Brazen's Friends with Benefits January 2014 Review

Well, I was just going to do a compilation of the...4 (ahem...)...mineral eye shadow subs I tried this month, but I'm still waiting on one of them - it doesn't appear to be the company's fault. The owner talked on Facebook about how USPS has had problems with tons of her packages this month. According to the tracking, they shipped it out a while ago (the 12th) and it's just been sitting somewhere in Illinois since the 22nd. <shrug> Hopefully it'll get here eventually. So, anyway, I guess I'll just split them up.

The first, one I've been with for a little while now is Brazen's Friends With Benefits. They've been pretty consistently good for me from the beginning. I wasn't thrilled with December, but only because they sent out mattes and I don't love mattes. Personal preference. Anyway, as a reminder, they have 3 levels of subscription that vary in what you get (I get silver):
1. Silver ($15) - 3 3g pots of limited edition or unreleased shadow, a 3g pot of limited edition or unreleased lipgloss, and some ordering rewards, early access to sales and a 10% discount on their site.
2. Gold ($20) - Everything in silver plus a full sized lip gloss and 15% off on their site.
3. Platinum ($25) - Everything in gold plus a full sized eye shadow and 20% off on their site.

I forgot to take a picture of the bag with everything in it, but it was fairly simple this month - a clear bag with a silver tie.

Info card (blurry, I'm sorry)

The goods! Top row: Blizzard, Snow Day, and Frostbite. Bottom: Turn up the Heat

 Yay, back to non-mattes! Rather than just state what the info card says, I'll give my own impressions of each product:

•  Blizzard - a nice dark blueish silver with a good amount of sheen (I'm not quite seeing the duochrome mentioned and I see more sheen than particle sparkle). 
• Snow Day - a light silvery white, also high sheen (also not really seeing the duochrome - maybe I have to try without a primer underneath?) 
• Frostbite - a medium shiny silver
• Turn Up the Heat - woot, another lip gloss I love! Very sparkly lightish pink. Awesome!

Swatches, top to bottom: Turn up the Heat, Blizzard, Snow Day, Frostbite

I like the 3 shadows (and I think they'd look great together!), but I'm a bit bummed that I'm not really fully seeing what the description states. I may try them out again without primer because colors tend to be much bolder with primer, so maybe I need it a bit more powdery to see all the aqua duochrome and sparkle the descriptions talk about. Funny enough, I think my favorite product this month is the lip gloss! I'll definitely use it! 

January 2014 Brazen Friends with Benefits

If you got Brazen's Friends with Benefits this month, did you like it? If you got a different level, what else did you get? If you're interested in signing up, head on over to their site.

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)

Ophelia's Apothecary January 2014 Review

Man, I hate to do this. This is not going to be a good review. I don't like writing bad reviews. But after a late delivery of December's Ophelia's Apothecary bag (a good bag, just didn't arrive till January), I was hoping January would make up for it by being just as good in contents, only on time. Alas, January was not good.

The bag. So far, so good.

Upon opening up the bag, I found a note, basically explaining that January was sort of a "grab bag" month, where it appeared the owner just unloaded stuff she needed to unload. I guess it was all already made, so she didn't have to worry about getting them out late at least.

Note and coupon

Dumping everything out, I saw that I got 2 small sample pots - 1 of Green Tea Cucumber Face Cream, which I believe is new to me, so I'm happy to try, and 1 of Lemony Meringue Hand Cream, which now makes my 3rd tiny pot of this, the last of which I got in last month's bag only 2 weeks ago! I suppose I could combine all 3 pots into a bigger jar and call it a day, but I'm bummed to get the same exact product in the same exact scent in 3 separate months, 2 of which were in a row! Especially when I've seen a linen spray go out in 2 other months that I didn't happen to get those months (I got something else both times). I really want to try that linen spray and the one time on Facebook I asked about whether a coupon could be used on it and where I could buy it since I couldn't find it on her site, she just liked my comment and didn't answer. Anyway, moving on.

My 3rd sample of Lemony Meringue Hand Cream and a sample of Green Tea Cucumber Face Cream

My last set of items was 11 baggies of eye shadows, 3 grams each. Normally, this would be AWESOME! That amount of shadow in a regular indie store (albeit packaged in jars, not bags) would cost probably at least $50! However. Looking at this shadow, it's clear it wasn't mixed well. I'm not sure what the ingredients are because they're not listed on the bag (a big no no - it's apparently illegal to sell mineral eye shadow without listing the ingredients on the product or with the product), but I can clearly see pigment and some random white powder ingredient just floating around. Trying to mix it into a few bags left the bag surface pure white, which makes me think that's all it will do on my eyes as well. I'm not even going to swatch these. I'll probably just throw them out. I don't know what the white stuff is. She's very particular about what she puts in her bath products, so I'm reasonably confident it's nothing dangerous, but the whole thing just turns me off. Besides, I have a huge collection of awesome, well made mineral eye shadow. I don't need to bother with subpar mineral eyeshadow. She mentioned that she was discontinuing her mineral makeup because it was too much work, so good. Focus on what you're good at.

