Every month, Birchbox lets subscribers pick between a curated box (all samples revealed) or a single sample choice and be surprised by the rest of the items.
This review is of the sample choice box.
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The Products: Beauty and lifestyle samples selected by the Birchbox team.
Ships to: US, France, Spain and the UK and Canada
Check out all of our Birchbox reviews and the Beauty Subscription Box Directory!
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Each box comes with a card that has a blurb of the month’s theme and focus. August is about good hair days and products that don’t slow you down. This month, each subscriber received 2 hair samples, matched to their profiles.
And on the flip side, it details the items included and some tips on how to use them.
Bumble & Bumble Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil – 1 oz, value: $3.30
I’m loving this hair oil! It’s a blend of six different oils, actually. I already use some hair oils but I adore how this is a spray and not a pump or bottle – I find that I really like not having to get my hands covered in oily product, and I feel that it applies much more evenly and easily. I sprayed this oil on my towel-dried hair, combed through, and blow-dried. It made my hair crazy soft! I always use some form of heat protectant, so I’m glad this product does that as well. I’m really happy with this discovery.
Oribe Après Beach Wave and Shine Spray – 1 oz, value: $4.60
This was my sample pick this month. I generally don’t use or care for beach wave or sea salt sprays, but I’m obsessed with Oribe so I wanted to try this one. My hair is very fine, flat, and straight, with zero natural texture so generally products like this don’t do much except make my hair look like it needs brushed. I’m not sure this product does much for me when using it on clean, dry hair – no beachy waves or tousled texture. However, I do like it better on my second-day hair and I think this product would work well to add some texture and grip to help my styling when I use my curling iron or style my hair up.
Benefit Cosmetics Goof Proof Brow Pencil - .001 oz, value: $2.40
Benefit was tricky with this sample. There’s a pink cardboard fold that has information on the product, but that’s not what the sample is in. Inside the pink fold is a tiny silver cardboard fold and that’s what the sample pencil is in. More about this product and more pictures below.
The shade is a little too dark for me (very typical, as I’m usually ghostly pale), but thanks to a bit of a summer tan this was just barely workable for me. However, for under-eye concealers, I prefer to have them be just a bit paler than my foundation/tinted moisturizer for the sake of getting as much brightening power as I possible can.
Hey Honey Trick and Treat Cream Concealer - 0.27 oz, value: $17.06
It’s been a while since I’ve received a complexion-specific product from Birchbox. This concealer’s formula is great – it has great coverage for under-eyes and blends well. The formula is also packed with a resinous mixture that honeybees collect from flowers and trees, which is rich with amino-acids and hydrating and anti-aging properties.
Here’s the brow pencil! It’s tiny – you can get a couple uses out of this max. Which, I mean, I guess is the point of a sample, but something about it just feels comically small. It’s hard to work with because of the size. Also, as you can kind of see in the photo on the right, the product is just in the tip and there’s no way to twist it up, and it looks like there’s actually more product down inside the plastic case than above it. So that means the amount of product that you can actually use is probably about half of the listed weight of the sample. Because the sample is so small already, it seems like a waste to have that much of the sample unusable.
MannaKadar Cosmetics Eyeshadow from the Day Dream Palette – value: $14?
FYI - I’m kind of guessing at the value here because this shadow is a sample shade from their new Day Dream palette, and the only other eyeshadow they sell in a pan seems to be their 3-in-1 shadow/blush/highlighter in Fantasy.
Anyway, as you can see, this shadow came to me destroyed into a fine powder. Broken compacts are fixable (mix with alcohol and re-press, let dry), but I personally have too many shadows to put that much time and effort into saving one. I emailed customer service and am waiting to hear back, but in my experience with them, I’m confident they’ll either send a replacement or add points to my account. (In the case of my last month’s box, they sent a cleanser for oily skin when my account specifies I have dry skin. They didn’t have the product in stock to send to me so they gave me $5 in points – I’m happy with that!)
All that being said, this shadow is very pretty. It’s shimmery and has great color payoff. It also stayed perfect all day with an eyeshadow primer (I never go without one).
Here’s some swatched. Top to bottom is the concealer, then a thick and thin line of the brown pencil, and lastly a swatch of the eyeshadow.
Here I am, using every product in the box! This is my hair after using the Bumble and Bumble invisible oil, and finishing my styling off with the Oribe spray. I don’t really love the look, but I know I will get use out of the spray for things other than beachy waves. I’m also wearing the eyeshadow, concealer, and brow pencil.
Verdict: Overall, I’m really happy with my August Birchbox! I’m really happy with the hair samples (I know I’ll use both, and I’m a little obsessed with the Bumble and Bumble oil) and I’m glad I got to try another product from Benefit’s new brow line. Based on my (many) past experiences with Birchbox’s customer service, I’m confident I’ll get a satisfactory resolution to the broken shadow, and I’ll probably pass along the concealer to a friend who’s complexion it really works for. The value for my box adds up to ~$42, which I’m happy with!
What do you think about my August Birchbox? What was your sample pick this month?
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