After the good deal they offered for Buy-1-Get-2-Free, I decided to stay on another month, just in case Glossybox has somehow magically become a box that works for me. I’m sad to say it hasn’t, although it looks like there’s more of an effort to include paraben-free and cruelty-free products which is nice to see. At first when I opened the box, I thought, “Oh hey! This is pretty good!” but when I got to actually looking at the products and ingredients, the initial excitement faded. I’ll get into why for each product below.
- Too Faced Mascara Melt Off – .23 oz / $17 – (Product is .04 oz, value of $2.96 by volume) I wanted to be excited about this, but you can get the same results with pure olive oil and not be using a petroleum-based product (it contains Isohexadecane as the 2nd ingredient which is derived from petroleum). I’ve used a few different oil blends to remove mascara before, and they’re actually 100% oil – for this product, the first oil is the 9th ingredient out of 16. Disappointing, really. You can actually use straight olive oil to remove mascara and it works just about the same.
- Borghese Fango Ferma – 17.6 oz / $72.50 – (Product is 1 oz, value of $4.12 by volume) It’s a mud mask basically, and I dig mud masks, but unfortunately this contains parabens. I know Glossybox isn’t an ingredient-conscious or cruelty-free box, but, I expect better of high-end products. The scent is rather pleasant though and not too terribly overwhelming, sort of a natural floral. The mud is also a pale lavender color which is different!
- Wella Oil Reflections – 1 oz / $20 – (Product is 1 oz, value of $20) SIGH. I was initially pretty excited about this. Hair oil? TOTALLY ME. Then I looked at the ingredients – the first two are silicones and the third is denatured alcohol. When we get down to the tenth ingredient, we finally find three oils, but they’re so low on the ingredient list, they might as well not even be there (water is listed higher). So, this product is just barely an oil – it’s actually a silicone-based smoother just like all the other cheap silicone-based anti-frizz products out there. The addition of alcohol (an ingredient that’s incredibly drying) runs against the hydrating properties of the oils and is listed higher, so there’s more alcohol than oil in here which is really silly. This is completely useless to me since I don’t use silicones on my hair, and it’s basically lying about what it actually is. The scent is nice though – sort of a fruity vanilla – but I’ll never, ever use it.
- De Bruyere After-Sun Lotion – 50 mL / $12.30 – (Product is 50mL, value of $12.30) I love after-sun lotions for hydrating parched skin after a day in the sun (usually post-shower after mowing the lawn). The scent is a coconutty Monoi and it’s pretty light and perfectly summery. This, again, contains Isohexadecane though, so it’s not exactly perfect, unfortunately.
- Trifle Cosmetics Lip Parfait – 3.5 g / $18.95 – (Product is 3.5 g, value of $18.95) I received the color, “Exotic Fruits,” which is a super pale nude pink. The color is better suited to being a concealer than a lip color for my skin tone, and as you can see from the swatch (linked here), it’s just a wee bit pinker than the skin tone on my inner arm. I don’t look good in nude shades like this, so it’s a complete miss for me.
- Invisibobble – 3 pcs / $7.95 – (3 pcs included, value of $7.95) UGGHHH PINK. WHY PINK?! I loathe pink. Absolutely hate it. Outside of the color, I decided to give it a try since, hey, if it works, who cares what color it is if I’m using it around the house where no one can see me wearing such a terrible color. Well, my hair is very curly, so when I tried to pull it out of my hair, it tangled up into such a snarl at the ends that it ended up ripping out a bunch of hair, far worse than a traditional hair elastic that at least slides out smoothly with no spiral to catch on every last hair at the ends. It also stretched out like crazy and didn’t manage to hold the whole time (it has since returned to shape, but it’s not as elastic as traditional hair elastics when in use). So, another nope. This definitely does NOT work on all hair types.
Overall the value comes out to $66.28 for a box that costs $21. The value is great on the surface, but when you consider that I’m only keeping three items (Mascara Melt Off, mud mask, and the after-sun lotion) that have a value of $19.38, it really isn’t that great. This really just isn’t the box for me – the products included consistently miss the mark for having quality ingredients (ie. ingredients that aren’t petroleum-based, parabens, irritants, silicones, etc). I know I’m a bit of a natural hippie who prefers more of a purist approach to the things I put on my face and skin, and I should know that this isn’t going to be a good fit, but every once in a while it’s fun to try something new and different. Well, I’m over it, back to the ones I know and trust to deliver exactly the products I’m interested in!