Beauty Box 5 Review – February 2015
Beauty Box 5 is a monthly beauty and makeup subscription box. It’s also one of the cheapest beauty subscription boxes – only $8.25 a month with an annual subscription. They tend to feature drugstore brands, and usually the product sizes are deluxe or sample size. (Sometimes they still send out the dreaded foil packets though).
My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).
The Subscription Box: Beauty Box 5
The Cost: $12 a month (or $10 a month with a 3-month subscription; $8.25 a month with annual subscription)
The Products: 4-5 full size and sample size beauty products.
Ships to: US and Canada
Check out all of our Beauty Box 5 Reviews and the Beauty and Makeup Subscription Box Directory!
The Subscription Box: Beauty Box 5
The Cost: $12 a month (or $10 a month with a 3-month subscription; $8.25 a month with annual subscription)
The Products: 4-5 full size and sample size beauty products.
Ships to: US and Canada
Check out all of our Beauty Box 5 Reviews and the Beauty and Makeup Subscription Box Directory!
Avon Big Color Eye Pencil in Natural Vibe – Value $3.50
Marsk Mineral Eyeshadow in Vanilla Frosting – FULL SIZE! Value $22.50
I love the shade of this eye pencil – it is a perfect champagne color and provides a subtle highlight. Unfortunately when I looked it up to get a link, I discovered that Avon no longer makes this product. Given the mascara issue with last month’s box, I’m concerned that Beauty Box 5 is sending out old/discontinued makeup. This eye pencil seems fine to me, but it is just something to keep in mind if you are considering subscribing.
I’ve sampled the Marsk brand thanks to other subscription boxes, and I really like their makeup, and the fact that they use all natural ingredients. I’m all stocked up on highlighting eye shadows at the moment, but this will be my backup!
Revlon Colorstay Polish in Stormy Night – FULL SIZE! Value $3.79
Absolute Love Bubble Gum Lip Balm – FULL SIZE! Value $3
I have a few Revlon Colorstay nail polishes from Total Beauty Collections, and I like the formula, so this nail polish will get used (I love the cocoa grey color).
This lip balm is semi-glossy, and gives sheer color (thank goodness because that is a bright pink).
GlamGlow Youth-Mud Tinglexfoliate Treatment – 5 ml Value $6.50
I really like GlamGlow – it is one of the best masks I’ve ever used and I highly recommend it. This seems to be an old sample though. The ingredients listed on the back of the sample include five different parabens, but the current formula is paraben-free. The sample has a lot number on it, so I emailed GlamGlow to see if they could let me know if there is an expiration on the sample.
This box also included a $20 off coupon code to YourMinerals.com.
Verdict: I hope I’m not being too harsh on BeautyBox 5, but I’m having some trust issues with the sourcing of their products. Those issues aside, I think this is one of their better boxes in months. The value is great (about $40) and I’m happy with the sizes of the products as well.
What do you think of the February Beauty Box 5?
Written by Liz Cadman
Wish i had read these before signing up. I signed up on march 2nd with the code to get the prior month free. Well, i got a box today…but it was not february 2015 & march 2015 like i was expecting….it was december 2014. Ummm….??? I emailed customer service, but at this point i am not sure it is reasonable to expect a satisfactory response (sending me feb and mar)
The same thing happened to me as well, and haven’t heard back from them, let me know if you do!
i used the $20 gift card for yourminerals – and their blush is A-MAZ-ZING! i normally use tarte or nars, but this may be my new fave. i ordered 3 and used the coupon code 3 times 🙂 it ended up being about 7-11$ per blush (nars and tarte are $26-$30)
Liz, did you ever hear back from BB5 regarding the expiry date of the GlamGlow sample? I’m trying to find out when the product was reformulated to see how old it is?
So disappointing – I was so excited to try it!
Renee C.
I reached out to Glam Glow directly but never hear back. 🙁
Cancelled.
