December Beauty Box Comparison

I mentioned last month that I’d do a comparison post on the beauty boxes, but I thought it would make more sense to wait until this month to do the comparison as by this point I’d have all four boxes.  I’ll run through all the elements of what ‘makes the box’ first, before giving my personal take.  Obviously this is all just my opinion and it’s based solely on these months boxes; my favourite this month could be my least favourite next month.

Packaging

The Feel Unique box is black and dark pink (maybe magenta?) and slides out which is nice and easy.  It also has a pull tab for sliding the inner box out which is really handy.

The Carmine box is also black on the outside and the inside is green with the red and white Carmine logo. The main problem with this box is that it’s a typical lift up box (smaller box with a larger lid that fits all the way over to the bottom, concealing the smaller box) which is far too tight making it really tricky to get to the contents and you end up having to shake it relentlessly until the smaller box falls out.  Not ideal!

This month’s Glossy Box is a festive red version of the normal style glossy box.  It’s a standard box with a smaller lid, making it easier to open than the Carmine box.

The Jolie Box is more like the Carmine box, however, it’s much easier to open so no relentless shaking is necessary.  It’s matte black with the Jolie Box logo.

Both the Feel Unique and the Jolie Box are smaller than the others, which I personally prefer as it’s nice to have a box chock full of products as opposed to a few products looking lost in all that space.

Based on personal taste, I’d say my favourite packaging is the new Jolie Box.  I’m not sure why, it just looks a little classier than the others.

Contents

The Feel Unique box had a good mix, although a couple of the samples were a little on the small side.  The stand out product for me was the Nails Inc Oxford Circus sample, even though it was rather small. The value of the box came in at around £35.

The Glossy box contents was really good this month, with 3 full sized samples including a full sized mascara.  The smaller samples were also really good and I don’t think there’s anything in this box that I won’t get use from.  The stand out product for me was the Deborah Lippmann nail varnish in Razzle Dazzle. The value was about £40.

The Carmine box contents contained a couple of interesting additions including a voucher for a treatment and a make-up brush, so I really liked the fact that they were thinking outside the box (boom, boom) when putting this box together.  The stand out product for me was the MyFace Blingtone.  This box’s value is about £55.

Jolie Box also had a brush in it’s contents as well as a couple of other interesting products.  It’s not quite the ‘blow my mind’ box I was hoping for when the takeover from Boudoir Prive was announced, but it’s still not a bad mix.  My personal favourite from this box is the Jane Iredale 24-Karat Gold Dust.  The value was around  £50 but that includes the two extras they included to mark the first Jolie Box.

The Carmine box had a really good selection, but then again, so did the Glossy box.  The Carmine box also had the highest value, which really showed in the contents, but I don’t believe value is that important, it’s more about the versatility and usability of the products which I feel is quite a tricky balance to strike.

Overall, there were no terrible boxes this month but both Glossy box and Carmine delivered with their contents by including a really great variety of products.  However, Jolie Box also delivered contents wise, but their contents was a tad more sophisticated.  I’m a fan of luxe brands, but I’m also not snobby about high street brands, so from a box like this I hope for as much variety as possible.  Glossy Box leaned more towards make-up items which for me, is preferable as I’m much more likely to experiment with make-up than skincare.  I think any box that is ‘skincare heavy’ is risking isolating lots of the subscribers as we all have such different skin types and anyone with problem skin types might not want to risk a reaction.  Feel Unique come in at the cheapest – both value wise and subscription price – but this doesn’t show too badly in the actual contents.  Carmine really mixed things up, including at least several items that I’m confident any beauty lover will get a lot of use from.  When I open up a beauty box, I want to be excited about the contents and look forward to trying all the bits and bobs out.  So for this month, I feel the overall winner is:

For my contents run down of Feel Unique click here.
For my contents run down of Carmine click here.
For my contents run down of Glossy Box click here.
For my contents run down of Jolie Box click here.