September 15 Glossybox

September’s Glossybox was the Style Edition the theme seems to be grey and pink which is completely fine with me. The box contained 5 full sized products, FIVE!! I was so excited when I heard that, I was really looking forward to seeing what would be hidden away inside my box and Glossybox did not disappoint!

Glossybox Top 10

It has been a year since I first signed up to Glossybox, in that time I have received 12 boxes, and 2 limited edition boxes. I have found some amazing products, some great brands and some products that I have repurchased time and time again. I didn’t realise it was my 12^th box until I received a card with my August box and a Glossybox notebook to say thanks! So I thought I would do my top 10 products that I have received over the last year, this was much harder than I thought as there was so many others that I wanted to include.

August 15 Glossybox

This month’s Glossybox, like all the others did not disappoint! It contained 5 products, 4 of which were full sized that were all very different but all really great! There was no particular theme this month, and the box was it’s usual plain pink and black Glossybox design. So here’s what I thought of the products.

Harvey Nichols Glossbox

As you all know, I am a very big beauty box fan. And my beauty box of choice is Glossybox. I absolutely love surprises, little surprises, big surprises. Love them all. And a beauty box is like buying yourself a lovely surprise every month! So naturally when I saw the advert for the limited edition Harvey Nichols Glossybox, I just had to have it. 

November 2014 Glossybox

Hi Everyone, hope that you are all trying to enjoy what is left of the weekend. As I was preparing for Monday morning; bed time shower, matching pyjamas and a cup of camomile it dawned on me that I am STILL yet to tell you all about my November Glossybox and it is now JANUARY! Shame on me! Sorry about the delay, so I will get to it promptly.

Well November was the first month that I have received in a plain pink box (normally they are in exciting boxes). I was a little disappointed, but the products inside definitely made up for it.

Firstly I received a LOLLIPOPS MAKE UP eye pencil in black. The packaging is really up my street, it is pink, with leopard print. What more could you ask for?! It applies really really easily and lasts really well throughout the day. It fades from the water line, but you would be extremely lucky to find an eye pencil that doesn’t, but it lasts on your lid for hours. It doesn’t smudge and leave that horrible smudge mark under your bottom lid that you sometimes find around lunch time. It's really pigmented and looks great, really good when doing a smoky eye. It has a turning base so you can push the pencil up when it runs out so no need to sharpen. Perfect! It contains Vitamin E with anti-ageing and anti-radical action. It sells for 14 Euros on www.lollipopsmakeup.fr. In my Glossybox I received a full size product which is fabulous and for 14 Euros I think it’s a steal!

I also received a Burt’s Bees Lip Shine in Blush, another full sized product – Bonus! It is 100% natural which I love and is enriched with moisturising Apricot Wax. Now this is a very nice colour, very subtle and not to over-powering, you could easily wear it throughout the day or over a matte lipstick, it’s extremely glossy and so makes your lips look fuller without the horrendous feeling of a plumper by just using a super shine. It smells divine, really sweet fruity smell, which is always wanted in a lip gloss. It’s super easy to apply, even without a mirror, but because this product is extremely glossy and shiny, it means that it is really really sticky. A big gust of wind and your hair and lippy is screwed. Definitely not to be worn in extreme weather conditions! Stick to pubs and clubs! It sells for £6.99 at www.burtsbees.co.uk.

Now onto the H20+ Face Oasis Hydrating Treatment, this sample was only 8ml, extremely small – however you only need a little amount to cover your whole face. Now this a gel, which was a little strange for me, it felt a lot like a peel off face mask. After cleansing apply a small amount and massage into skin. It is oil free and if kept in the fridge it can be used as a refreshing cooling mask. I wasn’t overly keen on applying this, it feels sticky when you apply it to your skins and doesn’t massage in overly well. It is totally scentless which also seemed a little odd, but WOW it really works. It leaves skin feeling really soft and totally fresh, like every single bit of makeup has disappeared and the weird thing is, once it dries the stickiness completely disappears too and it makes skin look really refreshed. A 50ml bottle is £27.50 from marksandspencer.com/l/beauty/h2o

The MONU Skincare Soothing Hawaii Facial Oil was a 30ml bottle. It’s a warming facial oil containing Cardamom, Sandalwood and Lavender, it basically smells like a candle. It smells amazing! Like a soothing, calming, comforting scent. After cleansing and toning you apply a small amount to the skin and massage in gentle upwards movements. It feels like an at home facial. Would totally recommend to anyone! My favourite product in this month’s box! It leaves skin feeling fantastic and leaves you feeling totally relaxed. Definitely one to avoid if you have oily skin, but if you have dry, normal or combination skin then try this out for a lovely bed time facial. 100ml sells for £26 at www.monushop.co.uk