Like one of the other reviewers I don’t mind getting older or discontinued stuff. Most of my makeup is 4 or 5 years old except for mascara. For the $8.25 cost I don’t expect to be wowed by the content. but there are always 2-3 items I like or will use in every box. I still consider that a win for the cost. Plus I have 3 daughters age 31, 27, and 20 and anything I don’t use usually one of them will.
This month I got the strawberry balm, Marsk vanilla shadow, Avon eye pencil ( which works for me as a primer), a foil pack of body wash (I save these for traveling) and I will use all the items. The only item I didn’t care for is the Revlon nail polish. I got a terrible color called Spanish Moss. It’s a fugly putty green color that looks more like mold than moss.
But I’m totally happy with this box as I will use 4 of 5 items.
Do they still make Revlon colorstay nail polish? I still see it in stores sometimes but for some reason I thought it was discontinued last year. Maybe they just reduced the size of the color selection.
I did not have a problem cancelling my sub from auto renewing but I did have less than great experience with BB5. The story is below if interested.
I cancelled bb5 last year when my year was up. The reason, I cancelled was not even due the lackluster monthly boxes but when they had the luxury makeup box for like 39.99 plus 5 shipping. It had a Elizabeth arden quad, bobby brown lipstick and some other things in it. Well when mine arrived, I was missing two of the items…the lipliner and the eyeliner and my lipstick was broken. I contacted them and they said that there was nothing they could do because they were out of the boxes and only had so many with no extra items for mishaps but that they would check with the shipper. The responded that the shipper found the two items and realized they were left out of a box but they would reship them and I could pick out a single sample from three things they gave me to choose from valued from $1-$4 that we had received in previous boxes. I complained about the value difference but took the higher valued sample since they said it was my only option. Well a week later I got an email that they reposted the box for sale…not only that but for a cheaper price of 29.99 and free ship or may have been cheaper than that. I contacted them immediately bc they told me they would not get more product and could not replace an item…so how could you have more to sell? I was told that there was nothing they could do. I told them they were being shady basically by offering me a cheap filler sample for a full sized bobby brown lipstick that I could not use and that it was an insult to be constantly lied to. I told them they would be losing me as a customer that day and asked if I could cancel my monthly sub. The lady said I could stop the auto renew but that was it and I had one or two months left. So I cancelled and haven’t looked back. I have been tempted by codes in the past but I refuse to give them my hard earned money when they clearly did not respect me as a customer.
BB5 is kind of a “meh” subscription. I tend to swap most of what I receive in them. The Lilee box, on the other hand, has actually been worth the money spent on it. I really liked this month’s box and the packaging is very nice. (A peachy-pink and black box sealed with a black ribbon and large black wax seal!)
I actually cancelled BB5 like 3 years ago for this very reason – I would go to write up a blog post on my box, only to find that it was a bunch of discontinued or expired items. They are definitely not the only company who did this (Social Bliss, the Look Bag, and Ipsy in the MyGlam days come to mind) but I am surprised that they are still in business 3 years later with these practices. Keep being diligent, Liz, people have the right to know.
I don’t really care about old products, personally. I have make up older then my cousin, lol. This box is probably the best one I’ve gotten, except the December box. I got the polish in velvet rope, the balm in strawberry, the same pencil, the same shadow pot, and an exfoliating bath scrub instead of the glamglow. The only pass is that pencil. For me. It’s a bland color, and there is zero shimmer or anything. Just a flat beige eye shadow? N. Thanks.
So, unrelated sort of… But they auto-renew your subscription if you pre-pay?? I did for a year as a gift to my sister and got myself like 6 months. Ended up being 3 months free with some promo combo. But I need to seriously be counting down the boxes one-by-freaking-one if they are going to auto-renew??? I would’ve canceled long ago if it wasn’t prepaid.
