After having a GlossyBox subscription for a while, I’ve found what I assume most people with this type of subscription find – I have a lot of boxes. For the most part, my seven boxes have been majoritively limited edition prints, or that one which is a different size. But a while ago I finally got a few that I could turn into GlossyBox Drawers.

This is a very popular thing to do with old GlossyBoxes as far as I can tell, and I can see why. They do end up looking quite nice, but they’re not 100% as functional as I’d perhaps like – but I’ll get to that.

I have two links to give credit to: Janet Su’s 2012 Re-using GlossyBox-es post, which is the earliest post of this type that I could find. Her tutorial uses 4 boxes to complete the whole set of drawers.

The one I based my drawers on more is Gerry Leanne 2014 version, DIY: GlossyBox Drawers. Her version actually only uses 3 drawers, and additional cardboard for the back and base that you don’t see – which is quite neat if you have a smaller number of matching boxes, or just want to use less of them.

Understanding the construction is pretty simple, the base rectangle piece has to be the same size as a GlossyBox in length and width, so the drawers fit in snug and pretty. The back square panel has the same length sides as the longer measurement of a GlossyBox.

I only found the base and back panel parts fiddly to cut out, as the cardboard I used was a bit thicker than the GlossyBox. The inside colour matches the boxes quite well, and the back isn’t visible when you put the drawers where you use them. Cutting the sides from the GlossyBoxes themselves is very easy. I used a single long cut off from one as a sort of bridge on the top part of the drawers, so they were held together nice and snug. Other than that construction is very simple, and easy to do in a few hours. Glue it all together, and glue any decorations you want on. I added paper cut outs to the bottom of each drawer, cut from GlossyBox paper, as kind of drawer protectors, as well as ribbon like most other versions I’ve seen. The boxes I used were two plain pink ones, and the Karen Millen box from September 2014 since I really liked the lid.

Now to pretty much the big downside of making these boxes. They are much prettier than they are functional, to be honest. Without drawer runners/separators they don’t run out smoothly, and if you weight down a drawer it can just fall into the one below, since the GlossyBox cardboard isn’t that solid or thick to keep them from moving around really. You could possibly change the design to do something about this – a supportive enough divide between each drawer would do it. Otherwise, the drawers are usable if you don’t overburden them and are careful opening and closing them. They do provide extra storage, and are a nice way to reuse these pretty boxes – they do look quite cute. You could just as easily use them as drawer dividers in an existing set of drawers.

Just after this upcoming weekend we should have our first GlossyBox of 2015 – I’m looking forward to it. Until then.

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.

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

My preferred format now for GlossyBox is a video unboxing and first impressions, and then a picture post where I give more in depth and sort of a post “new fancy box which has just arrived” feeling.

So, here is the October 2014 more in depth impressions review.

Here is the box overview: October was the lovely Pop Art Edition! The box is very pretty, and you’ll see more pictures of it below. This time, everyone was supposed to receive the Nuxe face mask, and a Ciate nail polish in any one of a number of products. There are four full sized items, and two sample sized items, and this has been the best value box I’ve received so far.

I’ll cover the full sized items first. First up is the Ciate London Paint Pot in the shade Pom Pom, which is a lovely pop art red (it’s also very Christmas-y, which is nice). This is £9 for 13.5ml, making it a bit pricey for nail polish, but it’s a very big size which is nice. The formula is very nice, lots of colour (you can get away with just one coat of this stuff if you’re in a hurry, but two is nicer) and it dries nice and fast. I have attempted to use it a little in my Essence Stamping set, and it isn’t admittedly a great stamping colour, but it is a great nail base colour. Despite usually being put off by higher price tags I can see how it would be worth it in this instance as the nail polish formula and colour is so nice, and you get so much of it. Very happy.

We have the Etre Belle Cosmetics Lip Lift Peel, it’s a little lip balm/lip gloss sized tube containing a moisturising, and exfoliating cream. It’s exfoliating in that it contains tiny – almost sand like – grains of material that you rub gently against your lips. It’s listed as €12.95 for 15ml, or £10.17 if you convert it with a currency converter. It does actually do what it’s supposed to do – it gently exfoliates. It doesn’t really do much in the way of moisturiser for me, and I will admit to being mostly still underwhealmed by this lip scrub, at just over ten pound I was expecting something more impressive. I already had a lip scrub from lush that costs about half the price, works just as well as an exfoliant, and tastes better anyway.

