Review: My first GlamGuru box

I've been wanting to try beauty boxes for quite some time now, and I even ordered one (a Beautylishious one, that I wrote about here) some time ago, but my first beauty box turned out to be a really bad experience, because it was never sent to me, even though the seller of the Beautylishious box claims to have sent me several, but I never got any of them, and none of my other orders ever get lost (and I order A LOT of stuff online, but of course the Beautylishious owner can't know that...), so I simply do not believe that they were event sent! I did have to pay for the boxes that never arrived, though, and the communication with the seller of the Beautylishious boxes was really bad as well. So I would really not recommend trying these beauty boxes out, seems like a scam to me!

Still, I decided to give beauty boxes another try, and ordered one from GlamGuru, a company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, where I live as well. I figured THEY couldn't say stuff got lost in the mail, since I would actually be able to pick the box up myself, after all. But this company actually surprised me by delivering the box to my house, for free! How nice is that? So I was thrilled with this beauty box company before I had even seen the box, basically.

But the box itself was also rather impressive when I saw it. Well, maybe not the outer box, it looks like this (the scratches on the side are my fault!):

And the inner box is really nice, a chic black one, that I will be keeping for something else for sure:

I also love all the pink paper the products are wrapped in:

And as for the products, the variety is really nice, there's a little bit of everything in this box. I got:

- Some Facial Vitamin Capsules with Black Caviar, by Beyond Professional. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? (and judging by the price if you want to buy a full pack, it actually is, too!) But these capsules are supposed to be used by women over the age of 40, it says, so I am not sure how suitable they are for me... Still, I'm going to try them for sure! Well, at least one of them...

- A tester sized Kava Kava 60 Second Mask for Dry/Damaged Hair. I actually have a full sized version of this hair mask already (I reviewed it here), but the mask is really great, so I don't mind getting more of this stuff at all!

- A Pupa Milano Lip Perfection Natural Shine Gloss, in a shade that doesn't seem to be great for me, at least at first glance, but Pupa really makes great stuff (I've tried one of their primers for instance, read about it here), so I will definitely give this a try anyway!

- A Barbara Hofmann brush. I believe it is a eye shadow brush? Kind of weird to add that to a beauty box, I think, but good makeup brushes are always good to have, so I can't complain about that...

- A small bottle of Payot toner with wild rose hip. Payot is a brand I haven't tried yet, so I am happy to give them a try, and it actually doesn't bother me at all that the bottle is small, since I am not very big on toner anyway, so this is just a product that will be fun to try, not much else, for me.

- A Payot face cream. Will go well with the toner, I suppose. So I guess I will be using them together. Also tester sized.

- A Sothys Paris (another new brand for me!) hydrating face cream, tester sized. But should also be nice to try. I tend not to buy new face creams that often, due to having problematic skin, so getting them in a beauty box is a great way for me to be forced to try new face creams, hehe!

- A small bottle of Uniq One All in One Hair treatment. I've actually heard about this brand before, and wanted to try it, so it's really great to get a sample of this! Especially considering that reviews that I found online for this specific product were really good, so this seems to be an excellent product too!

- A Kaiser nail file, by far the worst product in the box. I don't know about you guys, but I already have way too many nail files, and seem to get more of them whenever I have a manicure or pedicure (which is quite often, ahem!), so I really could have done without this. So if I could give GlamGuru some advice for the future, it would definitely be to leave nail files out of the boxes in the future!

But other than the nail file, I was really happy with my GlamGuru box, and I will definitely be getting the next one too! I haven't tried the products yet, as I only got my box yesterday, but I will be reviewing all the ones worth reviewing separately in separate posts, in case anyone is interested in the products I got. And if you would like to get a GlamGuru box, too, they do ship internationally, and you can get a box here.

My first beauty box purchase: Beautylishious

I've been reading about beauty boxes for ages now, and I have always been kind of tempted to try one of these subscriptions. But a lot of the companies that offer monthly beauty boxes sadly do not ship to where I live, so my options were kind of limited. But now I've managed to find some beauty boxes that ship worldwide, so of course I should try some of them, just for the experience.

The first monthly beauty box I ordered was ironically not a box though, but a beauty bag, from Beautylishious. I should be getting it in January sometime and I am looking forward to it a lot. I need to form my own opinions on these monthly beauty boxes, because I am still not quite sure how I feel about them. On one hand, I do like trying new beauty products, of course, and the element of surprise with them appeals to me, but for the same price that you pay for these monthly beauty boxes, you could get at least one full priced beauty product that you choose yourself, and know that you like, so I am not sure they are worth it. Because what if you get a bunch of stuff that don't suit your coloring (talking make up here) or skin type?

But still, beauty samples are always fun, so the idea of having these sample beauty boxes is great if you ask me. I am just not sure if a beauty box monthly is for me.
This is why starting with Beautylishious was actually a good idea for me, you don't have to sign up for a subscription right away, but just order one box. And I guess if you like it, you order one - or several - more.

So let's see how the Beautylishious beauty box turns out. The brands listed on the website seem great at least (the list includes one of my absolute favorite brands: Soap and Glory, for instance!).
You have:
Murad
St. Ives
Crabtree & Evelyn
and The Body Shop, in it for instance.

And ordering a bag was simple as well.

I will be ordering some more beauty boxes further on, since I want to try to figure out what the best monthly beauty box available worldwide would be, so if you live outside the US/UK/Canada (the countries that seem to have the most monthly beauty boxes to choose from), stay tuned!