The Hype Machine according to GlossyBox - or, why I unsubscribed.

Image credit: Glossybox.co.uk

I've been holding out for a miracle for the longest time with GlossyBox.  A few weeks ago, the day of their Valentine's 'special', I finally got tired of waiting and unsubscribed.  I've been a pretty resilient customer, in fact: I didn't unsubscribe during what's known as Batiste-gate, I ploughed through crap boxes even when I gave away all of the contents to someone else and I put up with their defensive customer service, where on a bad box day, they'd retweet all the good tweets and ignore all the bad, refusing to deal with the tides of unhappy customers.

I kind of snapped a few weeks ago, and it wasn't even a bad box that set me off.  Everything was… fine.

That's sort of the problem.  No excitement, no spark of interest, everything was just fine.  Hunky-dory.  Okay, so it was a pink (OMGZZZ PINK!!!!111oneone) box. Cute, but not revolutionary.  And there was a sweetie.  Both of these were obviously a gesture towards forcing the contents of the box, protestingly, to fit in the self-imposed Valentine's template.

Then, enter the creation of hype.  "We've got a special Valentine's box!" they perkily tweeted, and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of it.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but I received some anti-ageing night cream from Clarins in my box.  I don't associate night cream with romance - I associate it with - oh! Skin care.  Because nothing says 'I love you' like being presented with the reminder that you're ageing.

The whole box proceeded in the same way and any tenuous link to St. Valentine began to slip through their grasp: a Murad skin primer thing which made my face look sweaty and orange like I was recovering from a bad case of food poisoning after a sunny holiday, and a blue eyeliner.

A blue eyeliner.

Let's focus on that.  It's Valentine's Day.  I'm getting ready for a hot date with my marvellous beau (please note that Kiwi and I would never do this because we simply don't do V-Day) and making myself look pretty. Who in their right mind would reach for a blue eyeliner? I can just imagine myself now, sweaty orange face glinting in the dim candlelight over dinner, eyes lined in blue kohl and red lipstick smeared over my madly cackling mouth and teeth.

Because that's what I think of when I think of blue eyeliner - and I'm sure there's some people who wear it beautifully, but seriously - blue eyeliner?! For Valentine's Day?!  In combination with an anti-ageing cream, it's pretty difficult to imagine the demographic they tried to cover here.  No, GlossyBox, just no.

The best thing is, that after this month's box reveal from the ambassadors, I'm doubly pleased that I decided to end my long-standing and loyal subscription: a multi-use 'soap', yet more body lotion (and EXACTLY the same lotion as their very first box) and lipgloss I'll never use.

Now, if at this point, you think I've got it in for GlossyBox, I'm going to have to correct you. I was subscribed from the very first box, and my anger and negative feelings towards it, their customer service and policies have been gently puffing their way to full-blown rage like a middle-aged jogging enthusiast since.  I'm no more angry or interested in GlossyBox than I would be with any other business I feel let down by.  The thing about GlossyBox is that they're very good at creating hype… but then there's the down-side: they can't take the backlash when people inevitably feel conned and disappointed by their box and they stick their heads in the sand.  Then people forget, and a month passes, and then oh! Maybe this month will be better! GlossyBox says so!  The GlossyBox hype machine rolls on.

I'm glad I escaped, because I feel like unless GlossyBox steps up their game, deals with complaints and constructive criticism, and doesn't constantly change their policies endlessly regarding collecting their famed GlossyDots AND stops creating unnecessary hype by appending unnecessary holidays* to their boxes as a way of driving sales (because seriously - not one of those products would EVER be suitable for any kind of Valentine's Day), then their days must surely be numbered.  Their continual failure to implement any kind of beauty preference or requirement when other beauty boxes can and HAVE implemented it with the sending of a simple email, let alone filling in the GlossyBox profile, means that they simply cannot be bothered to interact with their customers, listen or even care what they want.  Goodbye, GlossyBox. It was nice knowing you (NOT)*.

*on a side-note, I would be willing to see a Pancake Day-themed box.
* Clearly a Wayne's World reference ;)
* please note that if you'd like to see my previous rant on something else (Eyeko) then feel free to click over here.

NARS Spring: Pretty, pretty chaos.

Something about the mismatched chaos of the new NARS Spring collection spoke to me, and I'm not really sure why.  The collection seemed so incoherent and nothing seemed to flow, really. A berry-toned lipstick, a bright pink blush, a taupe eyeshadow… Those aren't the colours of Spring.

