Finally, we’re at the end of the year, and the last GlossyBox review of the year – the December 2014 box! As always, there is an initial first impressions/unboxing video here, this is the indepth review.

Here’s our full overview shot: this month we got four full sized items, one premium sample sized item, a description card, and a preview card, as well as a lovely winter-y box design of snowflakes and red ribbon.

First off is the Bellapierre Cosmetics Lip & Cheek Stain. I received the shade Coral, which is a lovely red colour, it comes in a little plastic tub with a screw top lid, big enough to get your finger in there and get some product easily, which is good, as these items are often sold on their convenience value. It’s supposed to be able to do two things – stain/colour your lips and or cheeks – easily and prettily. It has a soft, matte lip balm look and feel. There isn’t really a smell. You get 5 grams in total, though it’s hard to tell exactly how long this will last, I do suspect a I’ll get a fair amount of usage. The full cost is usually £12.99, and it’s a full sized item. The price puts it in line with a lot of other ‘Cheek&Lip’ items from other brands, though you can definitely find cheaper.

On me this item works better as a cheek stain, rather than a lip stain. When I say better I mean it makes more of a visual difference – I can notice the product colour on my cheeks a lot more than my lips, as my skin is pale enough and my lips aren’t that light. It is however, overall a nice little item to have – it is easy to use, easy to store and transport, and seems to last on the cheeks at least fairly well. While it might be more honest in my case to simply consider it a cheek stain, I’m not sure how much to blame the product, as this will depend on how pale you are, and how dark your lips are.

Next up is the Tresemme Renewal Hair & Scalp Nourish & Renew Tonic. This is an interesting product actually, I’ve never used a hair tonic before – it’s something that sounds quite old fashioned. It’s a fairly large bottle with a little pointed applicator, so you can get it right on your scalp and hair  roots rather than making a mess of your hair – especially since like a lot of hair treatments I have it states to use it just after washing your hair. It’s a clear, very watery liquid with a nice smell – nice to me anyway, it has the Tresemme hair product smell they all seem to have, which I quite like. You get 150ml in the bottle, and this is full sized, priced at £5.50, making it a pretty affordable item.

So far I’ve really enjoyed using it. The tip applicator does work very well at getting the product on your scalp, though I tend to have less issue with this anyway as my hair is actually pretty thin and fine. The watery consistency actually works to its credit, as you don’t have to be super accurate once you’re at scalp level, as it spreads really easily over your skin. As for the bottles claims of ‘soothing the scalp’ and ‘repair by nourishing’ – actually it does seem pretty good – my scalp has felt a lot less dry and uncomfortable as a result of the dry cold weather. I might actually consider using this again – it’s like a leave in conditioner but for your scalp.

The third full sized item is the Anatomicals Zap! Zap! Zap! Gets that Chap Day & Night Spot Stick, which I’m going to give mixed feelings on in the end. This is a double ended spot stick with a day formula – which is a clear gel, and a night formula – a white gel, both roughly the same consistency and ingredients. It’s Tea Tree and Witch Hazel based. This is a nice inexpensive item at £3.79 for 7ml (3.5ml per side), and the price is consistent with Boots own version.

Now onto the mixed feelings: the spot stick does actually work, really well actually. It makes an uncomfortable blemish feel soothed right away, and does help it fade over time. And to be fair, the most important thing really is that it works. Sadly, the big downside has to be it’s packaging – my product pictured above is missing the day end, this is because when I dropped it from about hip height (I was sitting down at my side table) onto a carpeted floor, the day end snapped off, meaning it couldn’t be screwed on anymore, and spilled most of the product out. I don’t know whether to assume I got a duff item, but this seems awfully fragile for something that really you’d expect to be able to throw in your bag as a just in case. I might consider buying it again and hope for the best, after finishing the night end.

The fourth and final full sized item a nail Lacquer (or nail polish) from All That Jazz, in the shade ‘Stella’s – Draped in Pearls’. Like the Ciate polish previously, this is a big sized, more premium priced nail polish – you get 15ml for £9.98. This is a really lovely high glitter polish. It has no colour as such, the clear polish holds within it a variety of glitter from really tiny to quite large visible chunks – creating quite an interesting look. Like a lot of these glitter polishes, you can get different looks depending on how many coats you add, starting off with quite a sparse coating of glitter, to coating your whole nail multiple times to get a full on glitter effect, either over coloured polish or not. This makes it a nice, versatile item to have – unlike having a single colour, you can use it in different ways.

The other thing I’ve liked so far about these big nail polish bottles is that they have nice long bottle tops to hold on to comfortably, and quite long brushes to really get inside the bottle with – so it does feel more and more like these bigger, more pricier ones might be worth it. There are many glitter heavy nail polish alternatives available, though I’ve been mostly tempted by the Barry M ones.

Finally, we have the last item, and this is a sample product from SkinPep. Their Hydra Boost Pure Hyaluronic Acid Serum – this is a clear thick gel, which acts as a moisturiser, or moisturising treatment. A lot like last month’s H20+ Face Oasis, it feels very water based, as it’s very wet and watery on the face, but works in very well and does moisturise very well. We’ve also has SkinPep before in the September GlossyBox, so I know their formulas are fine for people with more sensitive skin, though they are on the pricier side. The full sized item is 70 ml, and is priced at £24.99. Proportionally the 15 ml sample is worth £5.35.

