Cancelled Birchbox, Trying Beauty Bar

I previously posted (here) about how I was giving Birchbox a try and I gave it three months before I decided to cancel.  The first month was ok but it turned out that they had sent out some expired samples.  Second month was the much hyped Gossip Girl box which was not that great and I forgot to take a photo of it.  Then, when I received my third box in June I immediately cancelled as soon as I opened up the box below:

For $10/month I was told that I would receive a box with amazing samples of products tailored based on a profile I filled out.  I don't think anything in my profile said I wanted to receive designer bandaids, sanitizing wipes, and a sample of a men's cologne!  I was pissed off when I saw this box.  There was nothing in it that I liked and I don't think I'd use any of these things!  I also don't like how much the boxes can vary in quality for each month.  And since these don't seem to be personalized at all according to profiles it's really just a crap shoot which box you'll end up getting.  My friend who first told me about Birchbox cancelled after her first box and has since moved on to other similar services and never looked back.

I have also moved on and am trying out some new services.  I recently signed up for Beauty Bar's Sample Society, which is done with Allure magazine.  I saw the June box online which was awesome and had some full sized products and so I decided to give it a try.  Beauty Bar is $15/month, so it's a bit more but based on past boxes I thought it would probably be worth it.

This box contained a Borghese body cream, a Jouer tinted moisturizer, a Vbeaute eye cream, a Sisley intense anti-aging lotion, and a dual-sided Vincent Longo lipliner.

I think I liked the June box better but this is pretty good and, as you can tell from just comparing this to the photos above, is way better than any Birchbox I ever received.  I'm going to give this a couple more months and see how it goes and will decide whether or not to continue with Beauty Bar after the trial period is up.  I'll try to remember to post my box each month so you can see how it goes and hopefully this will go better than Birchbox in the long run!

First Birchbox!

So under the persuasion of my friend, Fritillaria, I decided to give Birchbox a try.  When she first described this to me I thought "Genius!"  Birchbox is a company that for $10/month will send you a monthly package with various samples, tailored for you based on a questionnaire you fill out when you join.  If you like a sample, you can buy the product through Birchbox's website.  I waste so much money on products that I end up not liking or using so I thought it would be a good idea to give this a try.  And I might discover something new and awesome along the way!

So after an annoyingly long wait list, I finally was able to sign up and got my first box in April.  

This box had the following products:

-  Befine exfoliating cleanser packets

-  Befine daily moisturizer with spf 15

-  Showstoppers designer fashion tape

-  Juicy Couture perfume sample - Viva La Juicy

-  Color Club neon nail polish

-  June Jacobs perfect pumpkin enzyme polish 

I'm excited to try out the Befine products and the exfoliator but I was disappointed with the nail polish, the Juicy Couture perfume (really?!  Juicy Couture perfume?), and the fashion tape (since I dress like a prudish bum, fashion tape is never needed).  So I'll give Birchbox a few more months and see how it goes.  If the bad outweighs the good then I'll quit.  My friend Fritillaria was unhappy with her box (post here) and I must admit she got a bad one.  It seems like the quality of boxes varies widely.  She didn't fill out the questionnaire so that might be the reason for her box, but even if she didn't her box should still be better.  So here's hoping May will be better.  But if not, there are a lot of companies that do a similar service that I totally didn't know about until Fritillaria introduced me to them.  How did I not know about these?!