be worn under mascara. I’ve taken the value of this item as £15.3, rather than the £14.55 listed on the card by converting the US price of $24, but currency rates change over time. You get 4 g in this little tube, which is smaller than your average mascara, but still a nice size. The ingredients it lists are going to be good for your eyelashes, but I’m not really sure if it makes mascara look better with it used alongside it, it just looks different. The lashes are perhaps a touch thicker because they’re already coated with something, but I think they can easily start to look clumpy – so the lash enhancing aspect works much the same way using multiple coats of mascara does. The white colour doesn’t fade right away in my experience but you can put mascara over it pretty much straight away. The other advantage it may have over simply using one product multiple times is the wax in the ingredients, as it could set the shape of your lashes in the same way a waterproof mascara will (the wax in waterproof mascara is what waterproofs it as well). But I can easily see giving lash primers a miss, especially since you can get conditioning mascaras anyway for less money (Sleek Makeup’s I’m Conditional Mascara at only £7.99). You can see some ‘in action’ shots of the Manna Kadar primer below and decide if it’s better or worse for yourself.

The third item in my box is the Emite Artist Colour Powder Blush in the shade ‘108’ – this is a Swedish brand and it’s a lovely big pan (10 g) of soft, smooth powder that is mostly matte, but does have some tiny sparkle in it – it would be a great find – if the colour was for me. The idea behind this from GlossyBox is to use it as a Blush/Bronzer hybrid, and it kind of works. It’s still probably a bit too dark for pale people – you can use it super sparingly but it’s very easy to use too much, and I think it looks almost bruise coloured on me when I do. I have seen some suggestions to use it as an eye colour, which I might try, otherwise it seems a shame that it’s such a big pan that won’t be used up before it expires. Again this is another one where the value changes with price conversion rates, the web price for this is 200 SEK or Swedish Krona, which converts to £15.20 – very different from the cards listed £20.59. Either way it’s a little pricey to justify a repurchase for me, when I tend to be quite light with blush.

Next is the Naobay Calming Face Toner – a Spanish certified eco-brand with cute, fuss free packaging that we’ve had before on GlossyBox (March 2015’s box) – like everything else it’s full size at 200 ml and is worth £10.65. It’s ingredients are 99.13% natural and 12.16% organic – so it’s all about trying to put more things on your face that are good for it, and for the environment. This is a really simple toner which has a light smell, like apple juice, and contains calming ingredients such as camomile. It is a nice toner – cleaning the skin gently while not leaving a residue and I will use it all up, since I actually use toner – but it is more money than I would pay for a toner, and there are cheaper similar (and also eco friendly) products available.

Finally, we have our fifth item, and this is the one that is full size at 100 ml, but comes in cheaper open top bottle – at retails it comes with a pump. It’s the SASS Purifying Cleanser – our third repeat brand this box (we first had SASS in May), and yep – it’s the stuff you put on your vagina. This time it’s a simple intimate wash to use when you bathe regularly. This stuff is interesting, certainly. It has a creamy consistency, and a clear sort of pearly look. My skin felt tingly when I used it, and sure it felt clean and nice, but no more so than regular washing. As other people have pointed out with this brand, a lot of this is stuff you really don’t need – washing with any mild soap is fine. It’s worth £7 and like last time isn’t really something I’d buy for myself at all – but it is interesting to try.

So, that’s the whole box. It’s worth £55.10 – a nice high box value – not the highest ever, but comfortably over the box average over the year. I’m probably the most happy with the LipGlide, funnily enough the lowest value item in the box. Maybe I’m cheap? The rest of it is nice enough, and I’ve honestly never been that unhappy with any box yet – it’ll all get used up, just at different rates.

So our sneak peak for next month’s box – the first Autumnal box, I guess, is a full size hair mask from Maria Nila – which I’m looking forward to, we haven’t had a hair item in a while now.

Until Next Time!