Beauty Subscription Service Guide

Hey everyone! This is a list of all the subscription services I have tried over the past few years.

Monthly:

Birchbox- Birchbox is a $10 a month subscription that gives you 4-5 samples each month. They vary from makeup to skincare to lifestyle products. Their boxes are tailored to your profile, so it is vary important you customize to your preferences. (Tip- For more makeup, select the youngest age and make sure your splurge item is the latest color of makeup. Also, try selecting adventurous and trendy. Classic/ Low-maintenance entails you probably don't use much makeup.)  For the most part, Birchbox is the most reliable subscription service I have come across. Most people complain because they do not get as much makeup as they would wish, but keep in mind that a subscription service is a beauty concierge service, and therefore will try to connect you to new makeup, but is not promising full size products. If you are curious as to what's in these birchboxes, click the Birchbox tab above. The best part of Birchbox in my opinion is that you receive points for every review you leave for the products you receive in your box. Then you can use the points in the shop to purchase full sized items.  (10 pts per review and 100 pts is $10 in credits for use in their shop)

Glossybox-  Glossybox is a $21 a month box that connects you to different higher end brands. Basically, its a more expensive version of Ipsy and Birchbox. The problem is that they are sometimes very late shipping and the products are a bit hit and miss.  Here is a review of it: http://Graceandgloss.blogspot.com/2013/02/glossybox-december-2012.html

Ipsy/ Myglam- Ipsy is another $10 a month service that in the recent months, connect you to mostly different makeup brands. Compared to birchbox, Ipsy will send you more makeup, a lot of the time 1-2 full sized products per bag. There are a few cons to Ipsy. First, they have not always consistent. For the first 6 months, the bags were barely worth the $10 paid. Since then, the bags have gotten much better. But keep in mind that these bags are not always well rounded. So if you are looking for something with a little of everything, go for Birchbox. But a nice thing about the service is that they send your products with a makeup bag each month. But after a year, what are you going to do with 12 makeup bags?

Beauty Box 5- Beauty Box 5 is a $12 a month subscription service that does what Ipsy and Birchbox do. They work with a lot of indie and less known brands. I subscribed to them for a two months and I personaly did not care for the products sent. I thought it would be nice to feature brands that are not as common, going back to the idea of a beauty discovery service, but there is also the balance of having reasonably easy to find brands, which is obviously not the case. I had a hard time finding some of the products in the box, and the ones I recieved were not items I would personally want in a subscription box like cleansing wipes or perfume vials. And the fact that there is no rewards program pushed me to decide to cancel it.

Twistclub- Twistclub is a $10 a month subscription service where you receive a variety of twistband products directly from the manufactuer.  Each box will contain a mix of Twistband products that will equal a $12-$16 value.  You will always get hair ties, but I have gotten headbands and even crayon rings in it. Here is a link to my review on it: http://graceandgloss.blogspot.com/2012/11/twistband-twistclub.html 

Beauty Army- Beauty Army is a $12 a month subscription service where every month you get to chose up to 6 items in a 9 selection window. The nice thing about Beauty Army is the novelty of choosing what comes in your own box. The best part is that it is extremely easy to change your profile, and the changes will immediately change the products in your window. The con to this service is that the products are not always amazing.

Little Black Bag- LBB is a 29.95/49.95 monthly service where you get to select one product and the other 2-3 items are randomly selected for you. This service is nice because it really isn't just beauty. Its everything from beauty, handbags, home, accessories, etc. Depending on which price bracket you chose, you have between 3-7 days to trade the items in your bag. (Tip: Multi-item trades do much better than just a single item, Use chat. Talking to the girls on chat will help you to find what you are looking for or at least find out how high each item is trading for.)  Con: This service easily gets expensive and sometimes the quality of the products are not as expected. Luckily they have a great return policy. Here are some of my boxes. http://graceandgloss.blogspot.com/search/label/littleblackbag

PopSugar Must Have Box: Popsugar released their own subcription box which is more lifestyle than beauty. They have various catagories like must have beauty, or must have food. I have yet to subscribe to the service, but I am holding back due to the $39.95 price tag on each box. I will say their box values often exceed $100, but for a broke college student, its just a little out of reach pricewise.

Quarterly:

Beautyfix- Beautyfix is a quarterly subscription service where just like beauty army, you get to pick your box. This subscription is $49.99 and you can chose 8 products and a makeup bag. The concept is nice. You pay more than beauty army, but you get bigger and "better" products. A lot of the products are full sized or very generously sized samples. The con is that the products are mostly skin care and hair products. Back last summer, they had some amazing products! They had Stila set and correct, Nailtiques, Murad, etc. I even picked up two boxes back then. But now the amount of makeup in the selection window has dwindled and its really a no go for me at the moment.

Weekly:

Graze- Graze is a weekly service that sends you 4 pre-portion snacks to your door for $5 a month. The con is that the sizes aren't that large and the shipping date is inconsistent. One week I got my box on Thursday, the following week was Saturday, and the following week was Tuesday the next week. The cause of this is that they ship from the UK, but its still a hassle.

Freebies:

(The way these freebie boxes work is that they hope that you will help them market their product for almost free.  The thought is that you will tell all your family and friends about the product. And the companies will benefit from your reviews. And in exchange you receive the product gratis. This is known as Word of Mouth marketing. This costs little money to the companies, the price of the product and the price of the firms to connect consumer to company. Since WOM reviews like person to person conversations can be more convincing than an Ad campaign)

Bzz Agent- Bzz agent is a program that works by putting products in the hands of consumers. Bzz Agent focuses more on individual products and they have you complete a campaign, a series of tasks to create awareness for the product.

Influenster- Influenster is fairly similar to most WOM services. But rather than sending you a single product, they prefer to send you a box with an assorted mix of products. But ask that you equally promote all items. And you can gain badges when you complete certain tasks for a certain product.

Sircle Samples- Sircle samples is a freebie site that works a little different than WOM sites. They ask you to answer surveys and add things to wishlists and makeup bags and you earn points for that. You can then use your accumulated points for various samples or full sized items. The con is that the surveys are daily and if you don't remember to come back, you lose a chance to earn a few credits.

Swaggable- Swaggable is another freebie site that works by having you answer a survey on which products you indicate the type of products you like, then you go to each category list and choose from a list, products you would like to try by indicating want in the product's top right corner. And if they are looking for reviews, they will email you to confirm you want to try the product, and they will send you one. Then you do a short review.