Beauty Boxes
Have you heard of Beauty Boxes? I’ve just discovered them recently so I thought I’d share them with you. Basically it’s a subscription service, where you sign up, pay anything between £1 and £15 a month and you are sent a box full of the latest beauty products in return.
The idea is to ‘try before you buy’ – to get smaller sizes of products, see if you like them, and then you can go on and buy the full size.
Obviously as a beauty editor who gets samples of cosmetics all the time, it’s hard to judge whether this is a great idea or not? What do you think?
I know of three services – Latest In Beauty, Glossy Box and Boudoir Prive
The first box that came to my attention was Glossy Box – I was sent the October box, which was their sixth box, and to celebrate they included six products instead of five. This box had samples sizes of Dermalogica Age Smart skin polisher and masque, and their Renewal Lip Complex, as well as a small beauty bag. It had a full size Leighton Denny nail polish, a full size Stila Smudge Stick Waterproof Eyeliner and three small Robert Piquet perfume samples.
The card in the box lists all the products, their full-size prive, and has one of those fancy new barcodes which you can hover your smart-phone over to go direct o the site. The box is beautifully presented, all wrapped and tied up with ribbon. Glossy Box is £12.95 a month.
The other box I’ve had is from Latest in Beauty and was the first of its kind. It’s much more of a ‘no frills‘ box, and the difference with Latest in Beauty is that you can tailor your requirements depending on your budget. So, you could just have three sample sachets delivered for £1 a month, or you could order luxury travel sized products for a little more, or try the bi-monthly ‘themed boxes’ which start at £4.95.
The newest ‘themed box’ is the CEW (Cosmetic Executive Women) Beauty Insiders Choice box, which includes six samples of products that have the stamp of approval from the most esteemed ladies in the industry. Those samples included products as diverse as Clarins and Batiste dry shampoo.
This box is in basic packaging, and in some sense that’s fair enough – it’s the products you’re interested in after all, not the box, isn’t it?!
If you want to try either of these services, you’ll find the on line at latestinbeauty.com and glossybox.co.uk. I’ve never used Boudoir Prive, but they are £10 a month (+P&P) and can be found at boudoirprive.co.uk
