Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Brightly Colored Box of Goodies: Birchbox July 2015

Every month the makeup fairy leaves me a box full of goodies in my mailbox. Ok, so maybe the fairy is my mailman and the magical box is my monthly Birchbox, but it still feel special every time I open my mailbox and see my box waiting for me. Last month's box wasn't bad, but I had high hopes for the July box to be great. Shall we open the box up and see what goodies the makeup fairy brought me this month.


This might be my new favorite box design, wow is that gorgeous! So bright and the geometric design is awesome! To my knowledge there wasn't any sort of collaboration this month, so I'm not sure where they got the idea for the design. But I really liked it and even if I wasn't keeping all my boxes I'd be keeping this one.


I actually got what looks like a great box for me. Red lipstick, the CC cream I've been wanting to try forever, a hair product, a face oil, and my husband's favorite after sun lotion. Unless everything seriously bombs this box is going to be in my top five for sure. I won't be doing a price breakdown this time just because I'm feeling terrible and honestly don't have the energy to track everything down and calculate it up, but looking at the brand I know this is a high value box for sure. And so long as I get my $10 out of it AND like the products I'm happy.


This month instead of different sample choices you got to pick the shade of the Stila liquid lipstick. I of course picked the red one, never met a red I didn't like. I've never owned anything by Stila, they're a bit out of my budget, so I was pretty excited to get to try this out. It's a liquid lipstick that dried to a matte and stains your lips as well. Since it's a matte finish it can be pretty drying, so I found it best to wear it over lip balm and to apply a thin layer. I am really enjoying it, though it isn't my favorite red for sure. The drying factor can be a bit much at times, and like all liquid lipsticks leaves that ring around the edge of your lips as it fades. Would I buy another at full price? No, but if I found some for a good price I would for sure


Amika is a great but expensive hair care line that always has the most interesting ingredients. I've tried their dry shampoo and really enjoyed it, so I was super excited to try this. This is the un.done texture spray, which seems to be a mix between a hair spray and a dry shampoo. It also gives you a matte finish, which is confusing for a hair product. I thought the goal was nice and shiny hair? Anyways, I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's just kind of.....hair spray/dry shampoo? I don't hate it, I just don't get it I guess. I've been using it for interesting hairstyles but I wouldn't purchase it.


I actually laughed when I saw this in my box. Many many years ago my husband (then my boyfriend, like I said this was many years ago) and I went to Hawaii. My pale as a ghost husband got crazy bad burned after a day of boogie boarding, so I wandered from the hotel in the middle of the night to this little shop we had passed one day that had an ad in the window for burn relief creams. The aloe gel and the after sun lotion I bought worked like a charm and I've always wondered if they had an online shop. Well guess who's lotion should be sitting in my box this month. And just in time for summer. I'll be saving this little gem for when my love gets burned to a crisp again.


My next little gem was a teenie little bottle of Jouer's skin clearing facial oil. I know this is expensive because the sample is so adorable cute and small. You are suppose to put a drop or two onto your hands and then smooth it all over your face. I've been using it at night and I'm pretty happy with it. There's tea tree oil in it so it helps with any acne you have and gives your skin the good moisture it needs to not go into oil producing overdrive. If it wasn't so crazy expensive I'd buy  bottle for sure, so maybe next time I do a big splurge with my Birchbox points.


And lastly is the item I've been wanting to try forever and have just been unsuccessful in getting a sample of. If you've been reading my blog for a while you know I love Supergoop so so much, so I've been wanting to try their CC Cream but because of the price and not knowing what color to get I've been holding off on buying a full sized bottle. I really hate dealing with returns so getting to try before I buy is a huge perk of Birchbox. This is the light to medium shade, and is suppose to help even out skin tone while protecting my skin from harmful UV rays ect ect.


Color wise it was a really good fit for me (there's a swatch of the lippie as well), but I was the most excited to discover that it dried to a nice matte finish on me. I have admittedly only tried it once, I'm SO close to finishing my usual foundation that I've been focusing on that, but from my initial test on non-primed skin it help up really well and stayed nice and matte even before I added my powder. I'll keep wearing it throughout the next week or so but if my initial impression holds up I'll be buying a bottle of this for sure.

While I did not get any full sized items this month this box was a big win for me and I really like everything I got minus the weird hair spray. I actually felt like Birchbox listened to what I want for once and I'm hoping that there will be more boxes as great as this in the future. Next month I'll be leaving everything up to Birchbox, including my sample choice, so we will see if the trend of good boxes continues. If you received a Birchbox this month what did you think of it?

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