I’ve never considered myself to be a makeup and beauty product “expert.” Some of my friends can spend forever in a makeup store, talking about which products they’ve used and what works best. I never seem to know what I’m looking for exactly, beyond the basics. In fact, for almost every major life event or night out, my younger sister has done my makeup for me! So, once I had a baby and didn’t have all that extra time to look put together, I knew something had to change. Besides taking my vitamins and staying hydrated, I started looking for something that was fun as well as helpful when it came to getting ready in the mornings.
Read on to see why I order a beauty box.
After giving birth to my son, I thought I had somehow avoided the terrible postpartum hair loss. Just as I felt confident that I was going to keep the long, luscious, healthy-looking locks I sported throughout my pregnancy, I WENT BALD IN TWO PLACES ON MY HEAD. Bald, as in, my hair fell out in two perfect triangles above my temples. It was especially obvious when wearing one of my signature hairdos — the messy bun. And of course, this baldness happened at four months, exactly when I went back to work. I was a little self-conscious and needed a pick me up…
…enter the beauty box!
The beauty box is a cute little box with a mixture of sample and full size beauty products for hair, makeup, face, teeth, skin, nails — you name it, I’ve gotten it in a box. I pay a lot less than the value of the products I receive and it makes it so easy to try new things. And when I was feeling good about my smudge-proof liquid eyeliner, I was thinking less about my bald spots. Those bald spots have grown back by the way, and unless I straighten them, I have two Farrah Fawcett-esque wings of hair that swoop out on either side of my head. I don’t have a lot of time to do my hair these days because I’m trying to keep a toddler out of the toilet while I get ready for work, so a lot of mornings I just go with the swoop!
The perks of a beauty box:
- I love opening presents and the beauty box is like a present. The products are even wrapped in pretty colored tissue paper.
- The sample size bottles are just right for my toddler’s chubby little hands and he thinks it must be a box full of toys for him. I let him check it out first (although I remove any choke hazards!) because it keeps him busy for a long time. He will sit and open the box, remove all the tubes, bottles, and packets, replace them, and close the lid over and over and over again. It’s great.
- The price is right. I only pay $7 and it’s not a subscription, so I can make sure I want it before I buy it.
The rules:
- I order the beauty box no matter what. Otherwise, I’ll talk myself out if it by reasoning that I’ll never use those products, which defeats the whole purpose of ordering it to try new things.
- I either use it up or give/throw it away. If I don’t immediately use or open a sample, I decide whether to toss it or unload it onto one of my sisters/friends. I recently cleaned out my hair and makeup drawers and threw out blue eye shadow from when I was 13. I would prefer not to have to do that again in 17 more years.
- The exception is that if a new box is full of the exact same stuff I already have from past boxes, I don’t have to order it. But sometimes having extras means I have something fun to slip into a birthday or Christmas gift!
Overall, the beauty of the beauty box is that it pushes me outside of my comfort zone, makes me try new things, and makes me feel pretty good about myself. Not bad for a handful of tubes and shiny foil packages in a pretty little cardboard box, right?