Maybe that was the point, and maybe that's why I liked it.

Lhasa eyeshadow, Valparaiso Pure Matte lipstick and Gaiety blush.

I've never been a fan of pastels, really.  Saccharine-sweet pinks and baby blues belong on the walls of a nursery, not on my face, and spring greens? In a stir-fry.

The atypicality of the whole collection was perfect for me, a girl who loves Winter and wasn't quite ready for the crocuses to begin blooming and the whole world to wake up again.  It does have its gleeful moments though - it's not all stormy taupes and wintery berry tones - there's pinks and blues and purples and the kind of variety I want in any collection, whatever the time of year.

I kind of wanted all of it, I felt that swell of sheer WANT.  I restrained myself and removed a sole item from my basket before clicking BUYBUYBUY!

Gaiety blush:

Shown here: Gaiety blush and Valparaiso Pure Matte lipstick.

This was a no-brainer for me, but now I have it in my hands, it's not the star for me.  In fact it's my third favourite - out of 3.  I still love it, but.  That's all I can say, it's just not as lovely as the other things.  It's a lovely candy-pop pink, or a bubblegum kind of colour, with a matte-but-sort-of-not kind of feel, and gives a sweet pop of pink onto the cheeks.  It's not really similar to any pink I own, but still, something is amiss for me.

Valparaiso Pure Matte lipstick:

The outcast of the collection, a beautiful berry tone in one of my very favourite lipstick formulas since I knew they existed, the humble Pure Matte.  These wear amazingly on me, they look amazing, the packaging is sleek and slim and they are so easy to apply when you're on a juddery train without a seat in the morning.  I just love this and have reached for it constantly over the course of the week, it makes me feel 'done', even though I'm only wearing mascara and foundation for the rest of my makeup. It lasts, it's gorgeous and if you're a lover of deep hues, this is perfect.

Lhasa eyeshadow:

Lhasa eyeshadow, I love you.

If ever there was a purpley greyish taupe colour that were more perfect than this… Well, there isn't, because this is it.  Let me take a moment to catch my breath, I can't type for all the swooning.  This is a love story in taupe.  It is soft, easy to wear with an even texture and might even be better than MAC's Copperplate.  It is unlike any other colour I have ever owned, and let me tell you that you need it.  Do not pass go on this one.

So how would I sum up NARS Spring? A beautiful, perfect confusion.  It suits me perfectly.

Blush Horizon de Chanel. Because it's beautiful.

It was always going to be my reward for completing a full 10,000 words of my thesis, because it launched the day after I was handing my work in. I think a Blush Horizon de Chanel for an eighth of my thesis completed, and a week of my house being a slob-hovel*, is a fair trade.

I was a bit worried I wouldn't love it as much as I wanted to. Or that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to use it and mess up the little stripes. Fears aside, however, you'd better believe that I went straight out on launch day and snapped it up. The sales lady gave me a knowing smile as I made away with my purchases, as though we had a tacit understanding, one blush addict to another. Oh, if only she knew the contents of my blush box…

Using it for the first time was sort of terrifying, because I can't just go on autopilot and swirl my brush around unconcernedly. This blush needs to be stroked, not swirled, which sounds ever so slightly rude, but there's no room for prudishness here.

The finished result is something I completely adore. It sort of reminds me of MAC's Marine Life from a year or so ago, but with more chic stripes and fewer tacky gold seahorses. The wear on this is lovely, the pigmentation is beautiful and smooth and it satisfies my increasing craving since the end of December for a little way out of all the deep pink and plum hues.  Oh, but isn't the brush kind of... CRAP? Oh Chanel, you are such a game of two halves.

It's a sunny pinky peach, bright and happy and maybe it's not the most unique colour in the world, but when Chanel do something already done millions of times before, by golly do they do it prettier, with more finesse, and most importantly, better.

Did any Spring collections this year take your fancy? Oh, the stories I have to tell you about my little run-in with NARS...

*The term 'slob-hovel' is now coming to an Urban Dictionary near you.

In the spirit of sharing:

I've now decided to stake a claim to my blog on Bloglovin! This might help some of you who are losing your Google Friend Connect connectivity soon! Sorry for the complete non-post, but apparently Bloglovin require me to post some silly little piece of HTML code to even stake a claim to my blog on there, so here we go! Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Review: Carmine January Box

It feels like a long road back here, my life has just been stuffed full of things like a suitcase you have to sit on to get it closed.  Silly metaphor, but it's how I've been feeling recently, so tired and single-minded, bloodthirstily forcing my mind and body to do moremoremore, write more thesis, no time for a sit-down.  And now we're already at the end of January and I have 11 months until I give it in.  Only 11 more months of feeling like this, then.