I do find it a bit harder to get a good longer impression on these sample sized items, as you have less to work with over 3 or 4 weeks. It was a nice treatment, like last months H20+ Face Oasis again I used it on the dryer areas of my face, and it did keep them hydrated for longer, though I would say the H20+ gel was slightly better – either way they’re a bit pricey for me to consider buying. It is nice that it wasn’t in a sachet, but a little tube – it’s much easier and nicer to use.

SO, to recap the box, there were five items, four full sized and one nicer sample. The total box value came to £37.62, which is a nice box value, making it neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. I’ve actually really liked this box overall – the Cheek & Lip stain, and the Nail Lacquer are both very ‘party ready’ style items – good for most people at this time of year, and just nice to have in general. Both the Spot Stick and Hair Tonic have actually worked really well as products, and I’ll be very tempted to repurchase them. The only not ‘wow’ item I would say is the Serum, but then it’s only a sample, and it’s still nice enough.

This is my seventh month of GlossyBox, ending the year 2014, I’m still going to be getting them into the new year, and I look forward to the January box. Until then.

An un-boxing and review of my GlossyBox, the UK December 2014 edition – this has actually been up for a while. I just completely forgot to link the video here.

Here is the in-depth written review of the November 2014 GlossyBox to accompany the video first impressions!

So, here is the full overview, November’s box was just a regular pink box, black paper wiggly bits, plain pink wrapping paper, and a plain black bow. It contained five items.

This month we also have the preview cards in the box again, last months trial of a paperless system seems to have proven unpopular with most subscribers based on feedback.

First up is the Lollipops Makeup (or Lollipops Paris as the website now says) eye pencil in the shade 701 Goodbye Moon, which is a very dark black. They don’t actually have any other shades – at least at the time of this article – so I’m not really sure why they’ve bothered numbering and naming the colour.

This is a plastic case style pencil, with the product as a solid stick in the centre you can extend or retract, by spinning the black strip at the bottom end of the pencil. We’ll get the negatives out of the way first – I don’t really like this format. I don’t see personally what is wrong with a pencil format which you simply sharpen. I don’t think the plastic, slightly rattley feel of the body seems very “premium”. I also find it hard to tell how much product is really inside, since the body itself tells you nothing, and the packaging has no weight measurement on it anyway. I’ve also found these types of pencils to be easier to damage, as the inside snaps a lot more readily than in a normal pencil. As a final niggle, the nice eye liner pencil I already have has a built in smudge nub at the end, which I really like – it’s there to use with the pencil if I just want to grab that one thing, and gives you a dedicated smudger – a couple of brands do this, and given the higher than drugstore price of this pencil, I don’t see why it can’t have one either.

On the plus sides however, the pencil itself is actually a nice formula. It’s a nice rich black, it does smudge well (my preferred way of wearing eye liner), and it’s fairly long wearing. The ingredients are also supposed to be good for your skin, with vitamin E, which is always a good thing with something you want to rub on your face. And finally, I do like the cute, pink and girly design on the pencil.

It’s full size (though I couldn’t tell you what size) and retails for €14, which at the time converted to £11.18, and I think is mostly available from the company’s website: www.lollipopsmakeup.fr

Next up we have the Burt’s Bees Lip Shine. And by Lip Shine it means lip gloss really. This is a typical Burt’s Bees type product – it has all natural ingredients, and is pretty good for your skin. I got mine in the shade 060, or Smooch, which in the tube is quite a dark red, but like all of these lip shines the finish, particularly if you use it sparingly, is quite a sheer red colour.

The only downside for this I would say is I don’t really like Lip Gloss (or Lip Shine, or whatever you want to call it) all that much, but I would definitely say that’s a personal preference rather than the product’s fault, to be fair. And honestly, if I had to wear a Lip Gloss, this one is pretty good.

It’s a nice big size, and a tube with a lip style applicator (one of those smooth rounded slanted head things, with a hole that you squeeze the product out of). I don’t actually like to use the end to apply it, but prefer to squeeze it out onto my finger and work that way – it’s a little less messy. The smell is quite nice, and reminds me of fruit jelly sweets, like strawberry laces, I assume because of the natural ingredients. Gloss wise, it is pretty subdued compared to most glosses I think, it’s actually a pretty nice shine. I prefer to use it sparingly, as I don’t like the thick icky feel on my lips, and this works quite well – the colour is more subtle this way, but the feel is more bearable. It doesn’t last as a lip shine for super long, but it does leave a nice sort of moisturising residue for longer. It does feel like it’s good for the lips.

This is also full sized at 14g, and retails for £6.99, you can get it from their own website www.burtsbees.co.uk, but it’s also available in lots of other shops.