Mineral eye shadows - the ones that appear whitish are the ones I tried to mix and you can see the white particles in some of the others.

So, next month is my last month on this current 3 month sub. If it's not impressive and filled with the stuff she does well, I'm cancelling. This month was just super disappointing. I really hope next month is better. I normally like her stuff a lot, which is why I was so bummed with this bag.

If you want to look into her subscription, go to her website. It usually is better. If you get this box already, let me know if you got different things this month.

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)

Relevant Nails January 2014 Review

I had previously tried Relevant Nails as a one time box just to see what kind of polish they sent out and was really pleased, so I decided to go ahead and order a 3 month subscription. Again, they aren't quite set up to do ongoing subscriptions monthly (automatic billing) yet, so you just have to buy the box month by month or you can buy 3, 6, or 12 month subscriptions paid upfront. For $16, you get 2 full size indie nail polishes! According to the Relevant Nails site, this subscription features "Rain City Lacquer, Black Sheep Lacquer, LynBDesigns, Sparkle Nail Lacquer, FLOSS GLOSS and much more!"

Once again, my order arrived packaged well with bubble wrap and squigglies.

Opening the box

 And again, I loved the colors I got! 2 gorgeous glitters! The first is called It's Inconceivable, although I couldn't figure out the brand at first. It doesn't look like any of the indie brands featured on the site and doesn't appear to have a brand written on it. There's something tiny, but cut off on the back that looks like it says ?nbdesigns.etsy.com, and I thought the ? was an r, but that's a graphic designer. Then I tried searching for just It's Inconceivable, thinking that maybe that was the brand name and not the color. That found something on Etsy! It's apparently LynBDesigns and she has a lot of really pretty colors! Anyway, that polish is nice densely packed glitter with silver, light blue, and pink.

LynBDesigns It's Inconceivable

The second polish is a Spy Princess polish in the color Spectre. I feel like this one could've been a bit more densely packed with glitter. It's a lovely clear base with light blue and silver holo glitters and if it were densely packed, I think it would be amazing, but as it is, I think it might make a better topper because it's quite sheer. The silver holo glitter does give it a really nice sparkle though! And, man, I'm really glad I looked up the brand on Etsy to link it because I didn't realize this was a glow in the dark polish! That makes it more fun! They say it's best to "charge it up" with light for a few minutes, but I just held my phone light on it for maybe 20 seconds and it definitely glows!

Spy Princess Spectre

Swatches (3 coats on top, 2 coat on bottom). I couldn't really get a good shot of the glow in the dark of Spectre.

So, again, I'm happy to get some new polish so this sub makes me happy! And the value's certainly there - my 2 polishes alone would've been $17.50, plus individual shipping on each one since they're from different Etsy shops, which would've added an additional $5.75, so $16 was a great deal! Can't wait to see what I get next month!


If you'd like to sign up, head on over to their page!

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)

Birchbox January 2014 Review

Birchbox is a nice inexpensive sub where, for $10 a month (or less if you subscribe for a year), you get 4-6 sample products (though looking through my history, I have a box of 8 in there!). They're usually of the smaller variety, given that this is only a $10 sub, but there's occasionally a full sized item thrown in too. When you sign up, you fill out a profile (basic stuff - skin type, hair color/type, what basic kinds of products you like, etc) and there are I think 50 possible box combinations each month that you can get, which is, I suppose, somewhat based on your profile. You can also review your items each month, which doesn't have any impact on your future boxes, but does give you points - 10 points per review (100 points = $10) which you can ultimately use in their pretty large shop, which sells full size products. I recently resubscribed for a year with Birchbox after being away from them for about 6 months. The theme for January was "Go Time".

After watching the sneak peek video this month, I had my eyes set on a few different products I hoped I'd get. There's a huge number of variations each box can be, so I had no idea what I'd get. Sadly, I didn't get any of the things I was hoping for, but my box didn't end up being so bad anyway.

