New Premium Subscription Box from Conscious Box

I was an original subscriber to Conscious Box, way back in 2012. It was my FAVORITE subscription for quite a while – boxes with GREAT value and their customer service was TOP NOTCH (I even got a reply on a Sunday night at midnight once!) But after about 18 months, things started to go downhill – repeats in boxes, boxes with really low value, and terrible CS.

Turns out, the three original founder of CB had gone the venture capitalist route, and the problems started while they were fighting to keep their original subscription model while the VC’s wanted to give away as much as possible to get subscribers. Some of you may remember how easy it was to get a free CB in 2014. It may still be easy to get a free CB now, I don’t know. When you are giving our so much free product, it’s hard to keep up with demand, and ultimately, the quality of the product suffers.

By the end of 2014, the venture capitalists had pushed all 3 of the original founders out of the company, and as far as I can see from a quick peek at the CB Facebook page, those who are still in charge of CB haven’t changed a thing. It’s a sad lesson in how a company that started off so beautifully and strongly can completely disintegrate when VC’s who don’t share in the genuine vision of a company are brought in.

I began my Conscious Box subscription in July 2012, and finally canceled my Conscious Box subscription in early 2014. I still wish I could find a sub comparable to the early Conscious Box.

-Mary

I’m sure I will be in the minority, but I signed up for this box when I was in my subscriptcraze and I have to say – it is one of my favorite boxes!!! Last month, they sent me a sample of dishwashing liquid, one of those cubes for the dishwasher, a cube for the laundry, some more of those smart gummies (which I love and tried to order from Amazon – I was supposed to receive a 12 pack for $20 – got 5)! And that was just the beginning of the box.

Honestly, when I started reading reviews of this box, I tried to figure out how to cancel it because they were all SO awful. Fortunately for me, I couldn’t figure out how to. In fact, I couldn’t even find my account online. But the truth is, I like this box even better than Love with Food because of the variety and practicality of the items.

In this box (and past boxes) they’ve also sent me two samples of Pure Coastal Scents Shea Butter (in tubs – both in ziplock bags), Dry Heal Cream, Maple and Coconut Water, Barefoot & Almond Spreads, Egyptian Magic Creams, Goddess Garden Organics Sunscreen Samples, Sombra Pain Relieving Gel Samples (very practical), Tree Smart Pencils – loved these! and oh my gosh – I don’t know what else – but I always feel like they send me a ton of fun, practical stuff to try.

So far, no parC at all! You know – like Bestowed – who sent us the spinach purée (April 2015) with the new label pasted on top of the old label that stated the spinach expired December 2014. Seriously!

When I contacted Besotwed about this, they did nothing at all – just accepted my box cancellation. The head of the company even contacted me to assure me that the spinach was indeed good and that they’d had this “marvelous opportunity” to include it in our boxes. Talk about a load of… More like that were trying to unload something on us, while at the same time, falsely increasing the value of their box.

What was most surprising is that they never offered to replace the spinach, my box, anything – they just agreed to cancel my subscription. Granted, I didn’t ask them to replace the spinach or the box – but if I’d been caught red-handed – I would have had the decency to do the right thing. My goodness – I would have offered my customers practically anything to regain their trust.

Anyways, sorry to go off on Bestowed, but I wonder how many of their subscribers never even realized that they had glued a new expiration label over the old one.

Back to Conscious Box – I’ve never had any interaction with their CS. And maybe because they got a bad rap in the past – they’ve been trying to improve the quality of their boxes over these past few months? I’ve been receiving them since April – so that’s 4 months – and crazy as it sounds – I honestly look forward to opening them every month. I feel like they send me a variety of fun, practical items to try every month. This month, I think I used the laundry, dish, and detergent soap all the night I received the box. Plus I ate the gummies and one other snack item they’d sent pretty much as soon as I opened the box.

Okay, enough of my Conscious Box Glow! Just thought I ought to put in a good word for them since I’d had such a great experience thus past few months.

I should add that I have no idea what I paid for this subscription, how long it last, etc. I’m guessing I paid around $15/month. I would be distressed if I paid more, because it is try that this box is a collection of a few full size items and several samples.

And apparently, dealing with their CS is NOT fun – so I doubt that I will be upgrading to their premium boxes until they’ve resolved their CS issues. I’m also not Vegan, so don’t have the allergy issues that some subscribers do.

I agree. Conscious Box was my first subscription box, and I was really looking forward to being surprised. But then I heard nothing from them, no box, no promised e-mail to let me know the ship date. So I logged onto my account and the first thing I saw was a list of everything in the box. I contacted customer service about my first box, and got an automated response telling me how to cancel. I responded to that and informed them that before I’d gotten my first box (out of 6), I had cancelled, but they still owed those 6 to me. I also noted that I was really disappointed the surprise had been ruined by their website design. The support response? Don’t log into your account until you get your box.

I’ve gotten 4 boxes so far. I’ve thrown away nearly everything. I got a better deal with Drugstore.com’s Earth Day promotions … Conscious Box is the worst I’ve seen. If I hadn’t had good experiences with the first of my geek boxes, I would have never tried another subscription box.

