I am a sucker for itty-bitty things: kittens, petit fours, demitasse, the little shampoos and conditioners you find in the kinds of hotels where the Continental Breakfast does not involve a vending machine. Department stores once upon a time built a reputation around tiny free lipsticks, eye liners, and enough mascara to float a battleship. On my rare trips to Eastern Hills Mall as a kid I could get outfitted with enough for a full face plus my choice of perfume, free for the asking. There was power to be had in the smallest of things—one miniscule container of lip gloss the size of my pinky was enough to get me thirty years hooked on Clinique.
That was a different time, of course, and retail across the board from corporate to clerk got wise to the sample tramps who didn’t play the game and every now and again actually pay for a full size. And in more recent years, someone got the idea that not only are other people suckers for itty-bitty things too, but they will pay for the luxury of obtaining them; and because society frowns upon the mailing of kittens as a general rule, the beauty sample subscription box was born. For all I know, they have one for petit fours too, but a monthly shipment of foil shampoo packets and the seemingly unlimited supply of mascara samples is as a rule safer unless you get a bad batch of mascara (yeah, I’m looking at you, Ipsy.)
The mystery beauty box is actually not a new concept. In the 70’s and 80’s several mail-order discounters (most notably Beauty Boutique, before they became the go-to pimp for seen-on-TV celebrity brands, marked-up ELF products and the cheap-as-dirt Touch of Venus perfume that will just not go away) offered Surprise Boxes that valued anywhere from $50 to $200 in real live 1980’s money. In the days before the internet, the wait between mailed money order and delivered box was excruciating, but well worth it because they were always a high value with full-sized products that included Ultima II, Charles of the Ritz (may they rest in peace) and others that actually were sold in department stores instead of dollar stores. To a country girl whose beauty access was limited to Maybelline, Revlon and the Avon Lady, these were a Holy Grail of rich cosmetic goodness. And the first subscription service that I know of, Cosmetique, began in the late 70’s or early 80’s offering selections based on a quick survey of hair and eye color and skin tone; in their heyday they sent a mélange of solid name brands and this remained their model for years until they went with a generic PRC-made private-label inventory of questionable quality. I know, because they sucked me in too. So by the time middle age and Birchbox came around, I was more than well-primed. I was a retail sleeper unit, awakened by the words “Deluxe Samples.”
Deluxe Samples are the Mini-Me’s of beloved brands and products. They’re the tubes of Smashbox Primer or Benefit Posietint stunted into something the approximate size of a cocktail frank: itty-bitty, cuter-than-hell but still containing enough product to get you through maybe 10 to 14 days of daily use. Women (and men who know something most other men don’t) seek these out like the Philosopher’s Stone, so much so that there are active and lively swapping groups for sample subscribers who will trade their firstborn for a tube of Glamglow barely bigger than a radish.
Like other addicts, I honed the ability to rationalize my itty-bitty beauty jonesing to a point finer than I sharpen my eyeliner: I have a Louie. More succinctly, I have an allergic Louie whose skin is so sensitive that my lotions, potions, and pretty colors can turn his little bearded punim several inflamed shades of eczema red. I learned that the hard way; on one of our first dates the now-discontinued line of drugstore mineral makeup I wore lit up his poor face like a stoplight after a little vigorous kissing. After three weeks and a marriage proposal I realized that not only would I have to learn to cook, I’d either have to give up a very successful makeup practice or start thinking outside the Caboodle box where I kept my stash. Rite Aid and Bath and Body Works became my friends for their no-questions-asked return/exchange policies; and stores that are otherwise legendarily stingy became remarkably accommodating when I explained that I needed to rule out allergies, especially after I rewarded their gift of a ten-day foundation sample with a return trip to get the big bottle (sorry ladies, but you have to play the game if you want to get the points.)
This was why I jumped at Birchbox when I first heard about it—for $10 a month I get a box of typically five (though a couple times a year I might get as many as seven) coveted deluxe samples from mainly higher-end or niche brands, enough for many uses and enough to rule out once and for all the dreaded Louie-reaction. On the rare occasion they send out single use foils, the bane of a sample junkie’s existence—allergies or not, one use of shampoo isn’t enough to gauge anything, especially if you have three feet of hair like I used to have. Getting that bobbed off still doesn’t make me happy to get a foil. Foils are not deluxe; foil packets are what you get in the Walmart beauty box, if they think you’re too old to get glitter nail polish. But a huge point in Birchbox’s favor are the reward points you get—10 for reviewing each product received in a month, and a point per dollar for every full-size purchase (and their inventory rivals Sephora for variety and availability) with 100 points getting a $10 credit. Needless to say I hoard the hell out of those points.
