Welcome back to our review of subscription beauty boxes. Future subscription box reviews by Brandi Morgan Kirchgessner will be found at www.beautyboxreview.com.
As you all know, Millihelen is no more, so I wanted to post the last beauty box review that I had already written for November. I am now posting my reviews on my own website, www.beautyboxreview.com, so I would love for you all to visit me there. Currently, the site is pretty bare bones, but I will be posting reviews more often and hope to develop a community similar to this one. I will also post more than just beauty box reviews and do regular beauty articles with open threads. Eventually, I hope to add swap boards and other features. I would love to hear what you want to see on my site, so any suggestions you have are very welcome. If you follow me on Twitter (brandikirch), Instagram (brandikirchgessner), and/or Facebook (Brandi Morgan Kirchgessner), I will post whenever something new goes up on my beauty box review site.
It’s been great posting here and getting to know all of you. I hope you will all follow me over to Brandi’s Beauty Box Review.
This is just a short review of a couple of my November boxes. I will be posting all the other November box reviews on my own site.
Kloverbox ($25 per month, US only)
Kloverbox is a natural beauty box that usually features vegan and/or organic products from small businesses. Besides beauty products, they throw in the occasional home product, which is always a treat. This is consistently one of my favorite boxes.
Here’s what I got in the November Kloverbox:
- Meraki Botanicals Sage Orange Deodorant (full size, worth $10)
- Love Bottle Glass Water Bottle (500 ml bottle, worth ~$20)
- MudLove Thankful Bracelet (one bracelet, worth $8)
- q.c. naturals timmy’s toner (full size, worth $16.50)
The November Kloverbox was worth about $54.50. This month’s Kloverbox had a mix of stuff for beauty and home. Part of the proceeds from three of the four products go to charities. I thought that was a great touch for this month because of Thanksgiving and the other holidays coming up.
Meraki Botanicals is new to me, so I looked forward to giving their vegan Sage Orange Deodorant a try. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of natural deodorants that require you to apply the product to your armpits with your hand instead of the normal stick deodorant. While I keep my armpits clean, of course, it still squicks me out a bit to rub deodorant on them with my hand. I gave it a try, though, and liked the smell of it. Keep in mind, this is a deodorant, not an antiperspirant, so if you sweat a lot, this might not be the product for you. The coconut oil in it is to soothe your skin, the baking soda absorbs odors, and the arrowroot powder soaks up moisture. There is a mix of essential oils to provide a light scent. The Meraki website says that you can contact them if you would like a different scent made from essential oils or an unscented version. I found this deodorant worked quite well for me. My girlfriend, Emily, really liked it, so I let her have this one.
The Love Bottle Glass Water Bottle is a simple glass bottle with a rubber stopper meant to encourage you to use reusable containers for water instead of disposable plastic bottles. 5% of the company’s proceeds go to charity. I couldn’t find the exact design of my bottle on the site, but bottles of the same size ranged in prize from $16 to $25, so I estimated the value at $20. I really liked the flower design on mine and found the bottle to be sturdy and the perfect size. It is dishwasher safe and you can personalize your bottle with markers. If you’re looking for a safe, reusable water bottle, this is a great choice.
I hadn’t heard of MudLOVE before, but I was happy to see that each bracelet you purchase from them provides a week of clean water to someone. All MudLove bracelets are made of clay and an adjustable strap and have different messages on them. Kloverbox, of course, chose the Thankful message for subscribers. This bracelet isn’t quite my style, but I think it has a great message and I love knowing that someone in need will be getting a week’s worth of water because of it. I have someone in mind to give it to.
Finally, there was the q.c. naturals timmy’s toner. 5% of timmy’s toner proceeds go to cancer research. I can always use toner, so I love seeing it in a beauty box. This toner contains apple cider vinegar, witch hazel, and lemon and tea tree oils, so it’s great to help shrink your pores and get your skin’s pH back in balance. It didn’t sting when going on as so many toners do, so that was a big plus. I could definitely smell the apple cider vinegar in it, which I liked, but I know the smell of vinegar bothers some people. The scent went away quickly and my skin felt tight and clean. I’m a big fan of this toner and am happy I was introduced to q.c. naturals.