I am also a former conscious box subscriber. I didn’t find the value very high. The customer service I received when I had some issues with mistakes in my orders was far below par. Too bad as it seemed like a great idea in the beginning.

Absolutely horrible customer service.

I am a blogger and a former subscriber to Conscious Box and I really, truly did love their service…in the beginning. When the first started I thought they were an awesome, eco-conscious box and I was consistently impressed with their boxes. Then, after about a year of subscribing, I noticed a sharp decline in the quality of the items they sent. I think it’s too bad because the box really was great at one time, but now I know they have a ton of unhappy customers.

Their price point is way too close (and often below) the cost of their boxes. They’re charging $40 dollars for goods that you can go out and buy for yourself if you are so inclined to have them. I feel like the appeal of these subscription services is to get a bang for your money. I didn’t experience that with them as a customer. I also am put off by the inclusion of Burts Bees in this pricier box flyer….. Really a drug store brand is suppose to make me do cart wheels?! Those same mugs have been on groupon for $20.00 and the other two items seem to be food related. An overwhelming hard pass. This is the 2nd revamp they’ve made… They started out almost being like a “love with food” competitor… Then revamped to offer a pricier $20.00 dollar box and didn’t stretch to far beyond what they were already doing… To now charging $40.00 dollars? If you haven’t increased your customer base at a lower price point… What makes you think you will appeal to consumers at a higher one? Hard pass.

I made the mistake of giving a six month subscription to Conscious Box to my sister as a Christmas gift a couple years ago. To make a long story short, dealing with their customer service caused her (and me) repeated stress and she ultimately only received half of the boxes I paid for. To make matters worse, I could tell she didn’t really like what she got in the boxes. She tried to put a positive spin on it to save me feelings, but she is a pretty bad liar.
I was shocked at how bad they were. And it pretty much put my sister off of sub boxes in general. 🙁

Burt Bees is is NOT vegan. If they put these products on their promotional flyers, imagine what they’ll send out in the actual boxes. What a joke!

I totally agree with everyone else, Conscious box was my worst sub box experience ever, even more than Luna For You. I had completely forgotten about that box until now lol. I buried those bitter memories deep. I tried for a couple months, tried to cancel my sub and had the worst time canceling. The boxes are worth nothing, they differ for each person and usually involving free samples.

Just google ” conscious box reviews”, then look at the complaints in the sitejabber website and the BBB. Don’t rely on bloggers, many get referral fees whenever a reader purchases a box, which makes them less prone to be critical.

One more comment. I see in their new “all vegan” pictured sample box, they have a Burt’s Bee product. If you go to Burt’s Bee’s website, they verify that they do not claim to be either vegan or vegetarian as many of their products have animal products and also they are “produced on shared lines”. Bee products are not considered vegan.

Everyone stay away! Heed my current situation. I am highly allergic to milk products, the tiniest amount I will get acutely ill. I subscribed to their vegan box to have safe products that I could eat. They have sent three vegan boxes in a row that with items that contains milk products. I write to them and bring it to their attention each time, and yet they continue to send products dangerous to me.

They have blatantly ignored this issue and have taken no action to correct it, they have demonstrated egregious disregard for the seriousness of sending products that will make people with acute and life theatening allergies sick. I have repeatedly asked them to stop my subscription and refund the last three boxes yet I continue to receive them. And all they offer is to deduct the cost of the individual items.

They have ignored all the issues in my multiple emails. Each time in the last three boxes their responses to my emails is exactly the same:
* They have not addressed or acknowledged the serious, and potential life threatening repeated carelessness in the products that they choose for their vegan boxes.
* They refuse to cancel my subscription although I have tried to do so and have asked them to do so many times.
* They refuse to refund the bad boxes.
* They repeatedly place dairy products in their boxes although they have been informed multiple times about the serious health hazards.

They have been fortunate that no one has sued them (to my knowledge) for accidentally consuming a product in their vegan boxes that causes a serious allergic response or death.

I am taking this matter to outside authorities as they are a dangerous company.

What a joke!!! What’s that saying???fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice…

No way (no)Conscience Box!!!! You were the worst sub I ever had dealings with!

I have to agree with Emily – as enticing as this box looks, my past experience with Concious Box was nothing short of miserable. Dishonest advertising, atrocious customer service, and all-around awful boxes. Biggest rip-off ever – I would never give them another penny!

Conscious Box is super sketchy. They were my first and are still my worst ever subscription box experience. Dishonest business practices and terrible customer service. Buyers beware.

when i saw this I was immediately interested – Liz, do you think the photo has any of the items that the first box will have in it?

Unless they can guarantee they won’t send pretty much all free samples/not for resale packets and have changed their nonresponsive customer service model there’s no way I’m paying double the price of their former sub without an assurance they’re sending at least some full size products. At $40 they’re in the same competition category as Pop Sugar and (discounted) FFF. The best justification they could offer for sending literally all free samples was that they “did the homework for you” in picking up different freebies and packaged and shipped them to subscribers. Um, no. I’m curious to see what this “premium” box looks like so thanks for taking the plunge; I don’t know of too many former subscribers who will be anxious to try again.