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.