Next is the So Susan Cosmetics Flutter Mascara. This is listed as £14.95 for 4ml, and simply says it’s really black, and helps make and keep lash curls. I’ve said before that I like the ethos behind So Susan – making good makeup that works and isn’t bad for your face at the same time. I haven’t used this much, as I have lots of mascaras in waiting, and I use the stuff pretty much everyday. I can see why people complain about how often they receive mascaras with GlossyBox as it’s hard to get through them, this is at least my second one. As a mascara it is nice and black, but I found the formula was super wet – it dried very very slowly, meaning you have to wait quite a while if you do want to second coat. I don’t know if I want to try and be a bit naughty and leave it open on my table to make it dry a little and be less thin and wet – would that even work?

The last full sized item is the Nuxe Creme Fraiche De Beaute mask. This is listed as £19.50 for 50ml. I initially thought this was super expensive, and while it is still pretty pricey, I’m less worried about the price now that I’ve seen how many uses you actually get out of it. I’ve used it about twice a week since the October GlossyBox arrived, a few weeks ago now, and there’s still a fair amount left. It’s a very nice face mask – it’s a moisturising, soothing type rather than a clay and cleansing type – it’s actually the type I’ve been liking to use more and more as my skin is quite sensitive, and the cold air makes it dry. It has a strong, planty ‘natural’-y type smell, but I actually quite like it. I did get the best results rubbing this in well for about five minutes from the get go, and the leaving it as a moisturizer, rather than removing it after ten minutes. A really lovely higher end face mask – I would probably still balk a little at buying this full price, but it does work well.

The first of the two sample sizes was a lovely little perfume sample. I’ve been quite happy so far with the little perfume samples – they actually last quite a while. This one – Yves Rocher France Quelques Notes D’Amour – is £33 for the full 30ml size product, and £5.50 for the 5 ml sample size, which is actually a pretty big sample, one sixth of the full size. It’s a very nice strong, musky, floral type perfume – it’s scent is damascus rose, guaiac wood and patchouli. It smells a lot less…generic than the last perfume sample, the L’Amour by Lalique one. The packaging for the sample has been my favourite so far – it’s a cute little miniature perfume bottle with stopper, and I think would be nice to keep or re-use once empty.

Our final sample is a more high street (or drugstore) makeup sample – the Rimmel London BB Cream which is Matte, SPF 15, and in the lightest shade, Light. This is a cute little 8ml sample size, which is just a little under a third of the full sized product – £6.99 for 30ml, making the sample about £1.86. The fact that this is such as cheap sample to me is actually a good thing, as I can’t use mine. Like I assume a lot of BB creams that specifically target blemishes this contains Salicylic Acid – which my skin is pretty sensitive to. I was hoping I could get away with it if it was a small dose, but after swatching on my cheek in the video it made that patch pink. I guess this is why doing a test with cosmetics is so important. So I can’t really say if this is any good as a BB Cream in the end – I didn’t use it after this, and it’s just getting thrown out. It at least took up such a small fraction of the total value.

Final box value time! With four full sized items, and two sample, this box came in at £60.98, just over sixty pound is a great box value for only 10 plus shipping spent. Even if I redo the sums, and take out the value of the BB Cream since I threw it out, the box value is £59.12, and is still the best value box I have gotten so far. Like I’ve said before, for me there really is no question about the value of the subscription.

Pretty soon the November box will be here, which we already know will contain a full size eyeliner (this was the sneak peak in the October box), and a Burts Bees lip gloss (our online sneak peak) – I haven’t had a lip gloss in forever.

So, when my September GlossyBox arrived nearly a month ago now, I did a quick un-boxing video, showing what I received, how much it was, and my initial thoughts. I’ve now had some time with each of the items, and can give a more in-depth opinion, as well as some better pictures, as I still like to do these photo posts.