Theme card

Info card

My first item was a set of 3 foil packets of 100% Pure lotions - a reparative cream, a smoothing night cream, and an organic caffeine eye cream (Personally, I'd value 3 foil packets at $1 combined, but calculated from oz, it's technically $4.65 for all 3 combined.). I'm glad to have a variety to try, but I think I might have preferred just one larger sample not in a foil packet. I hate foil packets. They're one time use, no matter how much you use of the packet. Otherwise, you have a messy open packet laying around and most likely, my cat would try to eat it because she likes to try to eat anything plastic or foil that's laying around, so we don't do that. Really, I would've much preferred to try the 100% Pure Fruit Pigmented Mascara instead.

100% Pure foil packets

Next up was a Fekkai Brilliant Glossing Creme in a pretty nice .45 oz sample size ($1.80 - see, now how is this cheaper than the foil packets above??). I do already have one of these that I'm pretty sure I got from Birchbox last year and haven't tried yet. I'm not really sure why - it sounds nice! I don't think my old one says olive oil on the label, but I'm not sure they make more than one variety of this, so it must just be a slightly different label. Anyway, it's supposed to make hair smooth and shiny, so I'll make sure I try it this time around!

Fekkai Brilliant Glossing Creme

The next item was a full size (1.2g) Inika Mineral Eye Shadow in the color Eternal Marine ($25, although Birchbox says $20 - that's what they're selling it for, so I guess we'll stick with $20). As expected, I'm thrilled with this, both because it's full size (although, I think it might be a tad small for full size compared to indie brands, especially at this price) and because it's mineral eye shadow! It's a nice grayish green color. I don't think I have anything like it! Also, thankfully, it has a sifter inside so it doesn't all pour out when you try to open it.

Inika Mineral Eyeshadow in Eternal Marine

My last main product in the box was a full size set of Nail Rock polish and nail glitter in red (Birchbox says $6.99, but that's how much the site lists it in British pounds, so switching to US dollars, it appears to actually be $11.31. Then again, Birchbox's site is selling it for $7, so I guess we'll go with that.). Looking at the options on the Birchbox site (because I can't find the others on the Nail Rock site), there are a few I think I would have really preferred, like the sequin green or one of the caviars, or even one of the velvets, just to see something different, but I'll probably at least try this out on an accent nail. I think all of my nails would be way too over the top.

Nail Rock Nail Glitter set

Finally, my lifestyle bonus was a set of 3 Ahmad teas (~$1?). Meh. I do like tea, but I'm avoiding caffeine for now, and none of the ones I got seem to be caffeine free, so I guess I'll just put them aside till my next period (I let myself have a bit of caffeine then).

Ahmad Teas

January 2014 Birchbox

So, all in all, not a bad box. I'll definitely try everything. I'm a little disappointed in the foil packets, but oh well. I'm happy about the shadow and polish, so I guess it evens out. Overall, this box, version 58, has an approximate value of $34.45, which is good for a $10 box!

If you get Birchbox, what did you get for January? I know there are quite a lot of variations. If you don't already get Birchbox and are interested in signing up, please use my link!


(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself. I was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own. I have included referral links.)

Stunner of the Month January 2014 Review

Stunner of the Month is a sunglasses a month subscription - they send a huge variety of sunglasses from stylish to wild. For $9 a month, you get a new pair of sunglasses! You can choose from male, female, or unisex. I went with female. It's always kind of hit and miss what I've gotten - some I've really liked, some I've thought were wearable, but not awesome, and some were just weird. What category will this month fit into?

Info card

I saw this before I opened up my little sunglasses bag (I love that you get a new bag every month!). It sounded a little masculine, but at least not too wild.

My stunners

Happily, these are totally wearable! I was (and still am a little) unsure of the big thick bar across the top and I don't usually wear aviators, but when I put them on, I think they mostly look good. Certainly good enough to wear in public and regularly. So, I'm happy this month!

Stunner of the Month January 2014

Our little bonus item this month was that little pink slap bracelet. I haven't worn slap bracelets in a LONG time. I don't think I'll be starting up again anytime soon. I may give it to Emily, but I want to make sure she won't somehow hurt herself with it.

Anyway, if you like sunglasses, particularly wilder ones, head over to their website. I'm not sure if they're still accepting the coupon code for the first month free, but it doesn't hurt to try it: trystunner (all lowercase)!

(And just a disclaimer: I bought the this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own.)

Wantable January 2014 Review

I decided to switch things up a little bit for my Wantable box this month. I had gotten down to some pretty narrow likes and I wanted to expand a bit to get a bit more variety this month. Just as a reminder, for $36/month (or $40 if you just want to buy a single box without a subscriptions), you get 4-5 full size premium makeup products (they also have a jewelry subscription and a new intimates subscription if either of those is your thing - it's not mine.). When you sign up, you fill out a quiz that has you rate different makeup types (like lipstick, blush, and eyeshadow) as love, like, or dislike and within those categories, you rate things like application type (like cream vs. powder blush) and colors (like neutral vs. brights). Things that you rate as dislike, you will never get in your box, while things you love are more likely to show up than things you like.

