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Birchbox
Cost: $10/month
Ships To: United States. However France, Spain and the UK also have their own Birchbox subscriptions.
I’m busy pouring through my pile of boxes, so you are going to see a TON of reviews coming in the next few days. I actually almost missed my July 2014 Birchbox in the pile, but I it was there!
If you aren’t familiar, Birchbox, which is $10/month offers 4-6 hand-picked beauty and lifestyle samples, delivered to your door each month. You can review the samples you receive on a monthly basis to earn points in their shop, which makes the “real” cost of the box even less. Points accumulate until you are ready to spend, so you can stockpile and combine with coupon codes and get some complete steals (which I try to do).
Birchbox ships via USPS through Newgistics and took six days to arrive. It actually just came yesterday!
As you can see, the July 2014 Birchbox was a collaboration with Women’s Health Magazine. I thought that the special box was super cute. It also included a little booklet with “12 bite-sized challenges” to help get you to “Power Up”. They include things like “Up Your Sleep Quality” and “Sit Smarter” and “Skip the Mirror”. You can snap pictures of yourself completing these challenges and tag them with #PowerUpChallenge @Birchbox and #Giveaway for a chance to win the entire collection of July 2014 Birchbox products, plus a trip to NYC (you can read more about that here)!
Totally loved my first look! Everything looked like it was a great size and, from what I could tell, I hadn’t tried any of these items in the past.
As I mentioned, the July 2014 Birchbox is a collaboration with Women’s Health Magazine and the theme this month was “Power Up”. I received box #16 this month which included the following products to help power up the month:
~Beauty Protector Protect & Treat Mask ($6.49): I LOVE that they included two samples of this! You apply it on wet hair and leave it on for 20 minutes. I will probably skip this ahead of some of the other hair masks and treatments I need to try because it sounds so great. That and it’s pink and also smells really good!
~Benefit Cosmetics Posiebalm ($1.80): Totally love! It’s a sheer pink lip balm and it’s fabulous. It goes on smooth and moisturizes quickly and I already want the full size.
~Caudalie Polyphenol C15 Overnight Detox Oil ($1.73): I have been using some of the serums that came in the GLOSSYBOX boxes lately, but I will probably skip to this for a week. My skin needs some extra detox!
~Naobay Body Radiance Lotion ($2.88): I opened this and smelled citrus and then read the card and discovered that it’s ingredients were olive oil, avocado, etc. My cold is learning doing a number on my sense of smell! Whatever the scent is I like it and it moisturized very nice.
~Ruffian The Rapture Collection – Rosary ($11): This was the selection I made for this month’s box. I have been happy with all the Ruffian polishes I have tried and this is a color like no others I have!
~Ruffian Towelette ($1.20): These are awesome for traveling. They are too spendy to use every day, but for traveling you can’t beat them to remove polish!
~Women’s Health Offer ($9.99): This month’s Birchbox also came with an offer for a free one-year subscription to Women’s Health Magazine! If you don’t want to receive the magazine, it also gives you details on how to receive a refund! Since this is a $9.99 value it basically pays for the box itself which is amazing!
Birchbox Plus Add-On:
~Birchbox Plus – Triple C Power Card Ultra Thin Power Card ($28): I don’t see this on Birchbox anymore, but it was one of the Birchbox Plus options this month. It was $28 and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I have one of the block chargers from Fancy (B does too), but it’s on the fritz so I am switching to this! Plus, this is way cuter.
All totaled I came up with a value of $35.09 for the July 2014 Birchbox – Power Up Box. If I include the points for doing the reviews on the products in the box (which is equal to 60 points or $6 to spend at the Birchbox shop) and the points for purchasing the box (**) (10 points or $1), I get a value of $42.09 which is amazing since the box is $10/month! This was one of my favorite boxes from them lately and I am already looking forward to next month!
Do you subscribe to Birchbox? Did you get your box yet this month? What number was it and what was in it? If you don’t subscribe (it’s only $10/month) and are interested in learning more, click here. If you subscribe now, you can still get the free Women’s Health offer which seriously makes the box free! Or if you are just interested in a shop purchase, don’t forget to add a Mystery Sample Pack to your cart and use the coupon code “PINKPEWTER” to get a free Pink Pewter Georgia Headband with your shop purchase of $55 or more.
You can get points on a month-to-month subscription if you cancel and resubscribe every month (a good way to take advantage of some of the 100 point promo codes). As long as you have already gotten a box for a particular month, you won’t get a second box for the same month.
I agree, the Ruffian polishes are good. I am wearing the blue one from the Mermaid limited edition box right now and I don’t have any chips at all. They kind of messed up my product selection for the month (I wanted one of the lip stains) so I don’t know what they are going to do about that. We’ll see.
