So the last couple years or so subscription services, beauty boxes, whichever you refer to them as have blown up in popularity.
Why shouldn't they? Right? I mean the draw is quite obvious. Ten bucks for a minimum of thirty dollars in product or even more money for even more return on your investment each month? Amazing! Why isn't everyone doing this?!?! Wait. They are... Everyone except for me. Now let me tell you why and why you should cancel yours immediately.
Let's get into some simple math real quick. When we are talking about the most popular and affordable subscription services such as Ipsy, Birchbox, Sephora Play Box, etc. We are talking about a box of samples. Samples! You know this but yet you passively sit back and let companies charge you money for what once was expected for free. I don't know who I should be more irritated with. The companies screwing over the sheep who follow every trend or the people sitting back and letting this happen.
Let's get into some numbers here. Historically samples were a way for companies to get you to try their product, decide if you liked it and then purchase the full size product. The premise is still exactly the same, except now you have to pay for your sample as well. Now the only thing that's changed here is that there is a service and the customer. Samples are still readily available for free. Every time you get a magazine you get little paper perfume samples, when you walk into any store with a beauty department or beauty stand you can walk straight up and get as many samples as your little heart desires, usually one each of every product they have available to sample. When you make a purchase through almost anywhere you get beauty samples for free with your purchase. For example when you order from Sephora you get three free samples automatically for any amount spent that you get to choose. Also, if you spend over $25 you get to pick a fourth deluxe sample that a lot of the times is a makeup bag full of samples more than what you get from three months worth of Ipsy and it's free! Not purchasing online? Even better. Sephora for example allows you to get as many perfume and makeup samples as you want. They literally grab empty spray sample bottles and fill them up in front of you directly from the perfume bottle of your choice. Not into perfume? Thats cool. You can get samples of almost any makeup item they have in store. Not to mention all the samples you can get for free directly from some companies websites. Free sample websites usually collect all this info and do the work for you. Just google free samples and there's a billion options.
So here's where the math comes in. Let's add up the price of samples you get for free. Then add up the amount of the products you can't get for free and grab the full size price online and divide the ounces of your sample size with the full size price. More often then not your ten dollar investment doesn't even cover what your subscription is worth. Next bit of math is simple. For a ten dollar a month subscription that's $120 a year on stuff you can get for free. On a full size subscription of 3-5 products thats over $250 a year on products you're mostly not going to like.
So let's put it this way. Would you be happier saving that money or investing that money now on makeup products that are full size that you do like and get free samples with it whenever you want or end up with a drawer full of crap you never used and money you basically through in the garbage?
Basically not only are you paying for the full size product you've decided you wanted but you're also paying for the sample now too. This is not an acceptable form of business people and we can't allow it.
There's a couple themes here that you aren't getting with your subscription services. Firstly and most important these samples are one hundred and fifty percent free! See that word that keeps popping up here? Second, you are getting to choose each sample you get. With your subscription service you're getting random products sent to you.
Make up, hair, skincare and beauty products in general are highly personal items. There's no possible way that every person who gets this one size fits all kit is going to love everything they get. We all have different skin colors, skin issues, undertones, hair types, eye colors, preferences, colors that we hate on ourselves, etc. Getting colors and beauty items picked out for you more often than not you're not going to use the majority of the items you get. You may like one item but you're going to get one or two uses out of the samples or rarely use the full size products you liked that you never would have purchased for yourself in the first place and if you would have it probably wouldn't have been that shade or type of whatever it is if we are being really honest with ourselves.
Not to mention you end up with a drawer or bag full of products that are literally crowding up your beauty routine every time you want to get ready. How many of you have to dig through a bunch of stuff you never use to get to your everyday and most loved makeup? Will you give this stuff away? No, because then it really becomes a reality that you wasted your money. So not only do you become wasteful and eventually throw away this product that's expired but your morning gets a bit more frustrating every month digging through all this crap you'll never use.
Why do we do this to ourselves then? For one we love to shop. Makeup has become annoyingly main stream. Now it's not only for the most passionate of us or the professionals it's for everyone who wants to spend fifty bucks on a palette to show off to their friends as a status symbol. Usually they don't really care about it. Don't know the huge difference in quality between brands, aren't a fan of the brands and their founders, etc. They just want to follow the trend.