So anyway, the end of the month usually heralds a new beauty box or two being delivered, and Carmine's the one I've received so far this month (discounting the Feel Unique box, whose offering this month was unusually bad considering the other months were so great!), so I thought, in the flood of the Blogosphere doing the same thing, that I'd add my little two cents to the pile.

I never got around to reviewing December's box - it came in the midst of packing, wrapping and celebrating and it kind of got lost in the whole of Christmas - so I'll recap a tiny bit: I loved the inclusion of a Japonesque brush in the box and thought it was unique in that not many beauty boxes have done this before.  The inaugural JolieBox (formerly Boudoir Privé) had also included a brush in their December offering, but it was their own branded one, and as a concealer brush I found it lacking - it was too floppy and irritating to use.

...So I liked the brush.  I also really love the KMS Free Shape quick blow dry spray, and have used that one a lot since December.  I think, on the whole, my least favourite product was the Weleda shower cream, as I'm a soap kind of girl - no two ways about it! I just love the smell of soap and shower gels typically aren't for me.

So there we are.

Now, onto January:

I had a mixture of thoughts when I eventually got the box open (hereafter referred to as the Carmine Shimmy), a sort of mixture of both surprise, overall pleasedness (not a word, but I don't care) and then, a tiny pang of 'oh'.  I'll explain.

• Eldora lashes: I was pleased to receive these and not the diamanté lashes, which aren't my style at all.  After a week of wearing lashes as part of my Carmine article on Eldora (which you can read here!), I already knew these were coming, but didn't know what ones I'd be getting. I'll get some use out of these, I think they are very pretty.
• Korres Wild Rose 24 hour Moisturising & Brightening Cream: I'm not one to join the increasing storm of those who have received this several times in various other beauty boxes, as I've never received it, so I'm satisfied with this.  I've learned from my beloved Caudalie cream from the first Carmine box not to judge something on first try, so I'm cautious to say what I think, apart from it smells nice, soaks in well and I think I might've liked a slightly more generous sample size.
• Eyeko Fat Eye Stick in Charcoal: Eyeko. I have a conflictive relationship with Eyeko (ranty post linked here), after they essentially tripled the price of their products and relaunched under the whiny excuse of 'but we USED to sell our products in Harrods for loads more!' I do like this pencil - I received a soft grey-black shade, and while it is very smudgy, it's not something I'd wear all over the lid anyway. I used this smudged into my top lashline just yesterday and I really liked the effect.  It is very soft and smudgy, but I have a personal niggle with Eyeko and it soured it a little for me.
• Balance Me Radiance Face Oil: I do like facial oils, and although this is a repeat brand from Carmine's first box, I don't have a problem with that, as it's more of a product I'll enjoy using. It's lightweight and comes packaged with a little rollerball - I kinda like that.
• Westlab Himalayan Bath Salts: This was unfortunately my 'oh' product.  I don't really like baths, I can't stand when my fingers go all wrinkly around the 10 minute mark and I feel compelled to get out. Just typing that gave me shivers! I'm unlikely to use these, sadly, but the premise is interesting, however, like the continued affiliation with Dead Sea Spa Magik and every single beauty box under the sun, I can say I'm very skeptical to the claims.  What can I say, though?! I'm just not a bath salts kind of girl - I also feel like the sample could have been a little bigger.

So, to round up... Overall, I did like the January offering from Carmine, and I will be using 4 out of the 5 items in the box, for sure.  As for the bath salts - well you can't win them all.  I'm not a person who judges a beauty box on the calculated value of its products, as I think that's kind of pointless - I think full sizes are nice but shouldn't be expected, and calculating the value seems to create a false sense of economy, where people feel better when their box is 'worth' £40 whatever the products inside, and rant on Twitter when it's worth say £20.

So, at face value, yes I do like this month's offering, but it's not a SQUEEE moment for me, it was quite a mixed experience.  I like everything apart from the bath salts, which I just don't.  Seriously - the wrinkly fingers and toes and ewww. I can't do baths for very long.

How did you get on with this month's box?

The Chop, and other stories.

