Boxycharm December 2016 Unboxing & First Impressions

Happy Wednesday, dolls!  I hope you’re having a great week so far 🙂  It’s time to dive into the last Boxycharm of 2016!  Boxycharm is my favorite beauty subscription box that provides 5-6 full-sized items for $21/month.  What I love about Boxycharm is that the value of all the luxury products always well exceed the $21 price.

December’s theme is Makeup On Pointe and comes with 5 products.

1. Pure Cosmetics Eyeshadow Palette – $50 (purecosmetics.com)

A palette featuring 12 wearable shades inspired by the popular smokey eye trend (excerpt).  This looks identical to the Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette, from the casing, brush, to all the rose tone shades.  However, this Pure Cosmetics dupe retails for $50, while the UD Naked Palette retails for $54… So if they are aiming to be an affordable dupe, their pricing scale is a major fail.  For $4 more, I would just go for Urban Decay.  This is a total dud for me, and I will be passing this along.

2. butterLONDON Trend Nail Lacquer in Ruby Murray – $15 (butterlondon.com)

An 8-free lacquer in a heavily pigmented colour and finish (excerpt).  This is a stunning berry wine shade and so perfect for the winter months.  I LOVE this color.

3. Ofra Metallic Liquid Lipstick in Napa Valley – $19.90 (ofracosmetics.com)

OFRA Long Lasting Liquid Lipstick is a one step full lip color that does not feather.  The creamy and soft texture moisturizes your lips while creating a long lasting lip effect (excerpt).  Ofra makes one of my favorite liquid lipstick formulas ever.  They are so creamy, ultra pigmented, and longlasting, yet not at all drying.  Their mousse-y texture wears very comfortably.  This is a very unique, deep violet shade with a metallic shimmer.  While this might make a lovely dramatic look on someone else, this unfortunately did not look good against my golden skintone at all.  I will be passing this along to a friend as well.

4. Beauty For Real Lip Revival Scrub – $14 (beautyforreal.com)

Raw sugar cane exfoliates your lips while orange, vanilla, and cinammon bark essential oils hydrate and condition for the softest, smoothest, kissable lips.  This product will leave your lips hydrated and moisturized like a lip balm (exerpt).  This has a pleasant natural sugar taste (as opposed to chemical) and the smell reminds me of bubble gum 🙂  The sugar granules really do exfoliate dry patches while the residual oils moisturize the lips.  I prefer the convenience of lip scrubs in a lipstick bullet form, like the ELF Lip Exfoliator, but this jar one is pretty fabulous.

5. Thrive Causemetics Brilliant Eye Brightener– $24 (thrivecausemetics.com)

Brilliant Eye Brightener highlights, brightens, and opens the eyes, providing an instant eye lift (exerpt).   This eyeliner pencil is a lovely champagne color that’s very versatile.  You can use this for highlighting the browbones, or adding a pop of color to the lids and inner corner of the eyes for a brightening effect.

Overall Rating:  I would give this month’s Boxycharm a rating of 6/10.  December’s Boxycharm has a combined value of $122.90, which far exceeds the $21 price tag, making it a great value.  However, I will be passing along most of these products.  I adore Ofra Liquid Lipsticks, but this dark purple, metallic shade, while unique, is just not practical for me everyday.  If they had included a more wearable shade, that would have been stellar and changed my overall rating.  Unfortunately, the only product I am really excited for is the Butter London Nail Polish.

Did you enjoy your Boxycharm?  Which products are you most excited to test out?

XO,

Mary Dee

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