Wantable Makeup Subscription Box Review – May 2015

I’m surprised to hear that about Eddie Funkhouser too. Maybe it’s the one lacking product in the line.

I agree, and I think there’s a difference, too, between a subscription box blog and a beauty blog. Yes, there are reviews of beauty boxes on this site. But there are also reviews of geek/gamer boxes, food boxes, craft boxes, clothing boxes, kids’ boxes, book boxes, etc.

I also like seeing what’s *in* boxes. I even read reviews for boxes I would never subscribe to! And different beauty products are going to work in different ways for different people. I have color-treated hair and I totally use products with sulfates. Liz doesn’t. Not a big deal for me. I can still try the product for myself and see what I think. That’s sort of the point — a subscription box lets you try something without committing to a full-price purchase.

If I want to know whether to buy Naked 3 (hint: I won’t spend $50+ on an eyeshadow palette when I have like 20 other eyeshadow palettes), I can find a beauty blog. The swatches are nice, as is the response to reader suggestions, but I’d still read MSA without all that.

Thanks for the tip on swatching. We’ll see if I have the confidence to do outfit photos in the future! 🙂

I have often wondered what in the heck the folks who do subscription box reviews do with their ten thousand eye liners, mascaras, lip glosses, (and on and on and on). I figured that they must be doing *something* with them, like trading them, because who could possibly use ten mascaras a month? And I want them to continue to get ten mascaras a month so I can see what are in all the various boxes. Why waste an entire eye pencil just so you can see a swatch that doesn’t tell you how it’ll look on your skin anyway?

This comment is so incredibly juvenile it makes me wonder whether it didn’t come from one of the LLB folks who are mad that their box won’t be featured on here anymore.

LOL this makes me think of liz as pinky from pinky and the brain, scheming to TAKE OVER THE. .. mascara samples?
Skepticism is healthy, but it should be mixed in with some common sense: if Liz’s only motivation was “free boxes”, she could find a way to get them that didn’t involve a full-time job operating a site, online community and writing fake reviews. The much more plausible explanation is that she actually enjoys providing the information to the subscription community.
NOW ABOUT THOSE CHEM TRAILS….

Completely agree with the other responses to this comment. How many hours are in a day? Have you ever considered how much time and effort Liz already puts in to make MSA so awesome?!

I have and I can’t even begin to imagine. I know I just really appreciate everything she does already and I don’t personally want to pressure her to do any more even if it might be physically possible in someone else’s mind.

I would hope Liz feels that she can run this site how she wants and not feel the pressure to make everyone happy when that isn’t possible.

Requests/suggestions from readers are nice to consider but demands/accusations based on solely on a “guess” are over the line.

Also, do you honestly think anyone would put together something like MSA just to get free boxes? Come on.

Wow Debbie! Well, Liz might as well post pictures of herself eating snacks from Graze, reading books from Indiespensable, lighting and smelling the candle from last month’s PopSugar box too! Geez!
I’ve never seen MSA as a beauty or fashion blog and don’t expect Liz to swatch or show how the products/clothes look on her. Plus, some people just don’t feel comfortable posting photos and videos of themselves for the whole world to critique and ridicule. If she feels like doing it, great, but I don’t expect it of her. I see MSA purely as a subscription box blog that informs others interested in subscription boxes about what boxes are on the market, their contents, retail value, and Liz includes general impressions of those boxes from her perspective. Liz is a box subscriber same as us. She doesn’t have to use a product just because people are going to be reading her “un-boxing” post, especially if she knows it’s something that isn’t going to work for her and would like to swap or gift it instead (just like the rest of us like to do sometimes). No one wants to receive a used product in a swap or as a gift!

Obnoxious much? It’s easy to be brave behind a computer when inventing and posting baseless allegations on someone else’s blog. Bottom line, this isn’t Sephora or even a service created for your product testing and review convenience; you don’t pay for the information here so if you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you feel so strongly about MSA and how business may or may not be conducted (as if you could possibly know), you should just avoid it completely. Better yet, go back to your own less than successful, competing blog and continue wallowing in petty jealously from a distance. For what it’s worth, this bitchy persona rears its ugly head every so often here and makes nearly identical allegations each time. Truly the epitome of a cyber bullying troll, attention seeking for funsies.

Hi Debbie,

I just started out swatching products (thanks to the suggestions from a few MSA readers), so I’m still getting the hang of it and how to make it most useful in a review.

For all boxes, I take pictures first, then start to go through the products and try them out when I’m writing the review later. In this case when I was taking pictures, I swatched the items that were easy to swatch without a brush/applicator since I didn’t have one on me when I was taking pictures, so that’s why no blush/bronzer swatches. I did try all 4 items in the process of writing a review though. (Now I know to keep brushes for swatching with my camera!)

As for the few hours – I think I had this box for a few days before getting the review up. Hope that helps explain why only two items were swatched in the picture.

LEAVE LIZ ALONE!!! (Said in the overly dramatic and beyond creepy since I dont know her at all voice)

You seem bored.

Wow. Just so not cool.
Seriously.
I’m going to err on the side of caution and good intentions and presume you haven’t been around MSA for long. Look, I don’t “know” Liz personally, and i have been reading MSA for quite some time now, even occasionally commenting here and there. Sometimes I ramble on if I’m passionate about a topic, and I feel a bit unsure and apprehensive later about the potential for her eyeballs to be rolling at my random ponderings and I quietly hope and trust she ‘gets it’ (her readers curiosities, observations and concerns) because she too is passionate about her pastime and has built a career around it and continues to do so. She has worked long and hard to provide sincere and honest reviews and has done so respectfully and with full disclosure from all that we’ve seen. Many of us have seen and been disgusted by the kinds of selfish, greedy, integrity deficient and deceitful bloggers and online personalities that shill, sell and display the kind of behavior that you so ignorantly accuse Liz of in your post, and that is exactly why we’re here and we continue to support and contribute to Liz/MSA. She has never, from every post I’ve read over the past almost 3 years been that person, and frankly, from all I have seen to date, I just don’t think it’s in her nature. Liz does well because she has integrity. And she didn’t get that in a sub box… but boy, if we ever find a sub that sends out monthly doses of kindness, integrity and general online etiquette, might I suggest you subscribe promptly… don’t worry about discount codes, usually those things don’t cost much except for a little pride and humility.
Life is too short to pee on other bloggers happy.
Please go have a cupcake, cheer up and have a pleasant afternoon!
😉 /tj

Well, that’s an incredibly rude accusation. Maybe she does sell them, that’s her business and nothing wrong with it. Heck, I’ve sold stuff from subs. I won’t lie though, I’ve also wondered why we don’t see any swatches or “looks” from her reviews. And also curious Liz, when you say you’re swapping stuff, do you go on the swap site here and swap?

Wow… Speechless

Neither is mine, as my fiance keeps reminding me!

Certainly, we are all vulnerable insofar as our addiction is linked to our pocketbooks. And MSA is a steward of that addiction. But that stewardship has value for us in terms of managing our addiction: information on the quantity and consistency of boxes, a place to facilitate swapping out items so they land in a place where their value is greatest, and, most importantly, a forum to voice our opinions and prerogatives – motivation for the services themselves to satisfy us, their customer base, if they want to keep our business. And MSA is able to provide this to us at the expense of those companies, not ours.