Beauty Army Review – Beauty Subscription Box – August 2013
Beauty Army is a monthly beauty and makeup subscription that’s a little different than Birchbox, Ipsy, etc. Instead of getting a box of beauty samples the subscription company selects for you, Beauty Army gives you a showroom to pick your samples from. This is one of the few beauty subscription boxes I wasn’t subscribed to – so I thought it was time to sign up!
The Box: Beauty Army
The Cost: $12 a month
The Products: 6 samples you select from your showroom each month. (Good news – you can skip any month if you aren’t interested in the samples).
Ships to: US
Nelson Beverly Hills Argan Oil 7 Non-Foaming Shampoo 1 oz – Value $2.50
Marula Facial Oil – 1 ml Value $1.50
I was thinking of buying the Nelson Beverly Hills hair care collection from Total Beauty Collections – but I wanted to try it first – this sample worked out perfectly!
Anywear Hair Ties – Value $2.50
Color Smash Hair Shadow in Gold Rush – Sample Value $5
I will always take more hair ties! I couldn’t pass up that sample. Also, I totally messed up and didn’t read when selecting this Color Smash sample – I thought I was going to be getting eye shadow – not hair shadow! Apparently you just smash the color against your hair and seal it with hair spray. (Wash it out to remove). I have yet to experiment with hair chalk, but maybe this shimmery gold is the right color for me to try!
Adonia Bronzing Organic Self-Tanner Serum – 3 applications Value $2.50
Yes to Tomatoes Clear Skin Daily Pore Scrub – 3 ml Value $.25
If I had a choice, I almost never would pick foil packets for samples, but that was all that was left for me to pick from, so I decided to go with these two. I love the Yes To Carrots brand, so this Daily Pore Scrub will be handy for travel. (I also highly recommend their grapefruit face scrub).
Verdict: I paid $12 for this box and it has a value of about $14.50 – not bad, but I do wish they had more deluxe sized samples to pick from. Do you subscribe to Beauty Army? Any tips for getting good samples to show up in your selection window?
Almost just got a box, but the most exciting thing on the page was the $25 giftcard to Shoptiques!! The samples were just lame–I wanted one item and most of the rest were foil packets. But for a Shoptiques card….. it was tempting!! I am so glad I read comments from other non-recipients.
Are you signing back up to beauty army? I heard they have improved their samples.
I ordered on 4/7 and was charged on 4/8 and have yet to receive a box. I’ve sent 3 emails, a Facebook message, and left a voicemail on an answering service with NO response from them in the last 9 days. Terrible service and I have now cancelled.
I also sent beauty army multiple emails and never got a response. I bought a voucher through rue la la so that didn’t help. I contacted rue la la half a dozen times or more as well. Rue la la said back in October that it was a final sale and no returns (they hadn’t sent me the voucher to redeem for over a week and I was frustrated). Once I got the voucher-way after the 2-3 days they claimed they would send it in- I redeemed it on the beauty army website. I picked out my samples and eventually got a processing order notification on my account. I never got Octobers box (I bought this sub the end of sept). I never got Novembers box. I finally complained to my credit card company-sent them all my messages to beauty army and rue la la. They had to investigate but eventually issued me a refund. Rue la la finally said they would refund my money after 2+ months of back and forth emails and no product! Fortunately for me I have a good credit card company and they already did the refund.
Beauty army really sucks. I’d stay FAR FAR away. They have zero customer service and I have the emails to prove that. I was also very disappointed with rue la la. When I purchased the beauty army voucher I was supposed to have it in 2-3 days which kept getting extended because they had “issues” getting the vouchers which now makes total sense because beauty army is a very non-responsive company! Then rue la la wouldn’t refund me the amount of money I paid-I understand that products are final sale but what happens if you never get the product?
A horrible experience all around.
I signed up for a 6 month subscription and I got the 1st three ok then they stopped coming. No email tracking. Nothing. I tried and tried and tried to contact customer service via email several times. When they didn’t reply I re-sent the emails every day for 2 weeks. Nothing. No answer. No products. I reported them to the better business bureau. It’s a rip off DON’T DO IT. Unless you like throwing money away- in that case- just send it to me 😉
I ordered this a LONG time ago and only got one box. I canceled via email and never got a response but then I never got another box either. Had my credit card take care of removing the yearly charge after fighting with Rue La La about it.
And then this week, MONTHS after I canceled I suddenly get a box out of nowhere? Seriously confused and am not going to pay for this crap again. They seriously need to get their act together. Never dealt with such a disorganized company!!!
I had Beauty Army about a year ago. I actually liked it, I stopped because they had the same samples over and over. As I can tell from your box they still have the same samples. I did win a monthly prize once, that’s the first time I ever won anything from a subscription box.
