This month’s BoxyCharm review is in! I have a lot to talk about. BoxyCharm is one of those OG boxes, but has always felt haphazard to me and not very well-thought out if that makes sense, although I’ve still found some excellent products through them nonetheless.
The July Box came with five products; a cream face kit, a mascara, a moisturizer, an eyeshadow palette, and a liquid eyeshadow duo. So three eye products, one skincare product, and one face product.
You can see where I get a little impatient with the curators; getting three products for the eyes all in one box could be good if they all seemed to work together, but I just don’t feel that they do and I’ll explain why later in my post.
The skincare item I got is the Kate Somerville Goat Milk Moisturizing Cream. I’ve actually had this product before and didn’t like it at all, I found it pilled up on my skin and didn’t absorb at all. I had a similar experience here a few years later. The formula is so liquid that the packaging turns gross and it can easily spill out if you’re not careful. The product is off-white and, no matter what I do with it, it pills up on my skin. I don’t mind the fragrance, I actually find it quite nice, but even though it seems like it would be good and lightweight and fast-absorbing, it’s just not. It feels sticky and heavy and suffocating.
I plan to try this again in the winter to see if it works better with my dry skin, maybe it’ll be better.
I also received the Beauty for Certain Whole Lotta Mascara. At first I was confused because my absolute favorite mascara is the one from Beauty for Real. This one had a much bigger wand but didn’t do the same thing to my lashes, I’m sure I’ll use it though.
It seemed to spread my lashes out very well, but didn’t apply a ton of product. Maybe I’ll use it as a lower lash mascara.
The next product is the Alleyoop Stack The Odds Stackable Compact. I was really excited for this product because it contains all cream products, and I’ve never owned a cream bronzer before. I’ve owned cream blushes and highlighters, but I thought this would be a good way to try out something I hadn’t yet.
I do still need to use this item a little more and get the hang of it, but my first impression wasn’t great. I’m not sure if it was the heat wave or what, but the product was like the texture of melting chocolate. Not like melted all the way, but definitely melting.
I tried to get the bronzer on my skin, and maybe I didn’t do great, but it really just looked like I got mud on my face. I tried to blend more foundation over it because it just didn’t blend out, but all it did was leave my face cakey. I got frustrated, as you can imagine. My powder bronzers are pigmented but blend out seamlessly, so why can’t a cream bronzer do that?
So I need to practice more. As far as the cream blush, it was alright, not too pigmented to the point where I couldn’t blend it. The cream highlighter was nice and I definitely like it for my nose and browbone.
The packaging is of course the cool part of this product, but it didn’t work the way I thought it did, but maybe that’s better because … maybe the way I thought it would work would not have worked.
So basically instead of all three sections unfolding in one direction (like clockwise or counterclockwise) it almost feels like the top unscrews from the middle clockwise and the bottom unscrews from the middle counterclockwise. Which is why it ends up as a straight line and not a three piece circle.
It’s better, I think, than what I expected, but it threw me.
This product retails for $38, which I cannot imagine at all. These pans are pretty small – the product overall is pretty small. I just went and looked it up, it’s 8 grams of product. It’s a tiny amount of product. I would never spend that much money on something like this.
I typically don’t use liquid eyeshadows – I’m not sure why, I just didn’t learn using liquids I learned on powders, and I don’t honestly understand them. Are you supposed to put the liquid on then blend it out? Or put it on and cover it with another shadow to blend? Do you have to wait until it’s dry?
That being said, The Beauty Crop Liquid Eyeshadow Duo in shade Something or Other Maybe was in this box and I was thinking it’d be great to try something like this. Unfortunately BoxyCharm just doesn’t have a way to view what shade this is? Confusing. The swatches turned out nice for these products, but I didn’t get a lot of success on the eye. The matte applies well, but didn’t seem to totally blend out, and wouldn’t budge. I was able to find a similar color and blend over it which helped a lot.
The metallic was really nice, I put it on as a liner since I had no idea what else to do with it. It was too light to put as a contour shade and it’s too dark and subtle to work on my inner lid as a highlighter, so I lined my eyes with it. Unfortunately the applicator is so thick that it didn’t make a very good end. I had to retouch with concealer which is fine.
I think I’ll try these products more with my brushes instead of the applicator and try to blend them out while they’re still wet, maybe.
The packaging is interesting, except I expected the product to be stored in the middle and each end to come off. Instead the product is at each end and the middle is just a dual applicator. But that’s alright, once I got the hang of it I liked it better.
My favorite item in this month’s box is the Complex Culture Future’s So Bright Eyeshadow Palette. I have slowly become a huge fan of this brand. One of the first products I ever got from them was a different eyeshadow palette, and since then I’ve had some of their brushes, bronzers, concealers, and every single product has just blown me away.
This palette is gorgeous. It had a separate cardboard wrap inside the unit carton to add further protection, and the palette is solid, luxurious, and has a big mirror. There’s also a little piece of plastic over the shadows, but instead of having the shade names, it has info on the recommended way to use the colors. Say hi to my avocado.
Their website says this palette was inspired by gemstone colors, which is interesting. I can see that for some of the shades like the bright gold, but the mattes are just nudes and purples and so are the deeper sparkly colors, and the transition shade (which you can’t even see on my skin in the photo because it’s an exact match for my current skin tone) is just my skin tone. As precious as I am, I can’t think of any gemstones in my color.
The formula for these shadows is excellent as always, smooth buttery mattes and creamy shimmers, and swatches were easy – except for one dark purple on the bottom right, that one had trouble swatching. The gold color and the silver color from the top row are stunning and they both need to be on my lid at all times. I’m once again blown away by the quality.
This palette retails for $30, which I think is a great price for a product this good. I would absolutely purchase palettes with this formula for this price. I love this brand and I have so far not had a single issue with any product of theirs. Such good quality.
Overall this box was not great. Again, it didn’t feel very well thought out or personalized. For the most part these are brands I don’t think I am familiar with or marked that I wanted products from, and it starts to feel like they just throw in whatever’s laying around.
The fact that it contained a Complex Culture Palette that was so excellent definitely redeemed it for me, for sure. I’m still holding out hope that this subscription box comes through for me and starts providing things I need and will enjoy trying instead of sending me boxes of things that serve just to remind me that I need to update my Poshmark. I don’t see the point of the complicated questionnaire at the start of the subscription if they don’t pay attention to it during the curation process.
My next box will contain additional products I added on for extra cost, so while it’ll be pricier hopefully it’s still full of products that are going to be good for me and that I can get good use out of.
Thanks all for reading! I’ll post a box battle before I start receiving next month’s shipments.
Also, I plan to start having these posts out more rapidly after getting my boxes, so they’re not at the end of the month when I receive them. Otherwise, this could get confusing.
Love love!
Dani