It began with a full week of bad fringe, which every time I blinked felt like it unstyled itself despite the industrial strength hairspray I used each ozone-killing day to stop it from splitting awkwardly into a centre parting, like that ever so popular male hairstyle of the 90's, the curtains.  My brother had curtains, and he also had a shell suit. 

Both of those should stay firmly in the 90's, not least because shell suits were both obnoxiously-coloured and flammable, and turned young fashion-conscious boys into moving human infernos anyway.

… And they were just horrible.

So anyway, the bad fringe.  It started when I went home to my parents' house for Christmas.  You know how they say there's something in the water? Well, my hair has grown accustomed to its daily onslaught of London water, and the soft water in the quaint, conservative climes of Kent left my hair confused, and too soft.

You're probably going to stop me at 'too soft' and indignantly say, 'well there's no such thing as too soft,' and there I will have to disagree. My hair is fine, there's just quite a lot of it.  When it's too soft, it is slippery like an eel, and worse still, creepingly flat against my skull, skulking closely about like Gollum.  To have the benefit of that, plus long hair made me look like Cher (or, alternatively, Christopher Lee as Saruman in Lord of the Rings, sans beard.  I bet you cannot unsee the resemblance between Cher and Saruman now.)

The good fringe drought continued after my return. Bits stuck out, it kept getting that Vicky Pollard look about it.  And then I looked at the rest of my hair and wondered what the hell it was actually doing, other than lying there, getting a free ride daily.  My usual hair routine always culminated in a ponytail or bun, and I never wore it down… So what was the point?

Within 24 hours I was sitting in the chair and watching it all be cut off, back to where I started, and I feel infinitely more 'me' now; slightly scruffy, texturised and less prissy and neat.

I love it. If a haircut could be home, then I'm hanging up my coat in the hall and curling myself on the couch in my usual spot.  Familiar doesn't always mean boring.  I've never felt less boring with my new-old hair.

In the spirit of bringing you some actual content, rather than telling you my usual too-long-didn't-read story about something inconsequential, I'm going to tell you now that my long-beloved OSIS Dust-It Mattifying Powder and I have been reunited.

 I started using this wonder product after unexpectedly getting a pixie crop about 5 years ago, and have never looked back.  It's a lightweight powder which I tap directly into my roots, and then I muss up my hair a bit to give my roots some volume.

The first time you use this, your hair will feel weird, and probably horrible - and if you use too much, you will spend the whole day touching your hair and cringing.  Less is more! What I get from this product is this amazing all day… malleable quality.  It doesn't hold my volume all day, but all it takes is a quick muss up and it looks as voluminous and bedhead as before, and I like to use it in the ends of my hair, too to give it a bit of oomph at the ends, and to shape it how I like it.  It also works really well when your hair's getting to that 'second-day' phenomenon where it's not quite in need of a wash, but a bit limp and in need of some shoulder-pads.

The world seems to love these kind of hair powder products at the moment, but let me say something: this one is the original, and it's the best, and I've been spoiled for using any other brand since laying eyes on the little red salt-shaker pot.

In the interests of branching out with my hair products - what products do you count on for a daily dose of volume?

A little bit of winter sweetness: Bésame Cream Rouge

 I've been feeling distinctly Rydell High recently, all blushed, flushed and bright, a 50's school girl who wears her boyfriend's pin and just had her first kiss.  It's this Bésame Cream Rouge in Crimson*, which looks like one of the most terrifying colours I've ever seen, but applies like I'm a teenager staring dreamily at her boyfriend during a night at the drive-in movies.

It's one of those multi-use types I love so much, where I can wear matching hers and hers cheeks and lips and feel ridiculously pretty and flushed - the type of flush which is sweet and youthful rather than floozy or pantomime.  It blends to this transparent, gel kind of blush, and sits lightly on the skin without feeling heavy and has been perfect succour for the cold winter nights drawing in, and frosty mornings miserably attacking the car with a scraper and some de-icer.

 

Sometimes you feel like a beauty product was just made for you and you alone, and this is one of those: a cherry red flush makes me feel like the pony-tailed ingénue straight out of the 50's, twirling her hair and making eyes at a boy over some ice cream sundaes.

Even though it's kind of not the time to say it, HAPPY CHRISTMAS! I hope you all have a lovely time and enjoy it, whatever you're doing. I just ate a rather large cheese fondue, had some wine and curled up with the cat and her pink nose and paws.  Perfect :)

* Item provided for review, and all my opinions are my own. Because I simply don't talk about things which aren't beautiful. This may or may not have been written with the aid of a few glasses of wine.  Author apologises.