(Excuse my grown out acrylics in these photos)

And last but not least the 2True Pro Sparkles Glitter Nail Polish. This is essentially a pot of glitter that you can sprinkle on to nails to give a really sparkly finish. Mine was in gold and was a full sized sample. I painted my nails with gold nail varnish (In the photo I have used the Nails Inc Magnetic Polish in Big Ben, however I have not used the magnet on it) I then allowed this to dry. Then after placing my hand over a sheet of paper (to collect excess) I painted my nails with a clear varnish, while this was still wet I sprinkled the 2True Pro Sparkles Glitter all over my nails, I let them dry then wiped off the excess glitter, once all the excess glitter had been removed I went over it with the clear polish again to avoid it chipping off. This gives a really glittery effect and I love it, really good party nails! It lasted for ages and I had a lot of compliments about my nails, I loved them. However it wasn’t so easy to remove. This is sold at Superdrug for £4 and comes in a variety of colours. www.superdrug.com

Sorry for the delay and I'll be sure to get up to date with my Glossyboxes soon

Check out my other Glossybox reviews to see what I thought of my other boxes. 

http://megandoesbeauty1.blogspot.co.uk/p/glossybox-review-posts.html 

Do you receive Glossybox? What did you think of the November box?

Have you tried any of theses products? What did you think?


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Glossybox October 2014

Glossybox October 2014

I know I'm a bit late in writing my October Glossybox review as I have just received my Nov box, and I apologise! I like to make sure that I've tried each product a few times to be able to give a thorough review, and this month I’ve been very busy so have been a bit behind. The reason why I am so keen to review the Glossyboxes that I receive is because when I was debating whether or not to sign up to Glossybox I tried to find a good review online but struggled to find one that reviewed the products, most of them were just a list of what products were in the box, so if you're umming and ahhing about whether or not to sign up, make sure you have a good read.

So for those of you that don't know what a Glossybox is, it's a beauty box. A few products are selected for you and sent out each month. It's just £10 a month, but with p+p, you are looking at more like £14. The great thing about this is that you get to try before you buy and sometimes get introduced to brands that you might not have heard of before. The downside is that you might pay £10 for a collection of things that you would never buy in a million years or the colour or shade might be totally wrong!

October was Pop Art month, hence the box above. I actually really liked the theme. The box looks great! I'm currently using it to house some bits and bobs. From images that I saw on social media there were a few different boxes circulating using different images and colours. In October Glossybox were trying to be more green and instead of giving you a product card listing all of the products and their retail price, they uploaded it all online. It was a little annoying but when you think of the impact environmentally it isn't really a bit deal to have a look on your phone for the details.

So I'll start off with the Nuxe Creme Fraiche de Beaute Mask. Ignoring all of the fancy French words it's a hydrating face mask. I started with this because every month when you receive your Glossybox you get a 'Sneak Peak' card that shows you a product in next month’s box (I love surprises, so I'm not overly fond of the card). This came as full sized, which was very nice. I've used it a few times and I've still got loads left so that's always good. It retails at £19.50 for 50ml. Now the instructions for this say to put it on your face, leave for 10 minutes, then gently massage in any excess. So the first few times I used this, I smothered it on, left it alone for 10 minutes then all of the mask started to peel off. It sort of looks like when you've had sun burn and your skin peels off - it looks gross! It doesn't cause much harm, it's just a little annoying and doesn’t look very nice. So I have just been using cotton wool to wipe over my face to get rid of the clumps of mask. Or alternatively, if you just apply a thin layer like with your morning moisturiser, it doesn't peel or clump at all. It's really nice to put on, smells extremely floral (not my thing, but not an awful smell) and more importantly it definitely works. It leaves your skin feeling very softy and looking great. Would I say this is worth £19.50 for 50ml? YES!

Check out this product and other Nuxe products here: https://uk.nuxe.com/

Now next I'll tell you about the Ciate paint pots. They are nail varnishes that were meant to add the 'pop' of colour that the box design was coinciding with. Well the colour I received was white. A bit disappointing, especially after seeing all of the lovely, interesting, bright colours that other people had received on social media. But none the less. I'd never tried Ciate nail varnishes before, even though I'd heard great things about them. It applied very easily and I love the design and shape of the bottle. The brush is great and it dries pretty quickly. The white is nice enough and takes about 3 coats for full coverage. In conclusion – great brand, boring colour. These retail at £9.00 each.

