Birchbox: Nuance by Salma Hayek

I arrived home on a Friday a couple of weeks ago to find I was one of the lucky Birchbox subscribers to receive a special, free Salma Hayek Nuance sample box. This is not the regular monthly sample box, and the sizes and quantities included are not an accurate representation of the BB service in general. I want to throw that out there even though I really like Birchbox just to make sure no one subscribes with unrealistic expectations.

I received a full size body cream, 8oz. This is actually really nice. The scent is very low key and natural. I use it very often, and would certainly repurchase. Retail $14.99

The shampoo and conditioner are not color safe (although the line does have color safe options), and I am hoping to get a friend to review these for me. Retail $7.99/ea

The super magic eye trio stick thing is a blast to use. I decided to put it through a particularly harrowing test by going for a run with actual runners while completely out of shape. The color held up wonderfully with no creasing, however the eyeliner smeared off easily.  Retail $8.79

One I figured out how to open the anti aging cream, I was impressed with what I found. This type of product typically burns my sensitive skin immediately, however this has yet to cause even a touch of redness. I never noticed any sort of aging benefit after about a week of use on half of my face, but it feels amazing and moisturizes well.  Retail $19.99

Right after receiving this box I headed out to what I like to call the 'party' CVS. It is a 24 hour location that tends to have a better selection than my local store. They had a lot of Nuance products available both in the cosmetics area and the skin care section. I did notice that a lot of the prices were about $1 higher than the listed msrp, which is unfortunate as CVS is the only place you can purchase these items. The packaging is absolutely georgous. I really want to try the eye makeup remover, which look like the dual layer style, and the color safe shampoo. The tinted moisturizer looks nice too. My receipt printed with a $3 off coupon, so you may want to keep any eye out for the same if you are interested in picking some of these products up.

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New Starlooks website up

Good news! Starlooks has revamped their website. It is much easier to get a feel for the colors of their lip and eye products now before buying. The bad news? They also raised the prices on some of their products. By kind of a lot. I can't recall the previous prices perfectly, but it looks like the increase is about 15-20% on lip and eye colors. They even bumped their infinity lipstick from $13 up to $15, which is MAC territory. I would love to do a side by side quality comparison, but I don't own any MAC. Primarily because its expensive, lol! I do love the look of the new website though, and the cost of their subscription Starbox hasn't changed.


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Stylemint Summer Mystery Bag available now!

Hey there!  Great news - Stylemint just released another mystery bag, this one with a summer theme.  Their mystery bags are a great way to test out their styles and fits at a steep discount.  It is $34.99 for 3 items (the claim is 3-10 but you know there is going to be like, one lucky girl out there rolling in her mountain of cozy T shirts =).  I wanted to give you a heads up as these bags sell out fast.  If you want to learn more or pick one up for yourself head on over to http://www.stylemint.com.

Don't forget - Stylemint is a subscription service, even though they have the feel of a cute online boutique.  If you make a purchase on their site you will be charged $29.99 every month unless you cancel your account or skip between the 1st and the 4th of each month.

ETA:  Heeeeyyyy, didn't I JUST order a spring mystery bag?  Aren't seasons 3 months apart?  Lol! No more impulse buys from the smart phone on my lunch hour anymore...  

Birchbox May 2013

I received my May Birchbox, and for once I am not terribly impressed.  There were enough items to bump up my points to the 300 mark.   Birchbox's best feature is its point system, which can be redeemed on their online store.  100 points = $10, and every item you receive and and leave feed back for is worth 10 points.  This does quite a bit to ease the let down of a not so stellar box.

This actually looks quite nice, and is a 6 reviewable item box - a rare treat.  Three of the items are hair products though.  My hair is just too short for me to really see the effects of most products.

The beauty protector spray is a good size sample.  It took me two days of attempts to get the pump working, and it ended up making my hair look frizzy.  It seems to be more of a beachy hair product, which only works on longer locks so I can't really attest to the effectiveness.

The Amika hair oil treatment was an 'extra', so I can't complain about it being a foil packet sample.  It smells great, but it's hard to get a tiny amount out of a packet like that, and I ended up using too much and looking greasy.  Not really impressed.

The Amika conditioning mask is quite nice though.  It did leave my hair feeling soft.  I like this but it is a bit too pricy for me to spend on hair. 

I had been looking forward to the Whish shave cream, and was hugely disappointed.  The scent is great in the tube but a little overwhelming in the shower.  I tried it on one leg and used my usual method of body wash on the other, and found the Whish didn't allow for a close enough shave and left a rubbery film on my skin.  Major bummer, and I do not recommend at all.

I did find Supergoops CC cream interesting.  It seems to do a really good job of cancelling out redness.  This is a pretty tiny sample though, and is fairly empty.  I think my Dr Jart sample from a while back had a lot more product in a similar size tube to get a better feel for how it performed.  I like this CC cream, but I don't know if I can test it well enough to buy or recommend it based on this sample.

The Fabulous perfume doesn't interest me - floral scents are just not my thing.  It did have a nice spray applicator which I prefer in a perfume sample, but that is about all I can say about it.

For more information about Birchbox, check them out at http://www.birchbox.com.

Stylemint Crescent Henley Review

I missed out on a lot of the sweet, sweet deals over at the subscription T shirt service Stylemint.  I did not, however, miss out on the one item I wanted most - the Crescent Henley.  This was marked down to $14.99 - half off the original price.  I have had my eye on it from the moment it came out, so I was thrilled to snag it at a deal.

