Birchbox December 2013 Review

I was interested in trying out Birchbox as my first women's makeup/beauty product subscription box, since it seemed to be a fairly popular box and I finally received my December 2013 box. Birchbox has both a women's and a men's beauty product/samples box for $10 a month.

I received Birchbox #31, which is pictured here:

Photo Credit: Birchbox

Here's is the box as I received it, which I think is important to see the difference:

Here's what I received in my December 2013 Birchbox #31. I would like to stress that all of these items are sample sizes, and not the full-size as included in the link. All dollar values are approximates based on volume and price of full size and volume of my sample size.

• Emily's Chocolates Chocolate Covered Fortune Cookie: ($1) This was my lifestyle extra and you can probably see the big rip in the packaging of this wrapper in the photo, because I dug right into it as soon as I opened my box. It was good. I wouldn't order them, I could probably make them cheaper than a dollar each, by dipping regular fortune cookies in chocolate at home. And the fortune was really corny.
• Chapstick Hydration Lock: ($3) This was my extra in my box, and I can always use more chapstick so this was totally welcomed. I broke it out and tried it right away and it works wonderfully. I've always been a diehard Burt's Bee's fan, but I would probably buy this one again. The one sad thing was it came with a $1 off coupon to buy another one, but because I received my box so late in the month it was already expired when I finally opened my box. Which totally sucks.
• Soak Handmaid Hand Cream in Yuzu scent: (~$0.50) So you might notice that in the photo provided by Birchbox of this item, I was supposed to receive 2 teeny tiny packets of hand cream, but I only received one. I wish I had gotten what I was supposed to receive, but honestly I probably won't use this. I hate hand cream/lotion so I'll probably pass it on to my mom who uses it all the time. Plus, I already bugged their customer service about the Beauty Protector.
• Color Club Harlem Lights Collection in Baldwin Blues: ($4) I've been on a nail polish kick lately, and have been furiously buying out Julep's whole warehouse, but I don't really care for this color. It might look cute on toes with jeans, but I don't know I haven't tried it yet. Most of the colors for this brand on Birchbox are kind of boring.
• BENTA BERRY G-1 Exfoliating Facial Cleanser: ($1.60) My skin has been very dry and flaky lately (who's hasn't, it's winter) so I will definitely try this out in the next day or two.
• Beauty Protector Protect & Detangle: ($4) If you can see from my photo, I have this product in a plastic baggy because it was leaking when I received my box. I've already sent Birchbox an email about it, and they said they've sent me a replacement. So that was awesome. I will have to try this when I get my replacement sample. It gets rave reviews, and I do have problems with tangles, because I have really long hair and I refuse to cut it. Mostly I'm lazy, but it's also that it almost touches my butt and that was my dream when I was 6 years old. To have hair that touched my butt. Once it does that then I'm done, I'm out, I completed my childhood goal. I don't use hair products a lot, so it will be interesting to see if I like using this leave in conditioner.

I paid $10 for this box, and received about $14 worth of products. I'm not thrilled with this month's Birchbox. Maybe once I try some of the other items, I'll like it more, but I've got January 2014 paid for and I cancelled after that. I think if a subscription service is going to send very small sample sizes, you either better love them all, or pay less than $10 for it. Because if I hate half the stuff, then it doesn't matter what the "value" of the box was, I feel jipped if I didn't get my money's worth. I've heard better things about Ipsy, so I've started subscribing to them and I'll be getting January 2014's bag.

I think Birchbox is more for people who like trying sample sizes before they buy the full size. But I don't really do that, so I'll wait and see what January's box is like. If I'm amazed by it, maybe I'll resubscribe, but most reviews I've read of Birchbox people seem to be less happy about their boxes as the months go on.

Do you still subscribe to Birchbox? Are you happy with what you receive in your boxes? Let me know in the comments!

For all other Birchbox reviews click here.


Disclosure: This post contains referral links!