Overall, this is another great month for Kloverbox. They have consistently amazing curation, so this is always fun to get in the mail. This month, the box came on time, which was very nice. Be aware that if you subscribe, the boxes do run late sometimes. Kloverbox works with very small businesses, so it can be difficult to get all the products in time for the Kloverbox shipping deadline. I’m understanding of this because I absolutely love this box and would prefer to wait a few extra days in order to get quality products from small businesses than to get the box earlier in the month and get either lower quality products or products from huge companies that every other box has. I really loved that Kloverbox had a good mix of products this month and that the products were all about being thankful. What a perfect message for this time of year.
Glossybox ($21 per month, many international versions available)
Here’s what I got in the November Glossybox:
- Marsk Mineral Eyeshadow in You’re Toast (full size, worth $22.50)
- Beauty for Real D-Fine Perfect Lip Pencil in Nude (full size, worth $14)
- Crabtree & Evelyn La Source Ultra-Moisturising Hand Therapy (travel size, worth $9; full size costs $32)
- Estée Lauder Revitalizing Supreme Global Anti-Aging Crème (small sample, worth $8.50; full size costs $50)
- Florapy Facial Therapy Facial Sheet Yarrow Lavender Sweet Dreams Mask (one sheet mask, worth $8)
My November Glossybox was worth $62. When I opened the box, I wasn’t all that impressed and thought it was a pretty lackluster month. After trying all the products, though, I completely changed my mind and ended up loving the November box! It’s always nice when that happens.
The Marsk mineral eyeshadow in Toast looked like your average gold eyeshadow. I have tons of that, so I figured this would end up going into the gift pile after I swatched this. There was something a little different about this color gold, though. It seemed to have the slightest orange tint to it and it made it a warmer, prettier color. It also had excellent staying power. I’ve tried Marsk eyeshadow before and knew it was of good quality, but this eyeshadow wowed me more than I was expecting. It’s definitely a keeper!
I have a lot of lip liner! I use lip liner every day, but my stockpile is getting pretty big. I usually use clear liner because it can be used with any lip color. This Beauty for Real liner was just about the same color as my lips, so I can use it with any lip color except for the lightest shades. It prevented feathering better than many lip liners I have tried, so this is another product in this month’s Glossybox that pleasantly surprised me.
This is my first time getting a Crabtree & Evelyn product in a beauty box. I’ve tried some of their products before, but never their hand therapy. I loved this! It absorbed quickly, which is very important to me, and it made my hands feel so soft and smooth. I don’t know about you, but the dry, cold weather has been harder on my skin than usual this year, so, for the first time ever, the skin on my hands has been dry enough to crack. I’ll use all the hand creams I can get right now! I enjoyed the clean scent and liked that it was long-lasting. My girlfriend thought the scent was a little too strong, so it might not be for everyone, but I was a big fan of this hand therapy.
I have sampled many an Estée Lauder product, but this is the first time I have tried the Supreme Global Anti-Aging Crème. This product has a very light scent that I really enjoyed. It made my face feel silky and refreshed. I haven’t had a chance to use it enough to determine if it does, in fact, have anti-aging properties, but it felt nice going on and had a great scent, so I would consider buying this.
I absolutely love sheet masks, but my girlfriend is obsessed with lavender, so she claimed the Florapy face mask the second I opened the box. This is a really high quality mask. The sheet itself was thick and durable and was very different feeling from the cheaper sheet masks out there. Emily said it smelled amazing and was very relaxing. It softened and smoothed our her skin. It was one of her favorite sheet masks ever.
I really liked this month’s Glossybox. Despite my initial impression of it, it ended up being very useful and had high quality products. Every item was something that we could use and it all worked well. I hadn’t tried any of these products before, so they were all great discoveries.
For the reviews of Petit Vour, Terra Bella, DermStore BeautyFix, Birchbox, Ipsy, Allure, Beauteque BB Bag, and Beauteque Mask Maven, check out my new site. I’ll be posting them one at a time instead of in one big post. I will also have the exciting holiday box reviews going up soon! The holiday boxes are always favorites of mine.
It’s been great talking to you all on here and I can’t wait to see you over at my new site. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Make sure to watch the beauty box websites this week because they often have sales on subscriptions around Black Friday! I’d love to hear all about your beauty boxes in the comments.
Brandi Morgan Kirchgessner has always loved getting mail and wearing makeup, so she was ecstatic to discover beauty boxes. She lives with her lovely girlfriend, three dogs, and a cat in upstate NY. Her beauty box review posts and other beauty columns will now be on her site, Brandi’s Beauty Box Review. Be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Illustration by Tara Jacoby.