I ordered a Beauty Army 3-month gift subscription back in October 2014. It’s now mid January and they still have never sent my girlfriend a gift notification email and she has never received anything! I’ve attempted contacting the company and get nothing but voicemail and they do not respond to my emails! Something’s not right! Hoping they didn’t simply take my money and run!
I have read good reviews about this product so I wanted to give it a try. So many issues with them. First box they shipped it out and my box was lost, second they have taken forever to help me out with a resolution. they said they were going to reship the item and turns out I still havnt received the box. Horrible!
I was subbed to Beauty Army for several months earlier in the year, and then began skipping because after the first 3 boxes, the same samples appeared every month. I emailed them about it and they kept making empty promises that they would update it. They never did. Horrible selection, atrocious customer service, and a general bad attitude make this a company to avoid.
I’ve been skipping a lot of months of Beauty Army because I can’t get any decent-sized/types of samples for the price I pay. Shouldn’t “samples” be free? Other subscription boxes give you more than just samples.
The first month is good and then they go downhill from there. For five months in a row I got the exact same samples I had passed on the months prior. After skipping month after month- I just canceled. Not to mention there so called customer service is horrible. I tried to work with them to fix my selection window- but nothing changed. I bought three month gift memberships for my Mom and sister when I first joined, but my Mom didn’t even finish hers. It was horrible.
Hi Liz,
Beauty Army was my very first sub 🙂 This month had some pretty poor choices. This really was the worst month I’ve seen. So the good news, you’ve seen the worst out of the gate 🙂 It is usually better! Last month I got 2 full size lip glosses & a full size gel liner. The month before a huge full size dry shampoo & a not your mothers volume spray. A couple tricks; never go with the first 9 they show you. Play around. They encourage it. I usually take the profile then refresh the page a few times if nothing catches my eye I retake the profile. They have no problem with you changing even your age range. I’ve gotten some of my best samples picking choices that I wouldn’t think of. Like this month, I made wellness a choice and have a very good sample size all natural mouthwash & lozenges coming. If you pick body you can often get $25 I-train gift certificates. Of course I always choose makeup & hair but there just wasn’t any makeup this month. I tried the hair shadow last month in hot pink & my “girls” and I all wore it out to a charity crab feed lol a bunch of 40ish women with pink stripes! It was fun!
Oh! One more tip! If you keep getting foils figure out which choice is causing them to pop up. I had exfoliators picked but kept getting an exfoliating foil sample. I unchecked that and it went away.
I hope some of that helped! I hope next month you have fantabulous choices!!
I was only able to get a full sized sample (dry shampoo) in the first box and second box (lip gloss). Everything else offered was small foil packet samples. Even retaking the preferences quiz did not yield any better samples, so I ended up cancelling. Ipsy and the Blush Mystery Box were much better values for the money spent.
I have been subscribed to Beauty Army for almost a year now. I think I have skipped 3 or 4 months during that time. You can change your profile during the sample selection window as many times as you want. I recommend not worrying too much about whether your profile actually matches your idea of an ideal profile for if the company were selecting for you and just try out different combos. For example, when I put my age range younger, the hair ties you picked appeared, but if I adjusted my age range older, they became all black hair ties. Also, you can choose the types of products you want to see in your profile, so change that around. I will usually change my profile about 10 times before deciding if I want to skip that month. I have gotten whole boxes of all deluxe-sized products by being patient with the process of changing my profile. Sometimes, they even throw in an extra sample for everyone.
I wouldn’t bother subscribing to this. I have been SO disappointed in it. My first box was great. Then the second month came along and the only samples available were the ones I passed on the month before. Then the 3rd month was one extra ‘deluxe’ sample plus all the stuff I passed on. So on and so forth. The extra deluxe samples I have gotten were gel nail polish (which I can’t use), ‘addiction’ lip gloss (disgusting low quality), and an empty plastic bottle. Plus dozens of foil packets. Most of my samples I get are ones I already have from the month before on top of that! I would cancel but I signed on for a year 🙁
I have been debating about joining. I created a profile and picked my samples but, haven’t actually entered my credit card info. I’m still uncertain…if they offered deluxe sample I would be sold but, they way I’m thinking is for $9 more I could be getting GlossyBox…
After my first month (which was GREAT) I was unable to score a single good sample! I occasionally had a lip gloss pop up, but then my other 5 options would all be foil packets. I kept trying to change the profile but after a few months I just cancelled this one so I wouldn’t forget to skip and be disappointed with my box. I just wasn’t getting my money’s worth!
Will you let us know what you think of the hair smash if/once you try it? I’m so curious!
I don’t subscribe but occasionally they send out emails about deluxe or full sized products and tips on how to get them in your showroom .
If you hit refresh the showroom will give you some variation. I haven’t actually subscribed yet, but have been looking at it for awhile!