Now we have our final full size item in the box, and this is the Umberto Giannini Miracle Worker. This is a very multi use hair product. You can use it as a treatment on either wet or dry hair, you can use it as a styling product, or as it describes as well, as a ‘finishing’ product to neaten your hair. It’s supposed to be really good for dry frizzy hair, and contains argan oil – which is super popular for hair treatment.

So, the negatives. This is the second hair oil/hair treatment item I’ve received so far from GlossyBox, and I haven’t actually used up the last one – it’s only been two months. I don’t really like to swap around between lots of products, but prefer to use just one. It has the added effect, I think, of making the September hair care item, the L’oreal Mythic Oil, look kind of poor in comparison to this. Both of them have the same downside, in that you can easily overuse it, and quickly make your hair look oily or greasy – and while it isn’t, and your hair is probably being nicely pampered and nourished – most people probably feel it and want to wash their hair again.

This is quite a big item, the biggest in the box, so adds pretty good value in terms of the price paid. It comes with a convenient pump, unlike one of the other items in this box (we’ll get to that), it has quite a strong smell that I actually like, it’s very perfumed. The important thing however, is it does work really well. Even just using a little to treat dry hair leaves it feeling silky and soft, and unlike a previous item (L’oreal Mythic Oil, from the September GlossyBox) doesn’t leave a residue feeling in the hair. Because it’s a full sized item, and you use it quite sparingly, it will last quite a while.

As mention before, this is full size at 125ml, and retails at £8 from www.boots.com.

The last two products we have are sample sized. This first one is the H20+ Face Oasis Hydrating Treatment. This is the smallest item in the box, and is a cute little tube of blue gel. It is an oil free moisturiser for the face and neck etc. and says it’s supposed to be good for fine lines. This doesn’t feel like a super targeted product in terms of my GlossyBox profile, as I don’t really care all that much about fine lines.

I would say while a moisture treatment isn’t a super wow type product for me, the only real downside I would say is the price. So far this has been the only overpriced seeming item of the bunch, but we’ll see.

On the plus side, it does work well as a moisturiser. I’ve been using it to treat some of the drier areas of my face, like my jaw line, which tends to dry out quicker than the rest of my face, and sometimes needs a little more moisture. Using this in the morning, it has felt like I don’t need this extra application. It’s very wet (I presume because it’s water based, as it’s oil free) but rubs in very well, and feels nice and cool and soothing actually.

This trial sized item is 8ml, which is just over a sixth of the full sized item at 50ml. This full size costs £27.50, making it proportionally cost £4.40. This does make it prohibitively expensive for me, especially considering my perfectly lovely Nivea Soft (my go to moisturiser) is about £4 for 200ml anyway. So this is nice, but not tempting in the slightest. It’s available from www.marksandspencer.com

Finally, we have the Monu Skincare Refining Capri Facial Oil. This is a little bottle with a screw top, a little over three times the size of the H20+ gel. It’s a blend of oils that you massage into your face – it’s aimed at treating oily and blemish prone skin.

The main problem I have with this, is that I don’t think it works – not for me at least. It’s such a shame because I wanted it to work. I do have oily, slightly blemished sensitive skin, and making sure it is well moisturised does help it, it means the skin doesn’t try and produce more oil itself to combat dryness, which would run the risk of all that extra oil giving you blemishes. For me, keeping the skin gently cleansed, and well moisturised works.

The problem is, as I’ve used this as directed for the three weeks since I’ve gotten it (using just a little big, gently rubbing it in with my hands, using it after cleansing), it’s just consistently given me blemishes – more and more blemishes. As far as I can tell, negative experiences with this brand are few and far between, so it might just be my skin.

The other downside is the packaging, which seems a little trivial compared to the previous point, but it’s just a screw top opening and then you put a little on your hand awkwardly. The full sized item does come with a pump dispenser, which would probably work a lot better, but I can see since this is a little sample why they wouldn’t bother putting one on such a small bottle.

The oil itself feels and smells lovely. It has a very delicious, citrus blend smell, and does feel like it should moisturise and cleanse.

This is 30 ml, just under a third of the full size item at 100 ml. The full size item costs £26 pound, making this size sample cost £7.80. So this is also slightly more on the too expensive side for my taste, but to put it into perspective with the other items this costs roughly the same as the H20+ Treatment gel, but you’d get twice as much – so it could be worse really. It’s available from its own shop www.monushop.co.uk.

So that was the last item. To sum up, this box had five items in total, three full size, and two sample. I paid £13.25 (I prefer having the freedom of a rolling monthly plan) and the total box value is £38.37. This isn’t the most expensive box I’ve ever had which was around £60, but neither is it the cheapest box ever, which was around £29. This hasn’t been a super wow box, but it was a nice box. I’ll use up the nice black eyeliner, and will probably occasionally use the Lip Shine. The hair product and the H20+ gel probably work the best out of everything here, and sadly the facial oil was just a little disappointing.

But, I’m eagerly looking forward to the upcoming December box. We had a sneak peak in this box saying everyone would receive a Bellapierre Lip and Cheek Stain, which sounds super nice, and it’s a nice brand we’ve had before. The box will also be festive looking instead of pink, and should contain five items again, four of which will be full size.

Until next time.