It was not belong before I jumped into what has been rechristened the Allure Sample Society boat ($15 per month, plus tax if you live somewhere like New York because buzzkill) and (admitting sheepishly) Ipsy. I kind of want to count Beauty Army but their option to skip months (one of their strongest selling points) combined with some very lackluster and repeated selections has caused me to not take a box from them since maybe October 2014.
Sample Society gets you a $10 merchandise credit each month with a healthy balance of both products and price points, and some of the offerings are full-sized (like the Cargo lip gloss I received for March, which is a huge score for this lip junkie.) I like the balance of items. I came very close to canceling last year after I received a box containing five moisturizers. That was it. I’m all for skin care, but this was serious overkill. The following month launched the partnership with Allure, and along with that a better combination of skin care, hair care, bath-and-body, perfume and makeup. The sample items are as a rule larger than those offered by most of the others out there.
Now Ipsy is a crapshoot. I recently resubscribed after rage-canceling last summer. Four mascaras in a row was just too much. If I have any major peeve about these box services in general it’s that they know damn good and well that what we want is makeup so they’ll throw in WAY too many black mascaras and figure we should be happy with that. Between sub boxes and gifts-with purchase from Clinique or Lancome or Estee Lauder, I have enough mascara to last me well into the next presidential administration. One of those four-in-a-row I received last year was a bad batch or otherwise tainted, from the nauseating, clock-stopping bouquet that assaulted my face the second I opened it. But that lure of the inexpensive and the pleasure of receiving mail that isn’t asking for money or telling me how to vote, are just too strong. And this is why I resumed my tumultuous relationship with Ipsy, hoping to forgive them like a lover gone sour because I know it’s just that their meds needed a tweak. Ipsy is a crapshoot, make no mistake. When they are on, they are ON and you get a bag that could almost secure your eternal salvation. When they have a miss, it is epic. I was not the only one to have received a bad mascara; this was barely four months after a lip gloss was sent out that caused chemical burns on some unlucky folks. To Ipsy’s abiding credit, they made it good by replacing the lip glosses and the mascaras, but still, ewwww. It tends to be more makeup-heavy, hence its appeal at only $10 a bag, but the quality varies from Be A Bombshell (dollar store crap at Clinique prices) to City Color (cheap but surprisingly of good, solid quality) to Urban Decay and Cargo. I just renewed at the start of the year after gushing emails touting their improvements and better brand selection, and I’m going to hold them to that because I really don’t want to see Be A Bombshell again every other month. I’ll be watching you, Ipsy.
That was a different time, of course, and retail across the board from corporate to clerk got wise to the sample tramps who didn’t play the game and every now and again actually pay for a full size. And in more recent years, someone got the idea that not only are other people suckers for itty-bitty things too, but they will pay for the luxury of obtaining them; and because society frowns upon the mailing of kittens as a general rule, the beauty sample subscription box was born. For all I know, they have one for petit fours too, but a monthly shipment of foil shampoo packets and the seemingly unlimited supply of mascara samples is as a rule safer unless you get a bad batch of mascara (yeah, I’m looking at you, Ipsy.)
The mystery beauty box is actually not a new concept. In the 70’s and 80’s several mail-order discounters (most notably Beauty Boutique, before they became the go-to pimp for seen-on-TV celebrity brands, marked-up ELF products and the cheap-as-dirt Touch of Venus perfume that will just not go away) offered Surprise Boxes that valued anywhere from $50 to $200 in real live 1980’s money. In the days before the internet, the wait between mailed money order and delivered box was excruciating, but well worth it because they were always a high value with full-sized products that included Ultima II, Charles of the Ritz (may they rest in peace) and others that actually were sold in department stores instead of dollar stores. To a country girl whose beauty access was limited to Maybelline, Revlon and the Avon Lady, these were a Holy Grail of rich cosmetic goodness. And the first subscription service that I know of, Cosmetique, began in the late 70’s or early 80’s offering selections based on a quick survey of hair and eye color and skin tone; in their heyday they sent a mélange of solid name brands and this remained their model for years until they went with a generic PRC-made private-label inventory of questionable quality. I know, because they sucked me in too. So by the time middle age and Birchbox came around, I was more than well-primed. I was a retail sleeper unit, awakened by the words “Deluxe Samples.”
Deluxe Samples are the Mini-Me’s of beloved brands and products. They’re the tubes of Smashbox Primer or Benefit Posietint stunted into something the approximate size of a cocktail frank: itty-bitty, cuter-than-hell but still containing enough product to get you through maybe 10 to 14 days of daily use. Women (and men who know something most other men don’t) seek these out like the Philosopher’s Stone, so much so that there are active and lively swapping groups for sample subscribers who will trade their firstborn for a tube of Glamglow barely bigger than a radish.
