Wantable Makeup Subscription Box Review – May 2015
Wantable is a monthly subscription service that has 3 different plans: Makeup, Accessories, and Intimates. (Plus a styling service for Fitness clothing similar to Stitch Fix in the try-then-buy model) It’s one of the pricier subscriptions ($40 a month), but everything they send is full size, and they fully customize the boxes based on your preferences. You also can return individual items from any box for a refund.
Wantable sent me this makeup box at no cost to review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).
The Subscription Box: Wantable Makeup Subscription
The Cost: $40 a month (keep everything, and get a $4 credit to your next box).
The Products: Makeup, nail polish and tools based on your profile settings.
Ships to: US, Canada (additional $6), UK (additional $7) and Australia (additional $10)
Check out all of my Wantable Makeup reviews!
Here is my invoice. In addition to the retail price of the item, they also include “your price,” which is how much you would get refunded if you wanted to return that item. (Wantable recently introduced individual item returns to their subscriptions. Previously, it was keep the entire box or send the entire box back for a refund).
You get to take a very detailed survey of what items you love, like and dislike. You won’t receive anything in your dislike list.
Previously I was very specific with this list, but I’ve found that I have better luck at high-value boxes when fewer things are on my dislike list.
Terre Mere Mineral Blush in Nectar – Value $54 (My Price $21.82)
Wow – I’ve never spent over $50 on a blush (and I don’t plan on starting to) so I’m glad I get to try this via Wantable. I wasn’t sure if the peachy color would work for my skintone, but it gives a subtle sunkissed look – similar to the Cargo Powder Blush in Cannes from the Birchbox Limited Edition Lovely Day Box.
Eddie Funkhouser UD Bronze & Sculpt Powder – Value $12.99 (My Price: $5.25)
This pressed powder is designed to be a highlighter, bronzer and blush in one. The formula isn’t nearly a pigmented as I expected, but at least the shimmer is very subtle.
Doucce Brown Pencil Filler in Light Brown – Value $22 (My Price: $8.89)
I wasn’t too impressed with this eyebrow pencil – it didn’t go on smoothly, and it took quite a few pencil strokes to get color. (I swatched it in the photo below – the color shown took about 10 pencil strokes to get).
Tarina Tarantino Gem Gloss in Cabochon – Value $10 (My Price: $4.04)
(Wantable listed the value as $10, but Beauty.com sells it for $19).
This lipgloss has almost no pigment, but tons of shine and some shimmer. Swatched below:
(A few readers had mentioned wanting to see swatches in makeup reviews, so I’m trying! Hand models and/or better beauty box reviewers needed! 🙂 )
Verdict: This box has a value of about $98.90, or a little over $100 if you count the $19 price for the lipgloss. I really like the lip gloss and blush, and I’ll use the Eddie Funkhouser pressed powder as a bronzer (that’s pretty much the only color I’m getting from it). The only miss for me is the eye brow liner, so I’m happy with this box.
What do you think of the Wantable Makeup box?
Telling someone to get laid is just as rude as the comment that triggered that reply. But yes Liz keep up the good work.
I received a Terre Mere loose shadow pigment in Wantable this month and I absolutely LOVE it. I was concerned that I wouldn’t like it because it looked very pink, but it’s actually a light peachy color on the skin.
I’m surprised about the Eddie Funkhouser item though. I’ve gotten a few from Wantable and they have all been very nice quality. Very pigmented and easy to apply shadows. Nice liquid liner.
I’m surprised to hear that about Eddie Funkhouser too. Maybe it’s the one lacking product in the line.
Liz keep doing what you do, there is a reason why your site is popular! It is hard to try on and swatch every product. What people don’t think about is products expire. Why would liz swatch everything if she has a similar product she uses and render that one useless basically. If you are ever looking for someone to do more beauty box reviews for you, let me know! 🙂
I had to calm down before typing this. What wild,insane accusations
To me this site is for information. I love Liz’s opinions even if sometimes I don’t agree LOL
As to swatching……..everyone has different skin tones the look on Liz may certainly not be the look on someone else’s skin. As someone else mentioned this isn’t a beauty blog.
I’m very grateful for everything Liz does with this site. Oh and I like the mannequin 🙂
I love looking at this site because I love just seeing what’s IN subscription boxes. I don’t expect Liz to use every product (I certainly don’t use/sample or test everything I get) but when she tells us a product works well, or doesn’t work as it claims — thats a tidbit of information I might use to skip or try that particular sample that month in that box (my sisters get a box of goodies very few months). If she chooses to only personally comment on one item in the entire box – thats totally ok with me. I appreciate your reviews Liz, no matter how many you submit. 🙂
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.