So, here is a quick overview shot of the box, I didn’t take one of the front picture of the box, but it is a rather beautiful watercolour drawing of the London Skyline, a limited edition Karen Millen design for London Fashion Week. Alongside this, the only offer in this box was money off at a Karen Millen store, which is pretty disappointing actually. I don’t live near one of these stores, I won’t be travelling to one of these stores, and while it fits the box design, I prefer the offers to have more to do with the actual box contents, in case I really like something. Ah well.

The first item in the box is the ModelCo MORE BROWS fibre gel. This is a full sized item, at £14.95 for 3.5 ml. The shade I received was Medium to Dark. It’s a cute little tube, with a quite short, mascara style brush, and fairly dark brown gel inside. The gel has a very mascara light consistency actually, and the brush works well.

I have a bit of a demo image here, with my face in various stages of using the brow gel. I haven’t used a brow gel before, so it’s been very interesting to try. Usually, I use a brow pencil, and only really to fill in the start and end of my brows where they are a little thinner. The application is very simple, you brush through your brows, making sure not to push it against your skin, or you get it on your skin. If you can use mascara, you can use brow gel.

I actually really like the effect, with a pencil you are colouring in the skin under your brows essentially, to give them a more filled in effect, whereas with the gel, it thickens and darkens your actual brows, very much like mascara – but for your brows. It gives you fuller, darker brows while looking a bit more natural, perfect if you like the full brow look (which I do).

The only think I have against it is the price. at basically £15 for a small tube, it does seem like a lot of money. I haven’t tried another brow gel, but I know Rimmel does one at only £3.99, and MUA for £2, and both actually have more shade options. So I will definitely be trying one of those before considering something more expensive.

The next item is a hair care product. The L’Oreal Professional Mythic Oil. This is a premium sized sample rather than a full size product. The full sized item is £15.95 for 125 ml. The size I received was 45 ml, so proportionally cost £5.74.

So, this is a hair oil you put in after you bathe, to care for your hair and add shine. It didn’t have the clearest instructions, so the first time I sprayed it directly onto my head and put too much in as a result. It works much better if you apply two to three pumps into your hand, and gently run them through your hair, repeating a second time or third time if needed (it’ll depend on how thick your hair is). It does actually feel very nice on, it makes my hair feel like it takes longer to dry weirdly, but once it’s on and fully dried, my hair feels nice, and it doesn’t feel residue-y.

Again, like the previous product, it’s a case of price being an issue. I lean towards more affordable items, and with the power of the internet, it’s easier to find alternative brands, and even things like using simpler oils, such as pure Jojoba oil or Argan Oil even, which is a little cheaper per 100 ml than the Mythic Oil.

The next items are two different sample products from the same brand. They are the Skin Pep Brightening Enzyme & Acid Peel, and the Skin Pep Dark Circle Eraser Eye Cream. You get two of the skin peel masks, which are priced at £89.99 for the full 180 ml size products, or £3.05 for each 3.5 ml sample. And one eye cream sachet priced at £44.99 for 15 ml, or £6.49 for the 2 ml sample size (making it proportionally the more expensive item).

While most people tend to dislike these sachet style products, I don’t mind them too much. The skin peel masks are single use items, so you don’t need packaging to keep them in at least. While there is no image of the gel here, it came out as a thick clear gel with basically no scent, reminding me of the clear primer gels you can get. While I said in my video that I was wary of using it because of my sensitive skin, actually I had no bad reaction to the product, and I think it worked very well.

I had more issue with the eye cream packaging – you only get the one sample because actually it’s enough to use multiple times, as you only need a little on each eye. I’ve gotten at least a week, if not two weeks uses out of the sample size, but obviously that means you don’t want to store it in a little open sachet. I squeezed mine out in to a tiny plastic box I use to store excess face mask from larger sachets. The eye cream is much thicker, and does have a scent, but’s it’s quite pleasant, and almost fruity. It does feel nice and moistening, though my eyes are more puffy than dark. Another issue with the eye cream is the item states to rub it in with the applicator, which refers to the special packaging the full size items comes in, so the directions are a bit useless there – rubbing it in with my fingers seems fine.

Price-wise, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out how out of my range these items are. I would never buy them, and I think a lot of people felt pretty similarly.

