Daily, Photos, Reviews

Comparision TopBox, Luxe Box, GlossyBox, Glymm Box, and more!

33 Comments

I’ve planned to make a comparison box blog post for the past number of months. It got delayed as last month Glossy Box launched and I wanted to wait til the second month to review them all to get a fair review of them all. But wait. There is another box subscription. That makes 5 available for Canadians. When will it stop? Now we have Beauty Box 5 which recently launched. I’ve yet to try it out. 5 is just overwhelming and getting a little out of hand. Plus the brands they’re working with aren’t as appealing to me.

First things first. Most of the boxes (if not all) make you fill out a questionnaire at the beginning describing your hair color, skin color, preferences on receiving hair over skin products etc. So of course, not everyone gets the same products per month. Which is the fun part, seeing what everyone got different than you. Can’t wrap your head around why people pay for these deluxe samples? Why won’t we just walk into Sephora and grab a few samples to try out for free?

Almost every box that I’ve subscribed to has at least one full sized product that more than pays for the box itself. Samples at Sephora can be contaminated from everyone dipping their finger in and trying out the sample before you arrived there. How old is the sample? When was the last time they brought out a new bottle? Plus, it’s like Christmas to me, every month — not knowing what’s inside and opening it and being either pleasantly surprised, feeling “eh” about it, or not liking it at all. It’s all trial and error. Which is why I’m writing this (super long) post about it. I’m debating unsubscribing from more than one box. Because at the moment I’m subscribed to all four available which seems to be getting out of hand.

A lot of the boxes are inconsistent with mailing out their boxes. TopBox seems to have it altogether with delivery times, but the other three you can get anywhere within that month. They don’t have a set date as to when they mail out their boxes. It can be a little annoying to wait on it.

Top Box — $10 a month ($11.30 in total, with free shipping). The first month they launched they had everyone lured in with the Deborah Lippman nail polishes. I of course purchased my subscription box as soon as I saw an unveiling video on YouTube. As did everyone else and their dog, since Top Box is now sold out until June 2012. My first box was the December issue and I wasn’t all that impressed. The thing that makes Top Box a bit unique in its own way is that it doesn’t come packaged in a mini-shoe box like the other three Canadian subscription boxes. It comes in a cylindrical tube. Topbox ships on the 10th day of the month so it’s almost always the first one to arrive to my door step. In January, my second topbox was great. There were 4 very large samples and products that I was happy to see: Shu Umera (a very high end product) shampoo, a principessa dry shampoo that I still use and a few others.

Topbox featured me as a blogger on their Facebook and blog back in January. That was pretty neat!

This is what arrived in my March Top Box.

View my March Top Box unveiling on YouTube.

Sign up here for a Top Box.

_____________________________________

Loose Button Luxe Box — $12 a month ($13.56 in total, with free shipping). Luxe Box was the first subscription box available to Canadians. It launched in February 2011, a few months after the American subscription box called Birch Box that everyone in Canada was lusting after. It started out being just $10 a month and in the spring/summer 2011 they ended up raising the prices to $12 a month. Luxe Box has gone through a few changes with their look,  making it look sleek, and improving the overall quality of the box.

Luxe box claims that they customize their boxes but I honestly feel that when I watch other peoples videos I get jipped and get 3-4 samples where sometimes ppl get 5, 6 or even 7…which I don’t get. In December for instance people got a set of velour lashes which are amazing mink lashes (they’re cruelty free as they are brushed off the mink). I also saw something else that I was envious of in December, but I forget what. I don’t know why but nothing really ever “stood out” to me with Loose Button.

Loose Button has incorporated a “First In Line” campaign where at the beginning of the month before your box gets mailed out to you, you get to pick between a few different products and you’re guaranteed that product be in your upcoming box. It would’ve worked well if they had enough IT support because the site kept crashing and it took me a good hour to log in to actually see what I could’ve gotten. None of the products stuck out that much to me, either.