Totally agree! I love to see whats in the boxes and Liz does a lot of hard work to check the costs, keep us updated on spoilers, let us in on coupons and I could go on and on!! Swatches dont matter to me either!!
Wow, just wow. Go away trouble maker! I personally think that if you sell can sell some of the items that are not for you than great it just gives you more funds to put back in to your addiction!!
Liz, just wanted to say that I appreciate the thoroughness and honesty of your reviews and I think your opinions and impressions of products along with detailed photos make this blog awesome. I think swatches can be helpful so thanks for including them on this one. However, if swatches aren’t your thing or you don’t feel like doing them for whatever reason that’s cool too 🙂
Yep, try the inner arm for swatches, more even surface and easier to photo well. Thanks for including those, it makes a BIG difference and is VERY helpful. If you could also try the clothes and jewelry on instead of a mannequin it would be fantastic too, it is so nice to see stuff on a human being!
Thanks for the tip on swatching. We’ll see if I have the confidence to do outfit photos in the future! 🙂
I totally don’t have the confidence to do outfit photos!
I *might* be convinced to model some lipstick or nail polish or swatch something on my inner arm. Of course first I would have to take 1000 photos and go through a painstaking process of choosing the best one.
why don’t you swatch all of the products? you claim you try them, but how can you try them and review them online within a few hours? my guess is you don’t swatch them because you sell them and lie in your posts in order to continue to get free boxes.
Someone needs to get laid.
Wow… Speechless
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?
I’ve never sold anything from a box, but I have swapped some items that weren’t for me on the MSA swap site. (I think my husband uses the swap site more than I do though for geek box swaps 🙂 ) I’m going to try to include swatches in makeup reviews moving forward – it just wasn’t something I had done before.
Thank you to you and hubby for all your caring and hard work. I enjoy this site and appreciate your creativity.
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
Beautifully said!
LEAVE LIZ ALONE!!! (Said in the overly dramatic and beyond creepy since I dont know her at all voice)
You seem bored.
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.
Liz: How awful anyone would leave any type of comment about you. You are an honest blogger, you get a lot of boxes, and many boxes have duplicate items in it over a year, I still remember last year being the year of Purlease – why swatch a product when you know about the product. Unfortunately as we all know, 1 box can lead to many, and a lot of spending and a lot of products. – Thank you for having the swap the portion of this site ( helps a lot ) what you do with your products is your business. You are giving your opinion on products and boxes, your opinion is appreciated. – As far as swatching, maybe its just me, yet I don’t like swatches, what looks one way on someone might look different on someone else. Sometimes it is very easy to tell without swatching if a lip gloss is clear with a hint of a tint just by looking at it. You have a wonderful blog, what ever you want to do with your products, swatch or not is up to you, do what makes you happy.
What a thoughtful and respectful response to a less than thoughtful and respectful remark. Way to keep it classy. Very well handled.
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.
Liz was also the second shooter on the grassy knoll.
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!
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.
Having written a few reviews now, I can testify how much time and effort it takes to put one together. And Liz does so many more than I do!
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….
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.
Just curious-why won’t LLB be reviewed on here anymore?
I received that brow pencil last month and love it! It doesn’t swatch well on the hand. But on the inner arm or my brows it gives very vibrant color. I find that taupe works best on cool & neutral skin. I am warm, so it looks too gray and drab on me. This one is light brown and looks great with my blonde hair.
I like that you included swatches… it helps to get a better idea of color. Would love to see more of them–and don’t worry, your hand looks fine! 🙂
Do you know any tweens? My 10 yo daughter loves to model the makeup I get for my blog.
Liz: Great Swatch – Makes a difference to see the actual color. I always enjoy reading your reviews. This makeup box is tempting, but I don’t wear makeup – LOL – I wish wantable would come up with a link again that people can try the boxes they have not tried at a discount. I’ve tried accessories and intimates, yet have not tried makeup. – Hope they also come up with a combo box. They have great customer service and it is fun to customize the box a bit.
I think your swatch looks great. 🙂 I would love to do some Beauty Box reviews.
I think that swatches on your inner arm usually look a little better and can be more even. 🙂
Ah, I would love to be hand or makeup tester, but alas my monthly box budget is nowhere close to most of the subscribers here! 🙂
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.