I also received a So Susan Flutter mascara. Now whenever I buy or receive a new mascara I get very excited. I naturally have long eyelashes (although sadly not very full) so I can get away with lots of mascara and fake eyelashes, so when I pulled this out of my Glossybox I was very pleased. However it turned out to be quite disappointing. Now the brush is very small, at first I was looking forward to it because I thought I'd be able to get at more lashes and give more of a fuller look. However all that really happened is that it all got a bit messy. It ends up going everywhere. Because my lashes are quite long if a mascara is too watery it ends up going all over my eye lids, which was exactly what happened. All in all, a bit of a disaster. However when I used cotton buds and concealer to hide all the mascara all over my face it looked alright. It lasted all day, and didn’t start to crumble like some do. It came in black and was a full size sample - not a mini. Retails at £14.95.

Now - on to my FAVOURITE. I love this!! So so pleased this came in my box. This is a small sample (very small) of Quelques Notes D'Amour. And WOW! What I love about this is that I never would have sampled this if it wasn't for it being in my Glossybox. I never would have picked this brand up but wow, it is gorgeous. It's a little tiny bit floral, a little bit fruity and a little bit musky. It kind of smells a bit similar to Alien by Thierry Mugler (which I adore!).  I can't really describe but if you haven't already, get down to a fragrance shop and give it a sniff. I will definitely be buying it when my little sample runs out. It retails at £33.00 for 30ml

I also received a little BB Matte Mini by Rimmel. Now this is a bit ridiculous - but I've never tried a BB cream before. I always stick to a foundation or a tinted moisturiser if I'm just nipping to the shop. So I was very very excited that it finally gave me a push to try a BB cream. Now this retails at £6.99 for 30ml so it's completely reasonable and this is something that you could add into your daily routine. Now it's meant to be a multitasking 9-in-1 skin perfecting makeup with a natural formula to give a flawless Matte Look. And it said you can apply with a foundation brush or with fingers. Well I recently went away with my boyfriend to the Lake District and I took this with me. One morning we had over slept and he was moaning at how long I had taken in the shower so I thought I better speed up my extensive morning make up ritual, I whacked this on using my fingers, put on some blusher, penciled in my eye brows and put on some eye liner and mascara

and I was ready. And this worked a treat. It is very light to wear, and doesn't go shiny throughout the day like some thick foundations. It made my skin feel really soft but did also give enough coverage to hide all my red splodges. It was great and I am definitely converted. And when I walked out my boyfriend even complimented my on how good I looked - so it's a win-win.

And lastly is the etrebelle lip peel. Now this looks like a lip gloss when you unscrew the lid, but it is an exfoliator for your lips. It smells lovely, very sweet and rubs onto your lips very easily. You lightly squeeze the tube (like a lip gloss) and rub along your lips, you then rub it in on your lips and it gets rid of your chapped lips and takes off flakey skin. Now I’ve used a few of these, the e.l.f one is one of my favourites. But unlike the e.l.f one, this has much smaller beads and isn’t as harsh on your lips, this is more like an exfoliator that you could use every day. It’s very soft, not too harsh, but it definitely does the trick. A fantastic product. Retails at £12.95 for 15ml.

Another fantastic month's Glossybox! Well worth signing up guys!

Let me know what you thought on October's Glossybox, or what other great beauty boxes there are out there.

Glossybox September 2014

I finally decided to take the plunge and sign up to GLOSSYBOX. I have been debating it for a while, and did a lot of research into the best brand of beauty box and whether they really are worth the money, in the end I couldn’t help myself and just had to sign up.

When the September 14 Glossybox arrived I didn’t really know what to expect. I had seen a lot of vloggers opening up boxes and describing what the products looked like, but hadn’t found many reviews as to how good the products actually were. The first thing I noticed was that the box was gorgeous, much more sophisticated than I expected, it was designed by Karen Millen, and you could definitely tell. Inside it contained a voucher for Karen Millen, which I thought was an excellent touch, a product card and a spoiler for next months glossybox (which I don’t normally enjoy but I have to admit it did get me very excited)! Inside were 6 different products.

Let’s start with my favourite (as always), which was the Nails inc Westminster Bridge Matte Top Coat. Firstly let me say I was very impressed that you can get a full sized nail varnish in the glossy box, this values at £12 for the 10ml bottle. I absolutely love it, definitely worth £12 I have a lot of Nails inc products and have always found them to be of amazing quality! The matte top coat was so easy to apply and looks fabulous. You just apply over your usual coloured nail varnish instead of a shiny clear top coat, and it completely transforms your usual same-old nail colour. I first tried it with a black nail varnish, and I absolutely loved it, so many people commented on it saying how cool and different my nails looked. It’s a quick and easy way to try something new and change up your old varnishes. One thing I will say about the Matte top coat is that it fades over time, over the duration of about a week or two (if, like me, you are lucky enough to avoid chipping) you will notice that the matte gradually fades.