I find that I am not using the products from the actual subscription box all that much, though. So I canceled the monthly sub and will probably just buy things from their shop that appeal to me (last time I ordered, I got it in 2 days — super fast). I realize I’ll be missing out on a few points, of course. But I am really trying to cut back the number of boxes I get. Since I don’t have a blog right now, I don’t get free boxes and I don’t refer people. I actually have to pay for everything out of pocket and I had gone a little overboard with the # of subs I had. My wallet didn’t like that…
Oh, I would never be able to remember that! But you are a sneaky burrito with that trick? LOL!
I would probably end up with like 4 subs if I didn’t get them to review. And I would be sad ;(.
I got the body lotion as well. My 2.5 year old wanted to smell it and the first thing he said was lemon. So there is definitely a citrus scent to it.
Good! I thought orange but at least I was close!
I got the lotion and thought it smelled citrusy too. I still haven’t received my add on for July – did yours come with the box?
Yep, I got a larger box which had my actual Birchbox and the add-on inside.
Your scent isn’t messed up. I got the Naobay and it does have a lemon scent. I am in LOVE with the Naobay. It smells amazing and seems to be working well. I love that the sample was so big.
Good! I thought I was going crazy. I smelled citrus and then read the description and thought “how sick am I anyway”? LOL!
What do you have to do to get a refund for the women’s health magazine? I’m sorry, I must have missed reading that. Thanks!
It’s in super small print at the bottom of that little Women’s Health card. You fill out the card and send it to the address on there along with your original Birchbox subscription order confirmation. It has to be the original card that came in the box though.
I’m confused by what you mean for the original Birchbox subscription order confirmation. Do you mean the email confirmation when you subscribed in the first place? Or the email that it was shipping? Or is that some piece of paper I should have had in my box? I’m sorry I’m so out of it today!
I don’t really know? I guess you’d have to e-mail them to be sure, but I would assume it was the receipt you got when you first signed up for Birchbox??
Your power c adapter thing – I was supposed to get one of those batteries in my box and I didn’t. By chance was it shipped separately?
Nope, it all came together in a larger box. It was the charger and my July Birchbox in a larger box!
Darn! They just charged me then didn’t send me it!!
Someone else mentioned in here that they didn’t get their add-on with their box either?? I don’t think you are alone. When did you get your box?
I goto got it today! I got purple lip stuff! That is just crazy! Haha
I added the headphones on & didn’t receive them. I emailed BB & they replied within a day apologizing. They’re sending them to me now & gave me 100 points. I absolutely love their customer service (sometimes I actually like it when they make a mistake ;))
They do have amazing customer service! I have never been let down with them.
I forgot which box I got, but it was 40-something.
I tried the Ruffian nail polish wipes and they worked real well to remove glitter polish.
The only thing I didn’t like in the box that I received was the shaving cream. It did a ‘meh’ job, and the smell was offputting.. Like grapefruit and buttermilk. lol I didn’t receive my addon (the headphones) in my box either, and I called a rep who put in a order for them to ship out to me.
I wonder what happened with the add-ons this month? So many people had issues!
I emailed the company last night about my add on not arriving, and they emailed me back this morning saying they’re dropping it in the mail and adding 100 pts to my account. I wonder if maybe they oversold them or something and had to wait on the new batch to arrive.
I was reading somewhere that you can see Augusts months add-ons already. Is there a button for this on the site that I’m just not finding?
Ohh, I don’t know! I can’t see them anywhere!
We got the same box! And the treat mask smells amazing. Reminds me off pink sugar!
I wonder if I will ever get tired of Pink Sugar???
I am thinking about subscribing and am looking for clarification. Do you get a preview of products to choose from? How do ad dons work? I understand about how to get and use the extra points.
You don’t get to pick your products. Boxes are selected for you based on your profile. As for the add-ons you get an email with that months choices and you can opt to buy them as an add-on to your box. Hope this helps!
My box arrived today because I signed up on the last day they were offering bonus points. They are trying to space out the June and July boxes. I will be on track with everyone else in August.
1. Cynthia Rowley Beauty Black Eyeliner
2. Harvey Prince Singular Scentsations Imperial Gardenia
3. Naobay Boy Radience Lotion – smells good
4. Real Chemistry Luminous 3-Minute Peel – I checked this out and it is supposed to be helpful for those with rosacea.
5. Supergoop Daily Correct C Cream SPF 35+ Fair to Light
My sister received the same box.
I think all new subscribers get the same “welcome” box. The welcome box changes monthly, but if you are new you get the welcome box which isn’t customized to your profile.
I received the same box and am also a new subscriber.
I do not recommend giving birchbox as a gift. I did a three month subscription for my mother-in-law for mothers day. She received the first box fine, but the second box never showed. She had to call 3 times and email twice before they did anything about it. She received the box more than a month late. The customer service, she described, was hard to handle and very rude.
Did you get a survey? Does everyone get these? I got a survey, it took so long to do but I got 100 Birch box points. I love Birch box.
I didn’t get one.