You should be able to cancel now and still receive the remainder of the boxs that you pre-paid for, at least other sub. svcs. work this way….. If you are unsure, reach out to their customer svc. 🙂
Email customer service now and let them know that you do not want to auto renew to be sure they don’t do it. I wasn’t sure exactly when my 1 year ended so I emailed them a few months before and they made sure I was not charged. 🙂
Yes they will auto renew your pre-paid subscription! I did not realize this either until I called with a complaint… somehow through the course of the convo, cause I am real chatty, I realized she had said something about my auto renew. I said, oh you auto renew pre-paid subscriptions? She said yes but yours is not until February. I cancelled while I was on the phone with them. So, call…. call now! They will still send you the remainder of your boxes.
I purchased myself a one year sub and put it as a gift to myself one year ago. In December I got an email that they couldn’t process my payment and tried to charge my credit card and it failed (the number was changed sometime during the year), however I had never signed up again. I ignored it knowing it would not go through and I really didn’t want to get this box anymore, I liked it at first but it has been downhill for me over the last few months. Then I started getting emails every week saying my account was “delinquent” which quickly went to daily emails. I had previously chosen to unsubscribe from their emails as I knew I would not resub but kept getting them constantly. I did finally take the time to contact them and tell them I had no interest in keeping this and that it was a gift. I did finally get them to stop emailing but long story short , yes it is definitely possible that they try to renew a gift sub.
While it is disappointing that this Avon pencil is a discontinued item I have to comment on the other end of the spectrum regarding their customer service. I canceled last year and had no trouble doing so. I got a reply and my subscription was canceled in two days. I decided to resubscribe at the beginning of this year and for some reason did not receive the January box. I used the “chat” feature on their site because email repossession said they were taking 4 days due to high volume. The girl I talked to was super nice. She was really apologetic, wasn’t sure why my box hadn’t shipped but ordered me one herself right away and even told me for my trouble I could pick my “version” of that month’s box. She was able to pick either the Hard Candy or Coastal Scents eyeshadow for me. I thought their customer service was great but it probably depends on who you get.
I didn’t have any trouble canceling, either.
The one thing that kind of bothered me (I quit before the box with the empty container and floss picks) was that they didn’t have an “account” area online that I could access. There are plenty of things a person could do on his/her own in an account area (track shipping, change payment info., cancel, change shipping address, etc.). They’d save a lot of customer service time if they’d fix that and didn’t have to deal with every issue by e-mail.
I would be very wary of the authenticity/safety of the products BB5 is sending. They’ve been caught several times sending not just discontinued but outright expired (and I mean YEARS expired) products. They’re absolutely sourcing from third party resellers (when they aren’t passing off freebies/foils as legit “deluxe” samples). I’m trying to find the blog post where they got caught about a year ago, but it was definitely a product from a Chinese reseller on eBay. Someone took the time to do the background investigation, comparing eBay resellers and their products sold against the lot numbers sent in the BB5 box, cross referenced with the actual manufacturer’s info, and they were a clear match. This is supposed to be a reputable company but they appear to be nothing more than a subsidiary using the front of a bigger name company as cover. If they engage in such shady practices, it’s understandable when sub box/beauty product addicts are leery of any new beauty sub that sends out items that seem too good to be true for the price. Not to say other new subs do that across the board but it’s a fairly common way for a startup to both send higher end items while maintaining a good profit margin and not require corporate partnership or sponsorship. Until they get caught. Sometimes they redeem themselves, like Boxy Charm did over a year ago (and they’ve come a million miles since they started in terms of product sourcing authenticity and trustworthiness in general). More often than not those who try this shortcut just quietly fold, taking long term/prepaid subscribers’ money with them never to be seen again.
I had a TON of problems during my 6 months with BB5 last year, from receiving damaged and expired products and items being missing entirely, to them double and even triple charging and sending nothing at all. I once received a 4 year old nail polish that was 100% dried solid. The things they sent last year didn’t even reach the heavily discounted break even mark on multiple occasions. You should never feel like you got ripped off when you only paid $8 but it happened over and over to me.
When they launched their “exclusive/deluxe” sub I had to wonder if it meant they’d send full size expired/counterfeit products instead of just sample sizes. One final word of warning: don’t bother with their LE boxes. If you’re lucky enough to actually receive what you order (took me 2 months the last time in July), and/or not get 2-3 boxes all at once when you ordered only 1 (all charged separately on consecutive days), it will take a month+ to get a refund. Be prepared to be blamed by their very unprofessional/immature CS and still have to go to your credit card to initiate a chargeback. It was that bad. I felt like I was trying to break up with a psychotic teenage stalker.
