October 2014 Birchbox

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One of the things I love best is going out to my mailbox and seeing a package there for me. Even better when it contains makeup and beauty goodies. So when my Birchbox comes every month I get extra excited because I know there's going to be at least one amazing thing in there. October was my second month getting a Birchbox, so the newness hasn't worn off yet. This month's theme was "Obsessed. Addicted. Can't get enough.", so I guess these are all really popular items? My box came super quickly this month too, I received it on the tenth! Loving not waiting till the end of the month like with Ipsy.

My first look was super disappointing, I thought they forgot stuff till I opened the pillow box and discovered two things were in it and one was hiding under it. This month was back to the plain brown boxes, which I'm fine with. These boxes are really well made and I'm using mine to organize my stash of stuff. The one from last month is holding extra makeup I haven't opened yet, and this month's box is holding extra tubes of stuff like sunscreen and eye creams.

The Beauty Protector Spray was one of the items in the sneak peak I REALLY wanted to get, so I was so happy to get it this month. I have super long hair so anything that'll help protect it AND detangle it is awesome in my book. This stuff does everything, detangle, lock in color, protect from heat and UV damage, condition, and it smells amazing. Like I find myself smelling my hair all day. It works great too, so I'm super thrilled with it and will be buying a full sized one soon. A full size retails for $21.95 and is 8 oz, making my sample about $2.74. Did I mention it smelled divine? 

This was another item I was hoping to get, I hear so many good things about the Dr Brant brand that I really wanted to give them a try. This is the Pores No More Vacuum Cleaner, which is suppose to suck the blackheads and nasty stuff out of your skin. I actually haven't tried it yet, I'm testing out some other skin care stuff so as soon as that's done I'll take this puppy out for a test drive and get back to you on how I liked it. I did hear that it changes colors to let you know it's working, so that's pretty cool. A full sized retails $45 for 1 oz (ouch!), which makes my sample a whopping $11.25! That's more than the box cost, so a pretty high value sample. Now $45 for an ounce is a bit steep for me, so I will not be purchasing this even if I love it.

This was in the pillow box, and is the Balance Me Wonder Eye Cream. Supposedly it will help with wrinkles and dark under eye circles, which is a-ok in my book, but it has coconut in it so I'm not sure if I'll try it. My allergy therapy is going well so I'm fairly sure I could safely use it, just waiting till my seasonal allergies die down a bit more. It smells like Fruit Loops to me, which is weird I think but so long as it doesn't smell like butt I'm not picky. Nothing that smells like butt will ever touch my face. A full sized one retails for $38 and is 15 mL, making my 7 mL sample worth $17.73! I actually went back and double checked my math on this one, that's a high value sample, almost double the cost of the box. Very impressed with this box so far.

This was one of the samples you could have picked this month (I didn't pick any, I wanted to be surprised), a ModelCo Party Proof lipstick in the shade Kitty. I wasn't super familiar with the brand, though I had seen their nail polishes before, so I wasn't sure if this would be a good lipstick or a give to my son to play with lipstick. They claim this lipstick will "last as long as the party does", but I haven't really noticed any difference between this and other lipsticks.

The shade is lovely, kind of a shimmery/metallic nude pink color, or what I call "my lips but better". I've work it at least 3 days a week since it arrived, so I'm calling this one a hit. It even smells nice, which is a weird thing to say about a lipstick. The only downside is if your lips are dry, flaky, or cracked it can highlight that so I recommend exfoliating your lips on the days you want to use this. It appears this packaging was created just for Birchbox so this exact tube can only be bought in a trio with two other lipsticks for $24, but you can still buy the actual lipstick from their website for $16.95. No idea if the one from their site is bigger than the Birchbox one, mine appears to be a full sized lipstick so I'm calling the Birchbox trio a way better deal. I'm assigning a value of $8 to my tube and I'll probably order the whole trio at some point.

Last but not least is my favorite item from the box, a Coastal Scents Revealed 2 sample palette in the shade "Ballerina". If you frequent beauty forums you may have heard all the buzz about this palette being a great dupe for the Naked 3 palette by Urban Decay. I've seen lots of reviews about it so when I saw this sample in the sneak peeks I prayed to my makeup guardian angel to stick it in my box and I got it!

The colors that come with this palette are a matte baby pink, a shimmery rose, a shimmery dusty rose, and a matte light plum. They work really well together so these were a great choice for the sampler. The colors are gorgeous but I was so excited to look at everything I did the worlds worst swatch and barely got any on my finger, so keep that in mind.

This is one light swipe, so applied with a brush they were much more pigmented. I've actually been wearing them quite a bit since I got it and as soon as next pay day hits I'll be buying the full sized palette. The actual palette has 20 eyeshadows in it and each pan is about twice the size of these and retails for $19.99, so a really good value. And I've seen enough side by side reviews of this and Naked 3 to call it an official dupe for half the price, so this gets a gold star from me. I'm giving this a value of about $2.

This box ended up being really high value, coming to a grand total of $41.72! That's over four times what I paid for it, and I'll use everything I got for sure. I couldn't be happier with my box this month and I found some new favorites, which is the main reason I do Birchbox. And I also get 50 points for reviewing them on the Birchbox page, which equals $5 to spend in their store. I'm going to save mine up till April and treat myself to a big haul for my birthday. If you got a Birchbox this month what did you think of it?