Man was I surprised to see my November Birchbox on my doorstep when I only got the shipping notification just last night! Usually I have to wait a little under a week for my box to get to me. I have since eagerly ripped into it and taken a peek. Here's what I saw!
First item was the Oscar Blandi Protein Mist for Restyling Hair. This is a rather large sample, with a wopping 60ml inside. You can use this either on dry hair before heat styling or on damp hair to detangle and "fortify." I was going to apply this to my damp hair right out of the box but a quick sniff quickly deterred me. MAN does this stuff stink. Maybe I'm super sensitive or something but I can't imagine being able to tolerate this scent in my hair for a minute. The full 250ml retails for $18.
This is the LaROCCA Skincare Champagne and Shimmer Acai Body Polish. This is a rather small pot for a body polish. There's about enough in it to effectively scrub one limb.
It smells quite nice, not too champagne and not too acai, but actually quite lemony. This basically appears to be your average scrub with both micro grit and visible granules you manual scrub your body with. 6.76 oz of this retails for $35.
Next is the Klorane Soothing Eye Makeup Remover with Cornflower.
This bottle is the typical "cornflower blue" color I remember from my Crayon days. It is one solid remover (not bi-face or anything) and smells VERY strongly of florals (the cornflower perhaps?). I'm not the biggest fan of florals. This bottle is .8 oz, and the regular is 3.4 oz for $9. This is one of the cheapest items I've gotten from Birchbox to date (besides nail polishes and hair tyes).
Last official beauty product is another Zoya sample. I've received two Zoya polishes from Birchbox and have loved those. But move over other samples, this one is literally perfect for me.
This is Zoya's Noel. It's mostly blue with some silver and gold shimmer. It reminds me of my beloved Absolutely Alice polish from OPI, except the shimmer in this is quite fine, while the OPI was definitely a coarser glitter. I swatched this over the current blue glitter polishes I had on (which was mostly chipped away). This polish is pigmented enough you can get away with just two coats, but not so terribly opaque that people like me who prefer jelly consistencies won't be put off. (the picture below truly doesn't do this one any justice because the light catches it at different angles and makes this literally shine :D)
Last two things in my box were more of the "treat" variety. The first treat is the last true sample in my box.
The Choco Pod that I received is Dark Chocolate with Chipotle, Salt and Popping Candy flavored. It's shaped like a leaf. When I first bit it the only thing I really noticed were the Pop Rocks. They were fizzing away in my mouth as I tried to actually taste the chocolate. I couldn't taste much salt and very little, if any chipotle flavor. Until I swallowed. THIS CHOCOLATE IS SO SPICY!!! It was quite the interesting combo. If you don't like spicy stuff, stay away. Otherwise this was somewhat of an interesting treat. Definitely not something you could or would want to eat frequently.
The last thing in my box is deemed an "unlocked prize" from any referrals, reviews, or purchases I made. I'm not quite sure if this is something they gave to everyone and deemed a prize as a gimmick or they genuinely went through everyone and gave these to those who participated, but hey. It's pretty cute.
This is a Bauble Bar bracelet. I've never heard of them before, but a little $10 off your first purchase card was inserted inside the bag with the bracelet.
Now to some sad news. Early this month I entered into a new "budget" in which I'd extremely limit my spending with the hopes of moving out in the spring. With this new budget, I told myself if I wasn't in love with the next Birchbox I received, I would cancel my subscription. Seeing as I know I will not repurchase any of the products from my November box, I'm canceling. For those of you totally have the $10 to spend on this interesting and fun service, it's awesome. But I can't justify spending money on a box that I may either not like, or love so much I will then go and spend money on new products I more than likely don't need. Birchbox is a gateway spending product lol. If you don't want to put the money in to the risk of a bad box, or don't want to be suckered into buying expensive products you probably wouldn't have bought anyway, this probably isn't for you.
I will say though, Birchbox did introduce me to my all time favorite hair mask, Carol's Daughter Monoi Repairing Hair Mask ($29).
Maybe in the future I will resubscribe when I have the free funds. But for now, it's been a fun ride, Birchbox, but here is where I let you off.