It's fun to be trendy and cool, especially when you're in school but when you're doing this at the expense of your own wallet and sanity and individuality it becomes not worth it. Many of you girls follow these youtube stars because you want to be like them/ look like them. The reason they are so famous is because they are gorgeous on their own terms. They're confident in their experimenting with beauty and fashion and what makes them who they are. That's what makes you beautiful inside in out. If that's the case does following the crowd and wasting hundreds of dollars on products you barely or ever use really seem worth it?
Now let's talk about how this may make financial sense. Is this your only way of getting your makeup and beauty products? If it is then this absolutely makes sense. With the money you save on gas going back and forth to the mall, department store, etc. The time you save on shopping online and in stores, the money you're saving on not buying any other product, etc. This is a great idea then because you're a lot more likely to use these products and you're saving all that time and money.
Unfortunately we all know that's not the case. You're purchasing other beauty products as well and going to these places or shopping online where you can get these samples for free anyway.
Next, let's quickly talk about other subscription services that don't make sense. Clothes subscription services have gotten abundantly more popular lately as the popularity of the subscription box in general has grown. These are quite a bit more spendy than the beauty boxes usually starting at a minimum of $75-$150 for 3-5 pieces of clothing. You get to pick out maybe one item if you're lucky and the rest is picked out for you based on a one size fits all "style profile". This style profile uses an algorithm to figure out what you like. Unfortunately again, fashion and clothing is too personal for a one size fits all subscription. Let's say they get your style down perfectly and you're a size 8. They send you size 8 clothing in your favorite boho chic fashions. Body types are just as different as hair, skin and eye colors. I am heavier up top when someone else my same size may be flat chested. I have a smaller waist when someone else may have smaller hips and a bigger waist. These clothes are going to fit us all very differently despite us being the same size and liking the same style. Again, it's very unlikely you will like the majority of this stuff.
Also, considering clothes, even designer labels, always have things on sale and online shopping is so easy and you can check the brands measurements to assure the correct size and can return or exchange something you don't like there's no reason, or no good reason, to spend that kind of money on 3-5 items of clothing you don't get to pick out.
If you don't like a full size beauty product, clothing product, hair product, etc. You can return it and keep the samples you got. If you don't like the clothing or makeup or beauty product you got in your subscription box you're stuck with it.
Full disclosure here. I recently purchased boxycharm and lip monthly at an over half off discount because I got caught up in the trend and the excitement of waiting on my new makeup that I'm obsessed with. I haven't received them yet but will be cancelling the service even if I love everything in the box because chances are it won't continue that way and at the full price I refuse to spend that when I can spend that on makeup I really want and will love.
The only possible way that any of this would be financially smart for those of us who buy beauty products and clothes separate from these boxes is if you were going to sell or trade these full size items from the full size product boxes that you didn't like. That will also be time consuming so even then I'm not sure if it's worth it at a minimum of over $250 every year. These tend to be a much financially smart purchase than the sample boxes. So if you absolutely insist on a subscription service please subscribe to Glossybox, Boxycharm, Lip Monthly, or any of the cheaper full size product subscriptions. The sample subscriptions will never be worth your money and will never be a smart financial decision.
I also did a video discussing all of this along with a hot topic haul posted tonight on my YouTube channel at 8pm Louisville, KY time on December, 13th 2016 so check that out along with my huge Sephora Hauls and my most recent $300 Lush Cosmetics Haul.
The link to my YouTube is this:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6tWa9xZgk5Unq1UrgUCraA?app=desktop
For daily makeup looks, mini makeup tutorials, makeup swatches, fashion advice, hairstyles and all things girly follow me on Instagram at:
BUZZYBEE25
TWITTER SNOWBUNNYBETH90
FACEBOOK.COM/BUZZYBEE25
PINTEREST CALLOWAYELIZABETH
AND subscribe to me here for full makeup tutorial, pictorials, beauty reviews, beauty news and more.
You're all beautiful just the way you are and if you notice the most beautiful they are always the most confident, nice and accepting of themselves and others. No amount of makeup will make you look like that. Adopt those qualities and not only will you be happier but you will be beautiful to the world as well.
Jaclyn isn't beautiful and idolized because she follows the crowd. She's idolized because she is herself and does what makes her feel beautiful. Her confidence is what makes her gorgeous to you and every One else.
