August 2015 Birchbox

You'd think by the 4th box this month I'd be tired of Birchbox, but I'm still super excited when  ever I open my mailbox and there's a box waiting for me. There's just something fun about getting a surprise box of beauty goodies every month that I really love. For those who don't know, Birchbox is a monthly beauty subscription box company that delivers 4-5 deluxe or full sized beauty products to your door for the low price of $10. Some months are great, some suck, but no matter what I love Birchbox and wont be quitting any time soon. Even if this was a terrible box. Which it was.

The design on the box was really fun this month, this might be in my top five favorite box designs for sure. What screams summer more than a swimming pool? I really like these fun box designs and I hope it continues past this year.

I received 5 items this month, which is pretty typical for my boxes. There was only one makeup item, which was a little disappointing, but three skincare items and a hair care item, which is always nice. I go through hair stuff so quickly, though I think by the end of September I'll be completely bald so I may need to change my profile a bit. And if you read my Guest Editor box review you probably see a repeat in the form of a self tanner. So already I'm not happy with my box, but let's dig in and see what I think.

I'm not really going to talk about the tanning lotion since I talk about it here, but I will again say it is a neat item for someone who isn't already extremely tanned.

Oribe is one of those high end hair care lines that I've always wanted to try, but I'm waaaay to broke to try. So getting a beach spray, something I'm obsessed with, from them in my Birchbox this month was like hitting the hair jackpot. This is an aerosol beach spray, which I haven't used before, but I felt like it gave my hair some interesting texture. Would I call them beach waves? No, but this was a great texturing spray instead. I might try this on hair that was braided to see if I can get some great waves. Would I buy a full sized of this? No, Oribe is pretty well outside of my budget and it didn't wow me enough to make an exception for.

I've gotten a product from Balance Me before, in my very first Birchbox I believe. They're a pretty well rated company, so I was happy to try something else from their line. And an acne spot treatment product is right up my alley, my skin is being so weird right now that I can use all the help I can get. I've admittedly only used this once, so I can't tell you about the long term use benefits, but I was happy with how my skin looked the next day and my lovely forehead acne was about half the size it had been the night before, and they were totally gone by the next day. Since this is a spot treatment my tube will last me for a while, but I won't be buying a full size again because of the price.

The Balm is another one of those high end makeup brands that's been on my wish list forever but I'm way to broke to commit to trying. That's one of the things I love about Birchbox, I get to try these items that are normally way outside of my budget. Now that being said, I do want my samples to be of a usable size.

This is the Beach Babe bronzer and the pan is the size of a small eyeshadow pan. Makes it pretty hard to actually use as a bronzer. This is just a pet peeve of mine, like the lipsticks with half an inch of product or the BB creams with 2 days worth of product in it. Just give me a decent sized, usable sample, its not that hard of a concept.

The color isn't bad at all, but because of the size I'm having a hard time using it. I'm half tempted to transfer it to a bigger pan, but I'll probably just use it as a crease color. I won't be buying a full sized because I'm not sure if I'd like it as a bronzer.

And lastly we have the item that made me physically ill. Facial wash is something I don't have a lot of, so I was really excited to get a pretty good sized bottle of an usual one. This is Shea Terra's Rose Hips Black Soap and it is suppose to deep clean your pores and help remove dead skin from your face. First, it's a nasty brown thick liquid, like cheap molasses. You have to put it on your face and leave it for about 5 minutes before you massage it then rinse it. Which would be gross but fine if it didn't smell like stale cigarette smoke. The smell was so strong it literally made me sick to my stomach. And on top of that it dried my face out so bad it took days to heal. I have never hated a product as much as I hate this, it literally went straight into the trash. And you guys should know by now I hate wasting products, so for me to throw away a full bottle is a big deal. Disgusting, awful product.

So out of 5 items, none of them were a clear winner. One went straight to the trash, one is a repeat I can't use, one is so tiny I can barely use it, and two were ok but not worth the price tag at all. I'm really disappointed with this box, the curation felt off and I don't think anybody at Birchbox has ever used that soap. This might be my least favorite box, I'm so glad I got three other boxes this month or I'd be seriously pissed. Was your box this month better than mine?