April 2014 Birchbox

Birchbox is a monthly subscription box service. For $10 a month, they will send you 4-5 'Beauty and Lifestyle' samples. 

They also have a points system, which is the best I've seen. 100 points = $10 to spend in the Birchbox shop. Earn 1 point for every dollar you spend (monthly boxes don't count, except for the first one) and they offer a lot of promo codes to get extra points. You can also earn 10 points for each review of your monthly samples. That's like getting $4-5 back each month! You also get 50 points for each person who signs up through your referral. If you would like to try Birchbox, please consider using my link: https://www.birchbox.com/invite/pdwbx

This month's theme: Rainy Days

Each box contained a card of things to do on a rainy day. Mine was a little pointless. I don't have plants, especially fake ones.

Here's what I got this month:

Beauty Protector Protect and Detangle: ($21.95 for 8oz) I actually got this in my first March Birchbox. They say they never give you the same sample twice, but there was some confusion with that month's box that you can read about here. Likewise, you can read my original review here. But here's my new thoughts: This stuff is awesome. It smells really good and makes your hair feel super soft. I generally blow dry my hair every day because when I air dry, it gets a little frizzy and just lays funny. This past weekend I put this in my hair after showering, and just pinned back my bangs. We were going to a late movie and I didn't need to look great. After my hair dried, it looked great! Even when I took out the bobby pins, I didn't have those dumb creases. I'm so glad I got another sample of this. Maybe when I'm done with both, I will finally be convinced to buy a full size.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Clear Brow Gel: ($22 for 0.28 oz) As far as I can tell, this is a full-size product. Or very close to. I have started to pay attention to my brows a bit more, but that's because I'm using Benefit's Gimme Brow because it's color and gel in one. I don't take a pencil to my brows, so I don't really need a clear gel like this. But I guess it's good for taming my brows very quickly.

Supergoop! Daily Correct CC Cream: ($32 for 1.6 oz I think) I have a friend who got this sample a few months ago and had to buy the full size. She loves it. I'm so excited to try it! The sample is teeny-tiny (quarter for scale) but it feels full, unlike last month's products. I really like the coverage of this. It's very natural and not heavy. Not sure how well it helped with the oil. I am a little disappointed though: when I first used this, I thought "Wow, my face looks great. I'm probably going to buy this" but by the end of the day I noticed a some tiny zits popping up on a generally clear face. It was too many just to be a bad face day. I went a few days without it, trying other primers and sunblocks I had instead and nothing else happened. Then I tried this CC cream again and the same thing happened, but a little less this time. And I really liked it too :( Glad I didn't just take my friend's word and buy the full-size. 

Color Club Gala's Gems Collection in "Breakfast At...": ($13 for the 4-color pack) Beautiful color. Super smooth. Needs 2 coats (only one coat shown here). Definitely an Easter color. I've been really into the mint greens lately so I love this. I have an Essie color that's close but is a solid flat color and I put them on together after I took that picture.

                       

Kind Healthy Grain Bars: ($11.88 for a box of 15) This was a "Find" this month (it comes in addition to your 4-5 samples.) It made me nervous to see pictures of people's boxes and all of them had a Kind bar in it. We have Kind bars at work, but they're the ones with the fruit in them and I just don't like that sort of thing. I was really excited to see this flavor though! I really like pumpkin seeds. It also has sunflower seeds, oats, millet, quinoa, buckwheat, maple syrup, and sea salt. It was a great sweet and salty treat this morning on my way to work. I will definitely be buying a box of these. It's perfect to throw in my purse for a quick snack. 

Benefit's Hello Flawless Review

I don't like wearing any sort of heavy foundation, it just looks fake on my and sits on my face. I do use a powder every day though, since my face gets so oily. I've started to notice that my powder doesn't really do anything for an uneven skin tone. I started to look into Hello Flawless by Benefit. A lot of reviews on makeupally.com raved about it for helping oily skin. I needed to return my Tarte Colored Clay CC Primer to Ulta and I figured, why not get this to try?

Description from Benefit.com:

Now in an improved magnetic-close compact, this famous powder cover-up glides on naturally sheer and layers beautifully for customized coverage. Perfect for any skin type, the silky formula comes with a newly designed brush AND a sponge for any degree of coverage you desire.

Packaging: A box. Thicker than most other compacts, but that's because it comes with a brush and a sponge for application. The pan of color isn't very deep, but you don't need to use much.

Price: Pretty steep. As is the case with most Benefit products. $34. 

How well does it work?

Day 1: No primer or anything. Used the sponge for application, except under eyes where I used the brush-about 8:30am. Check after lunch (maybe 1:30-2pm) and was a little shiny so I used blotting paper. Leaving work at 6:30pm, my face seemed pretty oily. We did have temperatures in the 80s so that's probably part of it. I dusted my Benefit Porefessional Agent Zero Shine over and good as new. 

Day 2: Used Coola's Tinted Matte SPF 30 sunscreen as a kind of primer, since it's matte and feels powdery. Same application as yesterday-about 7am. No blotting or dusting, but it wasn't as warm and I didn't work as late. Noticed the powder gathers between my eyebrows in those creases a little bit and in the low spot between my chin and my lips. Not too bad though.

Day 3: Used Benefit's Porefessional primer that I got a sample of. Review of that later. Used the sponge all over except under eyes and forehead. My bangs cover most of my forehead and that part seems to get the cakiest (not a word, I know...) so I used the brush for that today-about 7am. It's 2:30, so far so good. My face feels a little greasy, but not much. 

For now, I really like this product. That could change. It seems like wearing it with some sort of primer works better, which I think is the point of primer :) I wasn't sure about my color, which is why I didn't order it online. I went to Ulta thinking someone would be able to help me but I went on a Monday night around 8pm and there was all of 3 people working - one of them was a guy, who ended up ringing me up and was no help with the color. But at least I got to test the colors. I thought I was Champagne, but I ended up buying Honey. I think that will be a good choice once I start spending more time outside in the sun.