This box overall was mostly just okay, as excited as I was about it when I received it, most of that was because of the really gorgeous box design. The items inside didn't leave as much of an impression.
MDSolarSciences Mineral Creme SPF 50 Sunscreen: I really disliked this sunscreen, it didn't work well with my skin at all. It had a weird texture (I guess because of the "mineral" aspect) and it felt really powdery and strange, plus I'm pale and it made it way worse. It's ridiculously expensive. I have no idea why Birchbox continually pushes this idea that the more you pay for sunscreen the better it is. You know what I want my sunscreen to do? Protect my skin. You know what does that without all these bells and whistles that do nothing extra? Drugstore brands. Not a single fancy sunscreen I have sampled has done more than smell nice. It doesn't feel less greasy, and it doesn't stop it from burning when it gets in your eye.
Stila Look at Me Liquid Lipstick: In this box, I got the bright red that I think is called Beso. This is actually quite a nice product, it's got a finish that's unlike anything else I already owned and it's very bright and bold. It's not an everyday look for me, but it's fun and I like it and it really does last a very long time. Somewhere in another box I also got the Bella color, which is pink. It is VERY VERY PINK. It is clown car pink. It is beyond the pinkest pink you can imagine and it's terrible. I've seen pictures online of women managing to pull it off but I have a hard time imagining it in real life. So mind the shade if you order this, but it is a really nice lip color.
Joer Luminizing Moisture Tint: I've probably mentioned before that I can't do any tinted moisturizers because I'm too pale and they don't come in enough shades. This one is a rare product that does come in enough shades for pale girls, so hooray for that. But at the same time it just didn't work for me at all. I don't want things that are "luminizing" or in other words, shiny. When they say they add a subtle glow, they mean there's sparkles, and sparkles don't work for my work environment and generally don't work for me. I also didn't like the texture.
Liz Earle Instant Boost Skin Tonic Sprtizer: I really wanted to love this one, for a lot of reasons. I like the Liz Earle face wash that I have (a birthday present from I believe the year previous to this box) and I really wanted to switch to using a spray for my toner because I hate swiping it on every day and using cotton balls for it (I tried reusable cotton rounds but it didn't really work as well for me for toner). But the nozzle got gunked up pretty quickly, which was disappointing, and in the end I just don't like spraying my face with this kind of product. Largely because it doesn't really go on evenly and you still have to swipe it with a cotton ball or something to really make it work, so at that point, why did you spray it? Plus how do you avoid getting it in your eyes? It's awkward. So sad it didn't work for me, other people might have better luck. As a toner, it worked really well and I liked it, but the gimmick didn't work for me.
Amika Un.Done Texture Spray: This actually is one of the problems I'm having with Birchbox right now. There's a fair amount of hair products, which is okay, but they're almost all entirely geared towards dealing with heat styling or trying to get huge hair. Amika's stuff smells great, but in the end first I'm over aerosol anything, and second, my hair does not need any help being big and "tousled" looking. If I want to get that kind of look, less is more for me. And despite my profile on the site, I keep getting this kind of thing. It left a residue on my hair that I didn't want, and generally isn't something I'm interested in at all.
R+Co Atlantis Moisturizing Shampoo and
Conditioner: See, more hair products and honestly meh. I don't remember anything about these other than not being impressed. It takes a lot for me to think shampoo is really any different from any other shampoo and these didn't do it. They weren't bad, just not that great either.
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Now a slightly depressing look back as a preview to my next Birchbox post:
This picture is an entire order that I got for free with Birchbox points because I'd been hoarding them for a while and had like $60 worth at the time. For a quick review of the stuff in the picture, the Soap not Radio shower gel smells wonderful and I love their entire line of shower gels. The water bottle became a new favorite very quickly, though it can be a bit hard to use because it's real effort to get the water through the straw. The Paula's Choice face wash is fantastic, and if Birchbox hadn't stopped carrying it right around when I bought it, I'd still be using it (I'll probably switch back after I stop buying as much from Birchbox). The Klorane eye patches are a favorite that I was restocking, and they're really great if you put them in the fridge before you use them. Very relaxing. The Fake Up stick from Benefit I haven't used much since I bought it because I stopped wearing as much concealer and decided people can get over my under-eye circles.
But as I said, this is kind of a preview for what my next post about Birchbox will be about: a few months ago they gutted their points program and ruined it. It's a shell of what it used to be, and in general this kind of haul will not exist again. It's depressing because I used to fill out surveys for other brands and tell them that they needed to make their points system more like Birchbox because I've found almost no other loyalty points program that was worth bothering with.
Now Birchbox's really isn't either. And that's kind of a sad day.
But more on that next week.