I’m not trying to be a complete downer but when you’ve had multiple bad experiences with the same company that continues to peddle potentially dangerous products at worst and useless junk at best, I felt it best to share my bad experiences so others could make an informed decision. Had I only had one or even two issues, I could have let it go. But it was like an avalanche of awful being a BB5 subscriber.
Wow, I was reconsidering signing up for Lilee after seeing their February box but I think I’ll just pass after reading this post. Thanks for the info.
I’m a subscriber to both BB5 and Lilee. I have to admit that I’ve been disappointed with BB5 lately, and I contacted them to cancel my subscription at the end of my pre-paid year (hopefully I won’t run into any issues with being charged again). However, I signed up for Lilee before the disappointment in BB5 began, and so far I have been very pleased. I received a ton of great new to me stuff in the first box, and the second box had a lot of great stuff I’ve tried via other boxes and loved, as well as some new to me items. Overall, I’m far more satisfied with Lilee than I ever was with BB5. I think, as of right now, it was worth it for me to go out on a limb and try a new box from an old disappointment.
This has nothing to do with the box, but I don’t know how to get in touch with anyone re: swaps. I have discovered 2 different profiles that appear to be the same person, and they both have negative feedback – both have feedback stating that they haven’t shipped items they swapped for in the last few weeks. How do I report it, or do I report it? Not trying to be a tattletale, but obviously this person is acting shady and should be looked into.
Can you send me an email with the details? (liz @ mysubscriptionaddiction . com) Thanks!
Will do! Thanks!
Liz, I’m not sure if this is an issue or even accurate at this point, but I received an Absolute Lip Balm a while back from Ipsy and was turned off by the inclusion of Aspartame in the ingredients list. I know you prefer natural products, so I thought I’d offer a heads up!
Overall, this would be the best BB5 I’ve seen, but the questionable sources turn me off of the sub. Thanks for another great review!
Aspartame is a leading cause of flaring in Autoimmune disorders. Which since I have, so this is unfortunately good to know..? O,O I didn’t even know that was used in cosmetics… But sweetener/flavor etc… Egh, that’s frustrating. I know this was directed at Liz, but thank you for the heads-up 🙂
It’s in some toothpastes, too. Probably in lip balms/toothpastes/etc. because there are some flavor components that would not be palatable without some kind of sweetener. (And real sugar would cause tooth decay and/or problems for diabetics.)
Though I don’t have a problem with it. I buy it in little packets to put in my cocoa. I prefer the taste to that of stevia or saccharin.
Glad you reviewed this box, I was going to resub because I like the color of the packaging when i saw the packaging spoiler, idiotic I know, I just thought the box would end up being fantastic. I was wrong. Their prices are low for full sized products. I don’t like the idea of getting any discontinued item in any box. I am then more happy to pay extra $’s for fresh products, products I can easily purchase more of. BB5 at one time seemed so much better. Seems like they need a fresh start with better, fresher items even if it meant increasing the monthly box to $15
I sell avon and that eye crayon has been discontinued for several months.
I didn’t get the Glam Glow either, I got a foil packet of body wash, and I got red velvet color for my nail polish, it’s way too dark for me.
I hate to “pile on”, but it took me roughly 3 months to completely cancel this subscription. After sending countless emails, with an occasional response that they never received my request, I finally got an answer that my box had been cancelled. I still was charged the next two months, and received boxes I obviously didn’t want. So, buyer beware it’s really not easy to cancel!
I didn’t even get the GlamGlow sample, though I had the same card showing I should have received it. I got a Freeman body wash packet instead. I am super disappointed. Too bad this is only month 3 of my year subscription.
That’s a nicer box, but old items aren’t good. Thank god I canceled my sub last November, I still don’t miss them at all!