I wore this to work today and I love it.  It is soft, confortable and feels very well made.  I did wear a tank top underneath it, as it is just a touch too thin for work, but on the weekends I would wear this alone.  If you are interested in checking out Stylemint, keep in mind they are a subscription service, and unless you manually skip each month between the 1st and the 4th you will be charged $29.99 which can be used as credit toward the purchase of a variety of clothing and accessories.

 

Unbagging:

 

 

 

Ipsy May 2013

Crazy about sums it up.  I am not sure how they did it, but I guess Ipsy decided to bump up their membership with an absurdly amazing bag.  This month they introduced bag variations, a concept I am familiar with from Birchbox.  There are pros and cons with this; on one hand it allows for some personalization, and on the other the dreaded box envy can run rampant this way.  There were actually no products offered that didn't appeal to me, so I made out particularly well.  I also uh...  Ordered a second bag... The next one will include nearly everything else I had wanted to try out.  I confess to my fiscal irresponsibility, and solemnly swear to make a reasonable effort to remotely behave for the remainder of the month.  And for June.  Sort of.

The Zoya nearly pays for the entire bag at a value of $8.  It's also in a pretty pale purple, loaded with silvery shimmer.  It looks like a dead ringer for Julep's Alice from their May collection, although I think Alice may be a touch thicker.  Beautiful color and great quality in a 4 free formula.  Can't go wrong there.

Pacifica Coconut Crushed Pearl bronzing butter.  It smells AMAZING.  I know a lot of people hate coconut, and if so this isn't for you as it is quite strong.  I normally have issues with scented lotions, but so far I am having good luck with it.  I think this is a self tanner of sorts, but I am not seeing a color build up yet.  It does give my legs a bit of a healthier glow than normal, and I am looking forward to trying it with shorts on when it warms up.

The Yaby concealer in Buff was the big surprise for me.  I knew it was coming, but I expected it to suck for some reason.  I guess because I wasn't really wowed by their eye shadows.  This ended up being not only a great color match for me, but a wonderful texture with long lasting coverage.  It felt like Bobbi Brown, but without the overly shiny finish.  Much loved.

I was gun shy of the Juice Beauty lipgloss in Pink.  Juice Beauty is the brand of the face spray I ended up with a nasty skin reaction to.  Aside from looking kind of weird and separated in the tube, it was nice.  A bit over fragranced for my taste (and really, so much so that I could taste the scent additive for a short time after applying), but a nice color and texture:

And lastly Mirabella Perfecting Powder.  I like that it is made in the USA, but I am not sure about it yet.  It seems... Shimmery.  I am not used to that in a setting powder.  Ima need to mull on this one a bit...

So, yeah.  That is a lot of huge, cool stuff.  It would be completely impossible and unreasonable for every month to rock this hard, but I really appreciate the chance to try out these nice things.  For only $10!  If you are interested in Ipsy, for sure check them out at www.ipsy.com.  The craziest part?  It looks like you can still sign up for the May bag as of today (5/15/13).

Unbagging fun:

Stylemint Spring Mystery Bag

Heyyy, buying a mystery bag isn't the same thing as cancelling... Oops.  I had been meaning to ditch Stylemint, but it isn't easy.  Their shirts are cozy, good quality and amazingly made in the USA.  It is REALLY hard to find clothes made in the US for ~$30.  But thirty bucks is thirty bucks, and I found myself skipping month after month.  They have unusual fits and often very sheer styles, and it can be hard to judge from their website what the end result will be.  The sheerness is what troubles me the most.  A shirt has one job really, modesty.  Well, and temperature regulation.  So uh, two jobs.  Well I guess that is kind of a lot to ask for.  Anyway...

I love this mystery bag, and the value really surprised me.  My last bag was $30 and included 3 kind of ugly T's valued at $30/ea ($90 total value) that I wear to bed or when working on home improvement projects.  This time around... I received 3 unique items, two valued at $60, and one at $30 (total value $150!).  The price of the bag was up a bit at $35, but very worth it.

First and probably my favorite is the Winslow T.  Valued at $59.95, I quickly noticed an odd feel to the material after trying it on.  Turns out it is partially made out of flax. That's... Different...  It is really lovely on though.  This is one of those instances where their boxy, flowy style translated well into actual use.  The material is a bit heavy but thin and leaves it to drape very nicely.  This is a touch on the sheer side, and may require layering.

 My second favorite is this Selby Dress, also valued at $59.95.  It has an interesting hi-low cut that hits perfectly at my ankle and above the knee.  I am quite tall, and I didn't expect it to fall at such a perfect length.  I am not sure what normal height girls would do with the excess in the back, it seems like it would drag.  I am very excited to wear this, as I don't have a lot of casual but versatile dresses, and certainly none as comfortable as this one.  I didn't notice any problematic sheerness when I tried this on.

This one is my least favorite, although I suspect it will make for very cozy lounge wear.  It is a sort of medium weight, almost terry sweater.  This is an instance where the boxy cut doesn't work well - the material doesn't really drape so much as poof.  The looseness keeps it from being particularly warm, so even though it doesn't suffer from the dreaded Stylemint sheerness, it may need to be layered anyway to be effective/useful.

I am overall ecstatic about this mystery box, I really wasn't expecting such nice items at all.  I do recommend checking them out, but please keep in mind once you hand over your credit card info to them, you will receive monthly charges of $29.99 unless you skip the month between the 1st and the 4th, or you cancel your account with them.  They do make skipping extremely easy though.

http://www.stylemint.com

My unboxing video with silly mini fashion show at the end: