GlossyBox Subscription Box Review – February 2015

I know this is very late. I signed up right before the February box sold out and with their slow shipping I just received the box yesterday. I got everything that Liz did except the mascara. In its place I got the Dr. Lili Fan Eye Serum from their limited edition Cosmoprof box. I don’t mind a repeat since this is my first box and it’s full sized. I’m looking forward to trying everything in this box.

Sadly I did not receive the Lip Tinties nor the mascara. So disappointed. Received No her lip gloss in Wind and Teadora nourishing beauty bar instead.

So I was originally pretty happy with my box. The only thing I didn’t get was the mascara, which was replaced with the crappy soap.

I read these comments and realized that Glossybox will not know that their customers are disappointed unless we contact them and let them know. So I sent a message letting them know that I was a bit disappointed. I explained that I understand some subscribers will receive different products, but receiving an item worth less than $4 in place of an item worth $22 feels really unfair. Their reply was a blatant lie claiming that the soap could be considered as valuable as the mascara. Their reply was so condescending that I decided to unsubscribe immediately.

I was actually happy with glossybox until I contacted their customer service. However, now I feel patronized and disrespected.

I am glad that Julep exists because I really enjoy beauty subscription services and I’m disappointed that GB made me feel compelled to cancel.

I try to avoid spoilers so I avoid blog/YouTube spoilers until I receive my box. I was shocked to learn that bloggers/YouTubers were receiving different items. I’m sure Glossybox wants to make sure they receive the best of the best for reviews.
Has anyone else noticed that bloggers and YouTubers receive their Glossyboxes WAY before everyday subscribers? That is really frustrating as well.
I did not receive the mascara and instead got the tiny soap which I am actually fine with (I don’t need any more mascara right now). I did wonder why I received a body wash and a soap in the same box as it seems a bit redundant. I also received the Julep glitter/confetti nail polish, Unwash hair conditioner, Apothic lip gloss, and Yogi bodywash in addition to the Teadora body bar. I received a product card that listed all the products I received.
I have had multiple issues with Glossybox in the past and their customer service is by far the worst I have experienced (they are nothing like Birchbox customer service.) I actually had to contact the Better Business Bureau to resolve my issue with them. I will never subscribe to Glossybox for more than a month to month subscription so I may cancel at any time.

More about the microbeads in the Scalisi Exfoliator and Cleanser:

In 2014, Illinois became the first state to pass a ban. New Jersey soon followed. The Indiana state house passed a ban in January. Lawmakers in Minnesota and Wisconsin are considering bans. The New York attorney general is pushing for a ban. Western states like Colorado and California are also considering bans.

At the federal level, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2014, but the bill has yet to be reintroduced in the new Congress.

Please be aware that the 3rd ingredient in the Scalisi cleanser & exfliator is “polyethylene” which is plastic. These are the microbeads which have been banned in several states as they are detrimental to marine / aquatic wildlife AS WELL AS HUMANS. Here’s an article from Time Magazine which explains why Illinois was the first state to ban them. http://time.com/2917462/why-illinois-banned-microbeads/

In another study out of California, mussels (and likely oysters) only rid themselves of microbeads after 48 days — DO YOU EAT MUSSELS OR OYSTERS AT YOUR FAVORITE FRENCH RESTAURANT OR BAR? Ick.

As TIME reported in May, other companies are already finding substitutes: consumer goods company Unilever (Dove, Ponds, etc) committed to making all of its products plastic-free by 2015. Big cosmetic companies like L’Oréal have also pulled away from microbeads.

Making me wonder if this was a dump of un-marketable cleanser.

Urgh… kinda done with Glossybox. I got a shipping notice 2/12, and on 2/26 I still don’t have my Feb box. Tracking shows it has been sitting in ‘pre shipment’ in PA for 2 weeks.
I emailed them twice w/ no response (except an auto response), so I posted on their FB wall. They replied back that I should email them. Some cool person called them out for that “customer service fail” so they invited me to PM them the details. Which I did.
Their answer is that my emails must not have gone through (lie– I got auto responses), and that they have no control over USPS not sending things out (lie– USPS doesn’t just leave things for 2 weeks… it’s their idiot carrier, newgistics or whatever), that I should understand shipping delays, and that nobody is getting packages because of snow (lie– in these 2 weeks I have received boxes from Kloverbox, PSMH, birchbox, Scentbird, Wantable, and more). They didn’t even try to take accountability. And I guess with this late shipment I’ll be getting the box everyone hates. Grrr. I shall not be re-upping after my 6 month sub is up.
And count me in with those who hate when bloggers get great versions which peons do not.

I finally got my box yesterday and lucked out, relatively speaking. I got the little soap instead of the mascara, but got everything else. The one thing I really wanted was the adorable little Tinties, so I’m pretty happy, all things considered.

The booby prize box with the broken blush comes to 45.37. Far under the minimum advertised value of $60 And way further less than the box the bloggers and most others got. worth $72. We are looking at nearly half the value!

The Juice Beauty is a .5 sample size. It sells for $45 for 2 oz on their website. So the value of this was $11.25 The possibly broken and fingerprinted Kryolan blush was also a sample size and sells for $25 for three and weights 7.5g.. So this 2.5 g sample was worth $8.7. The full sized nail polish actually sells for $3.75 on the first site I checked,

So, the bloggers and everyone on their good list got 3 items worth $50 plus the Rituals and Hair stuff.

Those on their booby prize list got 3 items worth $23 worth plus the rituals and hair stuff.

The Booby prize list folks got 2 less full sized items. How can this possibly be fair?

I just got my first Glossybox…and honestly, like many others here, I’m kind of underwhelmed and disappointed.

For one, I was looking forward to the Hartleigh polish, but instead got a generic bright pink shade. I also really wanted the lip butter because lip products are my favorite, but I don’t get anything at all for my lips.

No mascara for me, either. I got a pretty cute but damaged blush (has a chip in it) and a Green Apple Age Defy Moisturizer from Juice Beauty, which is pretty useless to me because I’m not really that into skincare.

I did get the same shower gel as Liz but again, that’s not something I’m really into. Last, the Unwash is interesting and I’ll try it, but the same type of thing hasn’t worked well for me in the past and I already have a really good sulfate-free shampoo and deep conditioner that I’m loving right now.

Here’s hoping next month’s box is better.

I finally just got my glossybox today. So glad it had all the items, and they did not substitute any of the items. Shower gel does not smell as good as I thought it would. Reminds me of a shaving cream. That’s okay, I’ll still use it. The lip butter is wonderful. The wait was worth it for me. I’m glad I resubbed again.

I emailed Glossybox about my concerns regarding my box: specifically, the great disparity in value and that disparity not appearing to be based on profile as claimed. Here is a very unsatisfactory (and seemingly contradictory) excerpt from their response:

Unfortunately, we are unable to guarantee that each customer will receive a specific box version of their choice as they are sent out randomly. For instance, one month you could be sent a box version 2 and the other month you could be sent a version 7. The beauty profile is taken in to account mostly for market research purposes and we reference from them to source latest and trendy beauty products.

They did not address my concerns about the value at all. Note that for all their claims about the different boxes pertaining to profile, this is not the case. Profile is only used for research/sourcing and the boxes are sent out randomly.

I don’t think so! If that were true, some of the bloggers would get the poorly valued boxes also and that is never the case!

Let’s hope they’re not going birchbox on us…where there’s not much uniform at all…..I don’t mind 1/2 variations but not 7-8 c’mon….makes spoilers pointless ….but I still <3 my glossybox

Got my first Glossybox today and was not happy to get the cheap soap instead of the mascara. The reason I finally signed up was the 3 month code deal and the spoilers posted on this site. I have been holding off on buying a new mascara because I thought this one was on the way. Not a good start to this sub for me.

My box arrived today. I got the replacement soap. This soap sells for $12 for 5.5 oz. on Amazon. Doing the math, that comes to a value of $3.72 for this 1.5 bar rather than the $5 purported by Glossybox. While I am not devastated to receive a soap vs. mascara, I am peeved that I received a $3.72 item vs. a $22 item.

I do feel they have purposely sent out a higher value in earlier boxes (to include bloggers) than those receiving later in the month. This is not fair to the rest of us who have no control as to what time of the month we are shipped our boxes. Prior to the January, I do not recall GlossyBox having different boxes. Am I mistaken?

I received the “classic” box on Valentine’s Day last weekend and complained about it so they said they’d send me the shower gel, lip butter and nail polish out since I didn’t get those items. But I did get the shower gel, anyway I got the replacement products today, so super fast shipping. I got the conditioner, lip butter and nail polish. Sad I still don’t get the mascara, but I’ll live lol. I hope next month they go back to the same box for everyone.