Like other addicts, I honed the ability to rationalize my itty-bitty beauty jonesing to a point finer than I sharpen my eyeliner: I have a Louie. More succinctly, I have an allergic Louie whose skin is so sensitive that my lotions, potions, and pretty colors can turn his little bearded punim several inflamed shades of eczema red. I learned that the hard way; on one of our first dates the now-discontinued line of drugstore mineral makeup I wore lit up his poor face like a stoplight after a little vigorous kissing. After three weeks and a marriage proposal I realized that not only would I have to learn to cook, I’d either have to give up a very successful makeup practice or start thinking outside the Caboodle box where I kept my stash. Rite Aid and Bath and Body Works became my friends for their no-questions-asked return/exchange policies; and stores that are otherwise legendarily stingy became remarkably accommodating when I explained that I needed to rule out allergies, especially after I rewarded their gift of a ten-day foundation sample with a return trip to get the big bottle (sorry ladies, but you have to play the game if you want to get the points.)
This was why I jumped at Birchbox when I first heard about it—for $10 a month I get a box of typically five (though a couple times a year I might get as many as seven) coveted deluxe samples from mainly higher-end or niche brands, enough for many uses and enough to rule out once and for all the dreaded Louie-reaction. On the rare occasion they send out single use foils, the bane of a sample junkie’s existence—allergies or not, one use of shampoo isn’t enough to gauge anything, especially if you have three feet of hair like I used to have. Getting that bobbed off still doesn’t make me happy to get a foil. Foils are not deluxe; foil packets are what you get in the Walmart beauty box, if they think you’re too old to get glitter nail polish. But a huge point in Birchbox’s favor are the reward points you get—10 for reviewing each product received in a month, and a point per dollar for every full-size purchase (and their inventory rivals Sephora for variety and availability) with 100 points getting a $10 credit. Needless to say I hoard the hell out of those points.
It was not belong before I jumped into what has been rechristened the Allure Sample Society boat ($15 per month, plus tax if you live somewhere like New York because buzzkill) and (admitting sheepishly) Ipsy. I kind of want to count Beauty Army but their option to skip months (one of their strongest selling points) combined with some very lackluster and repeated selections has caused me to not take a box from them since maybe October 2014.
Sample Society gets you a $10 merchandise credit each month with a healthy balance of both products and price points, and some of the offerings are full-sized (like the Cargo lip gloss I received for March, which is a huge score for this lip junkie.) I like the balance of items. I came very close to canceling last year after I received a box containing five moisturizers. That was it. I’m all for skin care, but this was serious overkill. The following month launched the partnership with Allure, and along with that a better combination of skin care, hair care, bath-and-body, perfume and makeup. The sample items are as a rule larger than those offered by most of the others out there.
Now Ipsy is a crapshoot. I recently resubscribed after rage-canceling last summer. Four mascaras in a row was just too much. If I have any major peeve about these box services in general it’s that they know damn good and well that what we want is makeup so they’ll throw in WAY too many black mascaras and figure we should be happy with that. Between sub boxes and gifts-with purchase from Clinique or Lancome or Estee Lauder, I have enough mascara to last me well into the next presidential administration. One of those four-in-a-row I received last year was a bad batch or otherwise tainted, from the nauseating, clock-stopping bouquet that assaulted my face the second I opened it. But that lure of the inexpensive and the pleasure of receiving mail that isn’t asking for money or telling me how to vote, are just too strong. And this is why I resumed my tumultuous relationship with Ipsy, hoping to forgive them like a lover gone sour because I know it’s just that their meds needed a tweak. Ipsy is a crapshoot, make no mistake. When they are on, they are ON and you get a bag that could almost secure your eternal salvation. When they have a miss, it is epic. I was not the only one to have received a bad mascara; this was barely four months after a lip gloss was sent out that caused chemical burns on some unlucky folks. To Ipsy’s abiding credit, they made it good by replacing the lip glosses and the mascaras, but still, ewwww. It tends to be more makeup-heavy, hence its appeal at only $10 a bag, but the quality varies from Be A Bombshell (dollar store crap at Clinique prices) to City Color (cheap but surprisingly of good, solid quality) to Urban Decay and Cargo. I just renewed at the start of the year after gushing emails touting their improvements and better brand selection, and I’m going to hold them to that because I really don’t want to see Be A Bombshell again every other month. I’ll be watching you, Ipsy.