This is what arrived in my March Loose Button Luxe Box.

You can view my unveiling of my March Luxe Box on my YouTube channel. I love filming these as you can view my first reaction to opening these boxes right on film. I’m an honest one!

Sign up here for a Luxe Box.

_____________________________________

GlossyBox — $15 a month (flat rate + free shipping). The most expensive out of the entire four. You do get 200 glossy dot points when you refer a friend, and when you reach 1000 you can redeem those for a free GlossyBox! You are also guaranteed 5 deluxe samples with sometimes a sixth thrown in. I’m not sure why they decided to amp their price up to $15.00 because aren’t all sample boxes generally the same? I don’t know why this one has to be $5 more than the rest.

This is what arrived in my March GlossyBox.

View my March Glossy Box unveiling on YouTube.
Sign up here for a GlossyBox.

 _____________________________________

Glymm — $10 a month ($11.30 in total, with free shipping). I have to save the best for last. Glymm is always a safe bet to go for. I always get asked on YouTube, Twitter, or even over e-mail what my favorite subscription box is. It is most definitely the Glymm. I have only been disappointed with one box since they first launched and I’m pleased that they haven’t raised the prices of their boxes like their competitors have.

I always enjoy their Jelly Belly candies they include each month with their boxes. Always something I look forward to. I love candy. Anyone who knows me, knows I have a major sweet tooth, so it was great when Glymm was giving out candy. They had candy for a good 6 months or so until randomly one month they stopped including the goodies for us. Apparently it broke in the mail. I want candy.

Glymm has a shop where if you refer a friend, or even buy a box for yourself you accumulate points to put towards their shop, when you receive your box in the mail a week or two later you fill out a questionnaire giving your feedback on the box. You get 10 points for each item you review. I’ve collected all of these points since the beginning and now I’m wondering what to spend my points on. They now carry St. Tropez products, and I’m torn between that or T3 products which I wrote about here. Glymm also keeps us in the loop with new products being brought into the store with fancy product photos

(see?) and making us lust over the latest trends. Sometimes they offer free shipping too. Not often enough mind you!

This is what arrived in my March Glymm box.

View my March Glymm box unveiling on YouTube.
Sign up here for a Glymm Box.

_____________________________________

I have already unsubscribed from one box. Being Loose Button, because I found that I didn’t get anything all that awesome in any of my boxes for the past couple of months. I missed out on the velour lashes, and also a really nice perfume package with a handful of perfumes. I had to draw the line somewhere on subscribing to all of these boxes. Four is just way too many. I’m also thinking of ending my other subscriptions because the excitement has worn off and I’d like to save money, because adding up the cost of three boxes per month is a bit much for someone on a budget. I also have an abundance of samples I need to use up which are just sitting around in a bag!

Ideally, what I’d like to see in a brand new launch of a subscription box for Canadians? Let us pick out our samples, each and every month. Sure, I loved the surprises, but now I want to be able to pick out my samples, especially if I’m paying for it each month.

Looking for a subscription box for yourself?

UK based:

Middle East

USA

Canada

This was not a sponsored review.

Continue Reading

Daily, Photos, Reviews

Alfies featured appearance

2 Comments

Our Pomeranian is now two and a half years old. I feel like he doesn’t get much attention on the ol’ blog. So here he is today, getting a special featured appearance.

We picked Alfie up from a seller a few hours away from us on January 9, 2010. We fell in love with him instantly and we brought him home the day that we drove to see him.

This was taken a few days after we got him. Look at his fur hardly even grown in, little sweetie!

My boyfriend and I have separate roles that play into Alfie’s life. I’ve had dogs my entire life, so I’m comfortable with grooming and clipping Alfie’s nails. I could take him to a groomer, but I want him to be able to bond with him and allow him to trust me to do these things to him. Plus I don’t fully trust anyone else grooming our dog. I don’t want to chance Alfie getting his nails cut too short, or getting bossed around. He needs his hair trimmed often as he has long hair, and it grows especially fast around certain parts of his body, one being his little toosh. Believe it or not, he actually enjoys having his bum hair trimmed, and lays on my lap until it’s all finished. I think it’s because he knows that after I’m done with the scissors, he gets a really good treat.