Somehow I forgot to take a picture of everything in the box and everything displayed together, so I'm missing those 2 shots, but I do have individual product pictures.

I figure I'll start off with my least favorite items: 2 Starlooks products. It's not that I dislike Starlooks - on the contrary, I love Starlooks! I get their subscription!  But, because I get their subscription, there's a risk of getting duplicate products when they send their stuff to different subs to send out. Like now. 2 products I already have. First up, the Starlooks Lengthening Mascara ($16). I actually do like this mascara - it lengthens pretty well (not as well as my favorite Too Faced Better Than False Lashes, but decent) and I love the hefty metal tube packaging. It just feels luxurious. The second Starlooks product was a Gem Eye Pencil in Myth ($14). Again, a great product. Lovely dark gray metallic eye liner that spreads amazingly well because the liner is so soft and buttery. But I already own every color and this is my third one in Myth. So, both of these went unopened to my trade board.

Starlooks Lengthening Mascara and Gem Eye Pencil in Myth

Now, for the part of my box that I changed up, I got 3 nail products! First, I got a Color Club polish in the color Personal Stylist ($8). It's a pretty metallic blue, but I think I have a fairly close color already, so this may or may not be traded. The website says it's a duochrome. Maybe I'd have to swatch it to see. It might have a hint of purple, maybe. Not a terribly bold duochrome though.

Color Club Personal Stylist (that hint of pink/purple you see isn't in the bottle. It's just a reflection of a pink sticker)

My other polish was a Rainbow Honey polish in the color Koi Pond, which apparently is sold out on the website ($10). I like this polish much more than the Color Club one. It's a glitter polish and it's totally different than any other color I have. This is a happy addition to my collection!

Rainbow Honey Koi Pond

My last item was a set of NCLA Nail Wraps in the design Fowl Play. I used to wear nail wraps ALL THE TIME. I'm not even sure why I haven't in a while. I guess I just have so much nail polish, I want to make sure I wear it all! Anyway, these nail wraps are really pretty! I love the peacock feather design and that there's really a good variety of specific designs in the pack. I could wear all of them in one manicure or spread it out over quite a few using them for accent nails.

NCLA Nail Wraps in Fowl Play (I apologize for the blurriness - I didn't even notice until I uploaded!)

I'm really glad I switched up my profile a bit this month. The nail products were great! Funny enough, the part that stuck to my original preferences was the part that contained dupes for me. Hopefullly next month, they'll have a couple different featured brands to send out, so I won't get so much Starlooks. I did put in my ratings that I really would prefer not to get more Starlooks, but I'm not sure how much the ratings get used. I think it's a new feature (unless I just haven't noticed till now!). Anyway, I was happy to see 5 things in the box and the overall value this month was $64. Still a bit lower than what we used to get, but I think that may just be how it is now. After they changed to 3-4 items per month and then back to 4-5 (presumably because people weren't happy with the 3-4 items), it kind of seems like the value might've stayed down a bit. It's still more than the cost of the box though, so that's all that matters. I still love my Wantable. (I may even order an extra box for next month since it was my birthday this month!)

If you are interested in signing up for this awesome subscription, here's my link! If you get Wantable, what kind of awesome stuff did you get this month?

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own. I have included referral links.)

Phone Case of the Month January 2014 Review

Phone Case of the Month is a subscription for iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s, and Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 phones. For $10 a month (which is a pretty great deal for a phone case! Most places you have to spend at least $25!), you get a new limited edition case (only 200 of each print are made) - they are hard cases "made of Poly Carbonate and ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) with a silicone coating for a soft to the touch feel". 

Well, in my mini review for December's Phone Case of the Month, I had said I was probably only going to give them one more month to give me a case I liked a bit more than "sort of". I really wanted something a bit girlier (although they do state on their website that they strive for gender neutral). Lo and behold:

Flying High case

Adorable!! I LOVE it! Definitely girlier and I love the muted colors! I love the birds! And the balloon! I just really like this one a lot. It's just so pretty! This one definitely has convinced me to stay at least a couple more months.

Close up

If you'd like to sign up for this fun subscription, go sign up! If you use my link, you'll get $5 off your first month! Please just let me know if you have any trouble with that.

(And just a disclaimer: I bought this box myself and was not compensated for this review in any way. All opinions are my own. I have included referral links.)