I also received a GOSH cosmetics Silky Cream Blusher in 001 Tropical Breeze, this also came full sized and retails at £6.99 at Superdrug. I have only tried a few GOSH products but have read many amazing reviews on them. The thing that initially put me off the GOSH blusher was the colour – tropical breeze is very orange and not very neutral (that is a downfall on Glossybox – you can’t choose your own colours to match your taste or skin tone). At first I whacked it straight across my cheek and quickly realised that the colour is very pigmented, way too pigmented to just wipe straight over your face. I tried many techniques to apply it – on to my face then blend, using my fingers, using brushes, and I found that the best way for me to apply the blusher was to use my RealTechnique stippling brush. I rubbed the brush onto the blusher and then applied and blended onto my cheek using the brush. I found this worked much better and made the colour a lot less harsh. The blusher feels amazing on your skin and is definitely ‘silky’, it is long lasting and has a slight sheen to it.  I would definitely recommend GOSH cosmetics Silky Cream Blusher however I will be purchasing a better suited colour.

 

In my Glossybox there was also a ModelCo More Brows Fibre Gel. It’s essentially a brush on eyebrow gel – similar to a mascara wand, but for your brows. This was ALSO full sized at 3.5ml and retails for £14.95. When I first saw this in the box, I was very excited, I am a big eyebrow fanatic. However I was sadly disappointed with the product. The wand is very difficult to use, it’s quite difficult to be accurate with, and if you don’t have well maintained freshly waxed eyebrows you would struggle. However my biggest problem was the coverage, it creates quite a natural look, which I know a lot of my friends would absolutely love, however my eyebrows tend to grow in all sorts of directions so it is quite hard to fill in the gaps without using a pigmented pencil or brush on gel as the hairs grow all over the place. A pencil or gel, tend to suit my eyebrows better, fills in a lot of my gaps and creates a much more dramatic eyebrow than the natural look the ModelCo gel creates. I know a lot of my friends that I would recommend this to, that have easy to manage eyebrows and want a more natural look, however it is definitely not for me. I should also point out that it lasts for a very long time, and didn’t smudge or fade as the day went on.

L’Oreal Professionnel Mythic Oil – This stuff is amazing! I am a big fan of argon oil, one of my many not-so-secret weapons, and have seen L’Oreal mythic oil on the shelves when looking for my argon oil and have always been so curious to try it out – this is one of the many perks of Glossybox, try before you buy! You apply a small amount to the ends of your damp hair before blow drying. It makes your hair feel soft and looks so shiny, it also smells GREAT! It’s light weight so it’s great because your hair doesn’t feel thick and heavy with product. It makes your hair feel like it’s had a deep conditioning. In the glossy box you got a 45ml sample, which is a hefty amount for a sample. A 125ml bottle retails at £15.95 – I will definitely be making a purchase!

Last but not least is the real luxury item in the Glossybox by SkinPep. I got two small samples of the Enzyme and Acid Peel: Professional Grade Peeling Gel and an even smaller sample of Dark Circle Eraser. 180ml of the peeling gel retails at £89.99 and 15ml of the Eye Cream retails at £44.99. Quite expensive!

Let’s start with the peeling gel. The samples are enough to do one face mask each, luckily you get two. You gently rub into wet skin for 2 minutes then leave to set for a further 2 minutes, but this can be increased depending on the intensity of the peel you are looking for, and how sensitive your skin is. When I first started to apply the gel it didn’t look or feel how I expected it to. It was like white gel, and didn’t feel like it had an exfoliation in it. As I started to rub it into my face, my skin started to sting and feel slightly itchy. Once I stopped rubbing it in, this seemed to subside. Then after leaving it for a few more minutes you wash it off with warm water. My face felt amazing, and looks so much brighter. It definitely works, and works in an instant. I would indeed recommend this to anyone! Looking forward to using my 2^nd sachet.

Lastly was the Dark Circle Eraser, now firstly let me point out that I am not prone to dark circles, so if you do suffer from dark circles, then don’t just take my word for it. The cream feels amazing, lovely to apply and feels lovely on your skin, and I did notice a difference instantly with puffiness and the colouring around my eyes. It definitely works! It doesn’t smell too great but the results make up for that!

So in answer to the questions I originally asked myself. Yes, I love glossy box and I am so glad that I signed up! And yes, it is most certainly worth the £10 a month. In terms of comparing it to other beauty boxes, I couldn’t possibly comment. All I do know is, Glossybox is definitely worth a try! Just wish I didn’t have to wait another month for my next box!