Influenster Uni Vox Box Review!

I'm part of the Influenster blogger program, which is a fantastic program that matched blogger's interests to relevant products which companies provide for free to the bloggers to review and test. Recently, I was matched to the UniVoxBox, a box containing beauty and lifestyle products for college-aged women. I was so excited to receive my first box and I'm so happy to share the products with you! As a disclaimer, I received all of these products for free from their respective companies for testing purposes and have not been paid by the brands in any way.

This is what the box looked like when it arrived! So cute, right?

The first things I was most excited to see were the beauty products! I received Rimmel London's Stay Matte foundation in light ivory, imPRESS' Press-on manicure in a pretty, spring floral print, and NYC Expert Last Lipstick in Forever Fuchsia, all of which were full size products. The Rimmel foundation is a little light for me, but I tried it on anyway to see how I liked the consistency. It was very lightweight, felt a little dry but not enough that it was bothersome. It blended smoothly and gave me a relatively even, matte look. I didn't wear it very long because of the color but I'll give it another go sometime soon to see how it wears and absorbs oil.

The manicure ended up being the wrong size, the nail covers were too small for my nail and pretty much unwearable, so I plan to go buy one at a drugstore and give it a try since I feel bad that I can't review it properly. The print is really beautiful and I love press-on nails, but these ones simply will not work for me.

The lipstick is SO fun, I love the bright pink color and the formula really lasts! It's not drying which is excellent for a long wearing lipstick and it applied smoothly and the color is very even. Check out the picture of me wearing it below =)

I also received a number of really awesome lifestyle products! One of my favorite samples is something I'd received in a Birchbox before - a Pilot Acroball pen! It seems silly that I'd be so excited about a pen but these ones are really, really great! They write incredibly smoothly and have nice, rich color. I absolutely love them and I use mine all the time! 

I was also pretty excited about the tampons because they're almost the same kind that I already use. I love Playtex Sport's tampons because they're really small and you can't feel them at all. Plus, they have a plastic applicator which I like WAAAAAAY better than the nasty cardboard ones. I don't know how the Fresh Balance ones are going to be too different from the ones I already use, but they claim to be odor neutralizing and who doesn't like that?

The last lifestyle product I received is Red Rose's Real Tea water enhancer. I am OBSESSED with water enhancers, I keep one in my purse at all times and I was so excited that there's finally a natural enhancer with less chemicals and artificial ingredients! I will say, it's not sweetened tea, and if you prefer that you'll have to add your own sweetener, but it tastes really good and is definitely something I'll use up at some point!

I'm so excited to be working with Influenster and reviewing products for their brands. I don't know when I'll receive more Vox Boxes, but hopefully there will be more of these reviews in the future! =)

April Julep Maven Box Review

Now for my April Julep Maven Box! I just received it recently and it's a good one! First off, the add-on options this month were phenomenal! There were so many great things on sale it was hard to decide which ones to get, but I'm happy with my decisions.

These are the products that came in this month's Bombshell box. It included Julep's new Pore Minimizing blush and two nail polish colors. I chose the blush in Petal Pink, it's a nice, bright pink and it's very flattering. The formula is quite powdery, so you only need a tap or two with a blush brush to get good color. I'm not sold on the pore minimizing aspect just yet, but I'll give it a few more days before I declare a verdict. The polishes this month were part of the "Vivids" collection and they are most certainly that! The colors I received are Kayla, a periwinkle blue with purple pearl and Tatum, a bright, shimmery lime.

For my add-ons, I chose the Party's Over Glitter Nail Polish Removal kit and Felicia nail lacquer, a mint green with black speckles of different sizes. Felicia is a fun color that will be great for spring, and the speckled polish is now also available in pink and purple on the Julep website. The Party's Over kit is a totally genius idea that I plan to use all the time. I love glitter polish, but it's so hard to remove, and wrapping it in foil is time consuming and annoying. I usually end up soaking my nails in acetone, but that's really drying to my nails and the surrounding skin. Party's Over comes with reusable sleeves that act the way foil wraps do by keep a remover-soaked pad pressed against your nail and enough pre-soaked polish removal pads for 5 rounds of glitter polish. It's not a lot, but the caps can almost definitely be used with cotton pads and regular nail polish remover.

This box ended up being a great value. As usual, the box cost $20 and the products in the box would have retailed (non-Maven) for $52. I used Jules for the Felicia add-on and got it for free, and the Party's Over kit cost me $20 extra, but retails for $28 so I got decent savings on that. So all in all, between Jule savings and Maven discount savings, I saved $54 on products which is far more than I actually spent on the box + add-ons ($40). Julep continues to be a fantastic value, and I can't wait to see what they have in store for next month!

March Birchbox Review

So now that my April Birchbox has shipped apparently I've decided it's high time to review the products in my March Birchbox! I apologize for not getting these out earlier, I've been extremely busy with class, extracurriculars and work so I haven't had a lot of active downtime. I'll be bringing you this plus a few more box reviews in the next few days so stay tuned and look out for new posts!

Here's a picture of my box the day I received it:

I received some winners and some losers in my March box. I ended up getting rid of the keims shampoo sample as it contained Macadamia oil which I am allergic to. I also didn't end up using the Jurlique samples as brightening is not one of my main skin concerns. 

The big winners in this box for me are the body lotion and the eyeliner. The lotion is so luxurious and I love using it on my hands when they're dry. I haven't tried it on my legs yet (that's pretty much the only place I ever apply lotion on my body) but I'm sure it's just as nice there! It's lightweight and has a pleasant, herbal scent, plus it absorbs quickly so your skin won't feel greasy. The eyeliner is fantastic, it's a beautiful metallic mint green color and the color is bright and noticeable when applied. It applies easily, the pencil is very smooth, and it comes with a pencil sharpener cap. 

This was a fairly short review but there are more coming soon! This was a pretty cut and dry Birchbox, nothing really exciting and nothing really revolutionary, but the eyeliner was full-size and the lotion is large so I'll get a lot of use out of it. 

To go on a bit of a rant, I feel like Birchbox needs to reanalyze style profiles, and needs a way to specify if you're allergic to beauty product ingredients as I've repeatedly received either beauty products with tree nut oil or food extras containing nuts. It's getting seriously annoying, and because of it I end up throwing away at least one product almost every month. I'll try giving the products to my friends to test from now on just so I can review them, but it's getting old. Just a thought, hope you enjoyed this short but sweet review!