Beauty Boxes - The Naked Truth!

So in the beauty blogging world we all know that every blogger and their dog review beauty boxes. Either because they genuinely want to share with everyone the fantastic samples they've received, or if they're a well known blogger they have to review the boxes they've received for free and give an 'honest' opinion. I'm going to be a little controversial here and say that I'm not in the slightest bit interested in 'popular' bloggers reviews on these boxes as it's obvious they need to give a good review in order to keep receiving them for free and acting as advertisement for the brand. Surely the whole point in blogging is to share your HONEST views with readers who are genuinely interested in your opinions. I have reviewed one product recently which I received from TanOrganic and I thoroughly believed in the product hence why I recommended it. I've received a couple of products from other companies that in all honesty I wasn't pleased with the results, so rather than give them a bad review I just didn't review them at all! Surely this is sensible? RANT OVER! :)

Back to the point of this post... I have subscribed to 3 beauty boxes over the past few months and I want to share my experiences with you. I'm going to be completely honest as I've spoken to a few friends, twitter followers and other beauty bloggers who are really interested in subscribing to a beauty box but with all the 'fake hype' created by other bloggers, they aren't sure what to believe. So why believe me? Because I'm only a wee small time blogger ha :) and I don't get paid or sent boxes to review, I subscribe for the full price with my own pennies so I don't owe anyone any kind words.

Glossybox

Probably the most well known beauty box on the market. This is the first box I subscribed to and I kept my subscription for 3 months. They claim to send subscribers 5 luxury beauty samples for the price of £10 plus £2.95 p&p a month. I can honestly say that I got a hell of a lot more than my money's worth in all 3 boxes and although most of the brands I received I had never heard of, this was probably because they were way out of my price range so all in all I would definately class them as luxury. Others have complained about receiving Collection 2000 products in their Glossybox which obviously doesn't constitute a luxury item but I can't comment as I didn't receive any myself.
One bad point I will mention are the perfume samples. I received perfume in 2 of the boxes but the samples were tiny, as in 'use once and you're done' tiny! These samples could have been picked up at a beauty counter for free and to be honest I didn't appreciate receiving them as a 'luxury sample' which they clearly weren't. The same can be said about a couple of other products in the boxes which came in very small sachets, again these could be picked up for free from beauty counters. I think Glossybox tend to send a couple of excellant high quality products in generous sizes but fill the rest of the box up with smaller, insignificant samples and think it's acceptable. After my third box I wasn't overjoyed but I wasn't totally unhappy, let's say I was somewhere in the middle. So I unsubscribed and began my search for a better beauty box.

Overall mark for Glossybox 7/10

Jolie Box

This is the box I decided to subscribe to after leaving Glossybox and all I can say is BIG MISTAKE. I'm still waiting for my June box which was meant to arrive almost 2 weeks ago. I received my despatched email then after 4 days of waiting and being disappointed I emailed them to say there was no sign of it. They replied the following day (making it 5 days late) saying they were having problems with the postal service and to hang on a few more days by which time, if there was still no sign then they would send a replacement box out. I was ok with that but needless to say it didn't arrive so they got another email, this time not so understanding. They explained that eventhough they had previously said I could have a replacement box, I couldn't. Instead I would have to wait until the beginning of the following week when the box should have arrived. Well it still hasn't arrived and after looking at their facebook page I've come to realise that hundreds haven't received their box! All we're getting is fobbed off with new delivery dates because let's face it they can't afford to send replacements to everyone. I'm particularly annoyed seeing as it's my first box and I'm not going to stick around to see what happens with the future boxes (according to others these delivery problems have been going on for a few months) so I've unsubscribed. It costs the same as Glossybox.

I can't give them an overall mark as I have no idea what products are in the box, but a moment ago I received an email from them after requesting a refund. They have refunded me and apologised again.

She Said Beauty Box

Saving the best til last :) this is now the only box I subscribe to and that is just fine with me. The products are brilliant, a real mix of skin care, cosmetics, perfume, hair care and other lovely things every month. The product sizes are so generous and you can see that alot of work has gone into planning the contents. They don't fob their customers off with tiny samples to make up for the more generous ones and it really is like Christmas when I open it every month :) There has been no problem with delivery, in fact the despatch email states that the box should arrive in 3 days time but I always receive it the next day! The staff are friendly and helpful and you don't have to wait 2 days for an email reply. I can't recommend this enough and that's my honest opinion! I pay full price for this box and receive no special treatment for my praise (and why should I?) I'm more than happy to pay for a excellant product. The only minor moan I will have is the fact that I received false eyelashes in 2 consecutive boxes which was a bit annoying but not the end of the world. She Said Beauty is £9 is £2.95.

Overall mark 9/10

So that's my view on the beauty boxes I've had experience with, I'd love to hear your views and what boxes you subscribe to :) I hope this has helped with those deliberating over which box to go for. I know it's not that usual to moan about products to this extent on a beauty blog and usually I would refrain and just focus on the positive, but I really don't want anyone to waste their money and suffer the disappoint that I have. So I hope you're ok with the honesty :)

Another beauty box available in the UK is Lux Box but I haven't personally subscribed to this so no idea what it's like. If you have then do let us know if it's worth it!