Another full sized item here, and it’s a nail item. This is the Nails Inc Westminster Bridge Matte Top Coat, and is priced at £12 for 10 ml. Nails Inc is a very recognisable nail brand, and one that most people think is worth the money. It was very easy to use, just a single coat over any nail polish (seen above over Essence Cosmetics Colour & Go Dare it Nude), and it gives the Matte effect. I’ve seen some lovely nail art online where the effect is more obvious if there are sections of nail left shiny and sections made matte.

Getting nail items in the GlossyBox has kind of grown on me over the months, and I can actually see the value in these. Nail varnishes last a fairly long time, especially something that only uses one coat. There are cheaper versions available, Rimmel does one for about £5, and BarryM for about £3.

Finally, we have a full sized cleansing item from Nivea. This is the 3 in 1 Micellar Cleansing Water, priced at £4.07 for 200 ml. It’s a nice big item for a quite affordable price. It’s also nice to get a cleansing item for your skin, I think, to take off all the makeup the boxes of this month and months past are filled with.

Initially, while I liked the brand (I have a lot of Nivea items) and that it was for sensitive skin, I wasn’t too fussed with the product, and didn’t think it worked that much better than my make up remover gel. I’ve given it more of a try since then, and been more and more impressed with it. It does take off heavier eye make up better than what I usually use, which is just from the Boots Essentials line. By better I mean it uses less of the product, and less tries with a cleansing pad to remove the same amount of make up. It also does live up to the promise of cleansing thoroughly without drying the skin, which is great.

Price wise the alternative I found was the Boots Botanics Ultra Calm 3 in 1 Micellar Water at £3 ish for about the same amount. So, this puts the Nivea one at the budget end anyway which is great. I would definitely buy this specific item again.

Finally, we come to the total box value and overall conclusions! The box was worth £49.35, containing 3 full sized items, 1 premium sample, and 3 little samples. A lot of this box value does come from the fact that they are more premium brands which is what the box says it’s all about. For the normal subscription price of about £13 pound that I paid for it, I do think it’s definitely worth it.

While obviously I have said with a number of items that I like the idea and type of product, but not that price point, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It is introducing me to new product types, I really liked what I received, and will use them up – then consider buying a more budget version. So, I’m overall very happy, and I’m looking forward to the next box.

On the subject of the next box, I was fortunate enough to be able to complete the surveys for these products before the new GlossyDots amounts were applied (as they have changed from 50 GD per survey to 20) so my next box will actually be free. I’m really looking forward to it. I can totally see how people who weren’t able to do the survey before the price change would be annoyed, as in that instance you have some people getting more or less value simply based on how quickly they came to the website. A better idea would have been to warm people via social media and email before it was happening to complete the surveys and giving a date for the change. I’m not sure how terribly angry I am really about the overall change, as I think the boxes themselves are great value anyway. So while it changes the rate at which you get a free box, from a free box for every 20 reviews, to a free box with every 50 reviews – or from roughly a free box ever 4 boxes to a free box about once a year – I do still think it’s still good value. I think we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

See you next time!

While I realise I’ve already done a video review, I still like taking the nice pictures and swatches of the products, so here we go – a quick picture post.

First off a lovely overview picture, with the new slightly different box, the box is slightly shorter in length, and the lid is easier to remove, I find.

By far my favourite item is the hand cream here, it smells delicious, and makes my hands feel nice. This one was a trail of only 20 ml, so only £1.73 for the size compared to the full item.

A full size Essence Cosmetics lipstick, a nice budget pink red lipstick. £2.29 and this was full sized.

Another full sized item is the highlighter which I have used a few times now, it’s nice and very easy to use (just dabbed on with the fingers) and is quite natural. £12.95 here for the full size.

And the other items! A perfume sample with packaging I didn’t like, but smelt okay, if a bit generic for the price tag at £67 for the full item, £2.68 for the trial. The Elasticizer at £38 per 250ml making the 40ml sample £6.08. And finally a nice little full sized nail polish in pink (as this box is very pink and girly) at £3.60.

So the final value of the box comes in at a little over 29 pound, (£29.33 to be exact) which as I discussed in my video is a little disappointing in terms of value. I did however, really like my box contents – I’ll be continuing my subscription and probably getting the limited edition Organic box for fashion week they’ve announced recently.

If you want a look at my full video review it’s here. That’s all for now!