I received the little soap substitution, though everything else was the same. I was disappointed in the lower value of the item, but I feel hard-pressed to complain seeing as last month they accidentally shipped me three boxes and told me to keep them all. I loved last month’s box and wasn’t too crazy about this month’s box anyway, so this isn’t really a big deal to me. I’m pretty picky with mascaras, too, and don’t like exfoliates, so this probably was the best option for me. I totally understand the perspective of everyone who is angry about the substitution, but this one’s not that big of a deal for me.

Hello Ladies,
So I got my box yesterday and was disappointed as many of you were with receiving the alternate box with the blush, beauty juice and plain pink polish. I emailed on the website, twitter and facebook without response so I emailed [email protected] and they finally got back to me. I figured since many of you were wondering what was going on that I would share the response email that I received today.

“We have several versions of the GLOSSYBOX each month. They are mixed variations of the current month’s items, which are displayed via spoilers and eventually on the website. For example, if we have 8 items displayed for the month, each box will contain 5 of those items, not all 8, so everyone may receive a different variation.

If we run out of inventory, those who sign up later in the month (whether they are new customers or previous ones who resubscribed), will receive a version of the Classic Box for that month, which contains some current month items mixed with top rated previous items. This is stated in our terms and conditions, as well as in the FAQs. Unfortunately, this may affect those who cancel and then resubscribe, as they will be considered new subscribers in the system, sometimes resulting in receiving a repeat item. I hope this clarifies a little more!

Since you are an active subscriber, you should not have received one of the Classic versions. As a courtesy, we will ship you the three items listed in your request. Hopefully, this will help with the inconvenience of the mix-up.”

Anyways so luckily I have been an active subscriber so they will be sending out the as advertised products.
Good Luck Everyone with your customer service inquiries.

I just looked and realized I signed up for a 6 month subscription 🙁 Still have 4 more boxes to go. I’ve never heard of all the variations until last month there were two, then this month someone said there were 7, I got one of the crappy variations, though thankfully not the soap. But I emailed them and they said they’d send out the advertised items. But you can bet if I continue getting back up boxes, they’ll be hearing from me monthly. I can’t believe they’re going to start doing variations of the boxes, I like GB because the boxes are the same!

I thought this was one of the best-ever Glossyboxes! I got the cleanser/exfoliator instead of the mascara, but the rest was the same as Liz’s. I would have been bummed to get the little soap instead.

I subbed, canceled due to very long shipping times, subbed again because I liked the shower gel, yet will unsub again because I STILL have not gotten my box. Seemed have shipped 3 weeks after every one else got their box. I’m supposed to get it in the next few days.

as it does mention on their website that there are variations is this something that has recently changed? I must say that I never look at the fine print………LOL I got my GlobeIn box today and I’m thinking grrrr what kind of tagine is that…………only to go back and look and see that it clearly states a mini tagine made for holding spices.
I’m only on my 3rd Glossy Box and I’ve loved it so far. I’m not actually sure if it is the same as the one Liz got— I have to check into that
IF they did just recently change the variety of boxes that should have been conveyed to all subscribers ASAP

Glossybox must have changed their policies because in their FAQ they now have this under “General”:

“Once we receive payment, an order reservation for your box is put in with the warehouse. We have several variations of GLOSSYBOX each month. The version chosen is based on location, preferences and possible GWP options.”

There isn’t any place to put preferences for my account, so what the heck? Plus, when did they decide they were going to have different “versions” and why didn’t they let subscribers know?

I got Scalisi Skincare Cleanser and Exfoliator (3.4 oz) instead of the mascara. I’m cool with that. I have so many mascaras, I could open a new one every month for THREE YEARS. Literally. Everything else was the same. I’m glad I got the Julep polish because I really wanted that for some reason.

My box (one) is at my do’. According to tracking, anyway. I’m not home yet though; so I don’t know which one it is. (#1 or #2) But even if I get the same box, but then get a tiny-wee-little-bitty soap that looks more appropriate in say, a dollhouse?!?… I’m still not going to be happy. *Simply* because I have always liked that GB has had the same general box for everyone. No one gets insane value fluctuations. No “Blogger Boxes”. (Alleged or not) So if everyone had gotten a dollhouse soap that was useless in value, (Like in SS–the Erno Laszlo Black Sea mud soap bar. Literally domino-sized.) I would be okay with that. But there’s no reason for there to suddenly be a crapshoot of why some people get the advertised box. & especially why some get 25$ products and some get five dollar ones?? This is just adding further fuel and fanning my frustration fire. I’m likely to throw my box across the room if I get the B^^B. Hopefully they don’t want the contents back undamaged!! 😀 Will update when I get home tonight 🙂 Until then I will have to wait&see… Dun Dun Dun.