Glossy Box January 2013

Yesterday saw the arrival of my first Glossy Box* for 2013 and it’s another goodun’! At first glance, I was a little disappointed to see so much skincare for two reasons; firstly, I like a box that mixes it up and I always prefer getting make-up items to skincare, and secondly, I thought there was a high likeliness that there would be very little for me to play with since I’m so limited on what skincare items I can use due to being on the strict Jan Marini routine.  However, if you follow me on Twitter then you’ll know that I’m now allowed to use masks from other brands, and this box was surprisingly mask heavy, so it’s a total result for me!

This months box focuses on products that help with the new year detox, so it’s lots of pampering treatments and treats for the skin.  You think this would’ve been the perfect excuse for GB to dump another body lotion in the box (I swear, I need never buy another body lotion again thanks to beauty boxes, and I don’t even use them that often!) but thankfully they’ve managed to avoid that, and have instead included five products that are all to be used on the face.

As usual, my run through will be listed in order of my personal favourites first:

This’ll probably be the only time you’ll ever find me happy to have a sachet sample included in a beauty box, but I have been eyeing this treatment for absolutely ages, just waiting to be given the go ahead to start using other products again.  Therefore, this arriving within days of me getting the go ahead is absolutely joyful as it’ll save me risking the £27.50 that this retails at.  It’s a two-step facial treatment; the first layer is a peptide treatment and the second is a Rose clay mask that warms the skin.  I love rose scented facial treatments (I’m binging quite severely on them at the moment) and I absolutely cannot wait to give this a whirl.

Another mask! This sounds rather interesting as it’s a detoxing treatment that gives skin an instant facelift…apparently.  It certainly contains some goodies, such as vitamins C and B5 and Hyaluronic Acid so I can imagine this would make for a rather lovely pre-night out skin perk-up.  There appears to be enough for a couple of uses as the sample is a fairly generous 30ml, so I’m definitely looking forward to trying this.  Full price, this is £32.

Rather wonderfully named, don’t you think? I’m always happy for a lip balm or lip treatment to feature in a beauty box as I can never have enough; I get through them at an astounding rate (I’ll be doing a feature on my favourites soon) and I like to keep as many as possible dotted all over the place so I can replenish my lip moisture levels as often as possible.  I’ll rarely get excited about a lip balm and tend to find them functional rather than rave-worthy, but I definitely like receiving them…certainly much, MUCH more than body creams! The sample included is full-size and retails at a cheap and cheery £1.99.

The main reason this falls so low in my list is due to the fact that I already have it, so obviously I’m not going to get excited about receiving it again, especially as I can’t currently use it due to it containing scrubby bits, which is a big no-no in my current skincare routine.  It is a fabulous product though, so if you haven’t tried it and got it in your Glossy Box this month then I recommend giving it a good go as both a mask and an exfoliator.  This was a decent sample size at 50ml and the full sized tube of 125ml retails at £11.

This sounds absolutely beautiful and like something I would love to use, so I’m definitely sulking about the fact that I can’t (whilst secretly trying to justify it’s use; I’m thinking of incorporating it into a facial) as it’s got some lovely sounding ingredients; sandalwood oil, lemongrass and rose water, all of which sound like they’d be a gentle and dreamy tonic to weather-beaten skin.  Again, it’s low in my list due to the fact that I can’t actually use it but it’s definitely something I will try my hardest to find a way to use soon! Again, we got a fairly generous 30ml sample, and the full-sized 50ml retails at £27.50.

I really like the fact that we now appear to get monthly added extras from the GB brand itself, as it’s a nice finishing touch.  This month we got a sleeper mask; I’m a bit weird about them as I love the way they look (and consequently I have several) but I’m too scared to use them as I’m worried that I’ll end up tricking my body into believing it’s night constantly and become some sort of Sleeping Beauty type without the beautiful dress and instead wearing PJs with holes in them.  Tad irrational, maybe, but there you go…

All-in-all, a pretty superb start to the year for Glossy Box! There isn’t one product that I think is a cop-out (no body or foot creams anywhere in sight) and I feel like all these products, themed around ‘detox’, are well selected.  Hopefully this means that GB are back on course in delivering beauty boxes that are worthy of excitement and something to start looking forward to again.