Oh, hey there Allure Sample Society. You got a new name! The Box Formerly Known as Allure Sample Society has been re-branded as Allure Beauty Box! Allure Beauty Box has always been my favorite of the lower-priced beauty subscription boxes because for $15/month, they send deluxe and occasional full-size samples of products and brands you’ve actually heard of before. Luxury brands. I love being able to try fancy products on the cheap and Allure Beauty Box is great for that. They had shut down new subscriptions for a few months while they were transitioning away from BeautyBar.com and Sample Society but they are taking new subscriptions now, so you can click this link if you are interested in signing up! (And the link is surprisingly hard to find if you google it.)
I will take this moment to air a small complaint I have with Allure Beauty Box. As a previous Sample Society subscriber, I was automatically switched over to the new Allure Beauty Box so I didn’t have to create an account or anything like that. However, I didn’t receive any information that I could find that had an account number for Allure Beauty Box on it. And the only way to log into the Allure Beauty Box site is if you have an account number. They have a customer service email listed on their site so I emailed them twice in the past two or three weeks giving them my email and my phone number and letting them know I needed my account number. It wasn’t a pressing issue so I just emailed when I thought about it. Both times I received an auto-reply saying they’ve received my email and would get back to me. However… no one ever got back to me. I finally called the number listed on the site (I hate phone calls!) and the phone was answered right away and a polite gentleman helped me find my account number very quickly. I’m definitely pleased with the service I got on the phone, but super disappointed that I emailed twice with no reply. This may be growing pains, but I like to know that I can contact customer service by email if I ever have a problem (like I receive a damaged product and need to send them a picture.) And while it’s great their phone service is awesome, if they have an email for customer service listed on their site, I want to know these emails are actually being read and monitored. Otherwise, why have it on the site at all? OK, rant over.
Let’s see what Allure sent to me this month, shall we?
One of the factors that sets Allure Beauty Box apart from the other boxes is its industry leading Mini Mag. Basically they send you a little magazine with their Real-Talk feelings about the products they include in the box. It’s super helpful and since I love Allure magazine already, I obviously love and trust the Mini Mag.
The box contents!
Bumble and Bumble bb Hairdresser’s Invisible Oil Heat/UV Protector Primer: I am always looking for primers for my hair… I’m a bottle blonde and I dry and style my hair a lot. These heat/UV type protectors are the very least I can do for my hair. I received a very tiny sample of this in another Sample Society/Beauty Box a few months ago and immediately dropped it on my floor so I am excited for the opportunity to try this again.
Oscar Blandi Volumizing Dry Shampoo Spray: I have always been a big fan of Oscar Blandi’s Pronto Texture and Volume Spray so I was interested in trying their dry shampoo. If you’ve read this blog at all, you know I am constantly on a quest to get bigger hair. My natural hair is so flat and straight and zero volume and all I want is big hair. I work so hard for big hair and it will immediately fall flat. I did a test: I took my flat hair out of a pony tail and put the dry shampoo all over. It didn’t look great because… well… it was day old hair. But I got some decent volume. I can work with this. I’m pleased.
Estee Lauder Sumptuous Infinite Daring Length + Volume Mascara: I wasn’t initially impressed with this because I love my Benefit Roller Lash Mascara so much that other mascaras tend to not hold a candle. However, after a few coats I got some decent length and volume. I am going try to wear this all day tomorrow. Pro tip: Use an eyelash curler. I applied it without and I feel like my lashes are just straight.
Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Serum: If my mom taught me anything about skincare it was that the eye area is very delicate and should be treated as such. I always hear her voice telling me to use my ring finger to apply product because it’s the weakest. The eye area is also the first area that shows signs of aging– and as an almost-33 year old gal, I’m starting to see it. The key ingredients in this serum are hyaluronic acid which hydrates, caffeine which de-puffs, and alkyl guanine transferase which reduces the appearance of skin damage. As a serum, it’s meant to be used first in combination with another moisturizer to help everything work better. This is the first time that I’ve seen a serum targeted especially for the eye area, which I think is really neat. Mini-mag noted that for those with oily skin, this might be enough of a moisturizer on its own but for my own dry skin I noticed it sunk into my skin very quickly so I will be layering another eye moisturizer on top of this serum. I’ll try anything!
Invisibobble: So I was super skeptical about the invisibobble. I mean come on. I cannot take myself seriously wearing one of those things in my hair. I also thought that they would kind of pull on my hair because I was picturing a sticky phone cord. I also thought that it might be too slippery and my aforementioned flat, straight hair would just slip out. But I was pleasantly surprised. First, these were smaller than I thought they would be. I guess I was picturing an actual phone cord. I need to let that go. But after wrapping one of these bad boys around my pony tail three times, my hair was not going anywhere. It also didn’t hurt when I removed the bobble though I admit I did it slowly because I was nervous. As for looking ridiculous with a hot pink phone cord in my hair… it really didn’t look much different than a regular hot pink hair tie once it was in my hair. It will only look ridiculous when I forget and take it out and wear it on my wrist during a meeting.
Supergoop Defense Refresh Setting Mist: This is the 3rd time I have received a makeup setting mist with SPF in the last two days. And I actually received this product twice. One was the full size version that I’ll be reviewing in the July POPSUGAR Must Have box in the next few days. An important thing to note about this product in particular is that I’ve heard it can sometimes be a little bit drying for those with dry skin. I’ve also read in another review that this stuff can be a straight up MESS if it gets in your hair so you should be sure to pull your hair back before spraying. That said, I think the idea of these sprays is a good one- you want to set your makeup so it won’t sweat off in the hot summer days and you might as well get a bit of sunscreen in there, too. Two birds, one stone. You really can’t ever use enough sunscreen these days so while this should never be your only sunscreen, using MORE sunscreen is always a good thing.
Final Grade: A
I’m feeling pretty good about the new Allure Beauty Box. The quality of the brands and the sizes of the products haven’t changed despite the change of ownership of the box, which is good. Obviously Allure was never going to put their name on something low-end so I wasn’t REALLY worried about it but I’m pleased. I like all the products they included, even though they included two Estee Lauder products. While it isn’t a variety of brands, Estee Lauder is a luxury brand and the products themselves were very different. I love the Oscar Blandi dry shampoo and the Invisibobble was the biggest surprise of them all. I am a fan of the Invisibobble. I also like saying Invisibobble.
I’m still a little bit annoyed with the Customer Service thing but that is a small annoyance. I have never needed to contact their Customer Service previously but you never know. If you are interested in trying the “new” Allure Beauty Box for yourself, click here to sign up!
Purchased by Lauren; post contains affiliate links