With little dogs like Alfie, you have to be very cautious of what you feed them. Because of his tiny mouth and teeth he can’t afford to loose any of his pearly white chompers due to tooth decay. My Boyfriend is in charge of Alfie’s food and what he eats. So we go to specialty dog stores where my Boyfriend stands with a number of different dog foods, reading up on what would be best suitable for our pup while I get distracted by the dog jackets and cute new leashes. Being that he is a 10lb dog, he needs to eat specific foods to keep him in top notch shape. Alfie gets dry kibble twice a day, and we never feed him wet food on a regular basis with his food because we feel that it’s not the best for his teeth, and since he loves wet food so much he would never eat any of the dry food we give him. But when we’re training him or rewarding him for something well done, I always give him wet treats like this one below:

We’re running low on his treats, so I recently drove to my local Global Pet Foods store and picked up a few sample packs of Nature’s Harvest Fresh. I got four of the offered flavors in Beef, Salmon, Chicken and Lamb. This new line of pet food is a great, safe convenient alternative to dry foods. But we plan on just using it for his treats. I thought it’d be fun if I filmed a video of Alfie trying out all the different flavors. Let’s see which one he goes to first!  Or, maybe he’ll just dive in and start gobbling them down without sniffing at all. Note, the salmon one isn’t shown as that was the first treat we gave him and it didn’t last long since I gave half of it to my co-worker’s dog as well.

My co-worker’s dog also tried it.

Julie’s dog Rocco, is a mix between a Yorki-Poo and a Chinese Crested Powder Puff. Rocco is almost a year old. This little guy was also a huge fan of the Nature’s Harvest Fresh samples.

Pro’s about Nature’s Harvest Fresh:

  • Made locally with sourced whole food ingredients
  • It’s grain free
  • Alfie goes crazy for it — as I thought he would

Con’s:

  • It’s very pricey for a box of twelve it’s $21.99. Individual patties are $1.99 each.

Thanks to Nature’s Harvest Fresh and Global Pet Foods for supplying our dogs with these snacks!

Continue Reading

Reviews

Mother knows best

1 Comment

Why do I insist on trying new products and not stick to the one’s that I know work best?

A clear example of this is my issue with dry hands. Thankfully they don’t crack, but they’re rough and dry and feel like man hands due to my callouses from CrossFit and Climbing. I’ve always been prone to dry skin, and hands are not the exception.

My Mom, for as long as I have remembered always had this Neutrogena hand cream around the house somewhere, at all times. I may have swiped bottles of it for myself from time to time when I lived back in Newfoundland.It even lasts on my hands throughout washing them! How does that happen? Is that science? I don’t know what it is, to be honest but it’s pretty fantastic due to its staying power.

The consistency of the cream is like an ointment when it comes out of the bottle. It takes a bit of work to really rub into your hands and doesn’t leave a greasy residue.

I’ll spare you the photo of my hands in its rough state, and in the photo above you can see my hands after I applied the hand cream. As for how long it lasts? Well hours really, as I can use the washroom and come back and my hands are still silky. That’s rare. Right? I’ve written about how great this product is in the past here and here, and it’s easily accessible at the drug stores. It’s not even pricey at the drug store. It’s five bucks! Well worth it too.

Pros:

  • It’s scent free
  • It’s easy to buy (drug store, not a specialty store)
  • Keeps my hands moisturized even after washing (whaaat!)

Cons:

  • It’s freaking hard to rub in!

Make sure you purchase the Norwegian Formula, as I’m certain they have a few different varieties of Neutrogena hand creams.

No, this review was not sponsored. I purchased multiple bottles of this cream, myself.

Continue Reading