Modern Love Box is a subscription box curated for couples. Each box aims to help long-term relationships nix boredom and keep that intimate, romantic spark alive.
They describe their expert-curated boxes as "monthly boxes of luxury items and activities meant to enhance meaningful experiences and promote overall relationship success." The activities and items are all purposefully gender non-specific—same-sex couples and heterosexual couples can enjoy this inclusive box all the same!
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About The Modern Love Box Subscription
The Subscription Box: The Modern Love Box
The Cost: $47.78 per quarter + shipping (Information on the site says the cost is about $54.00 per quarter, but my total charge for the box + shipping—which was $7.48 for me in Pennsylvania—was $55.26)
The Products: Luxury items and activities for adult, long-term couples meant to inspire intimacy and excitement. The items are curated by relationship experts and appropriate for all kinds of couples (heterosexual, same sex, etc.).
Good to Know: It looks like the Modern Love Box has shifted from a monthly to a quarterly plan. The next box will arrive in Spring of 2018.
Ships to: Continental US only.
The Modern Love Box "Good Fortune" Winter 2017 Review
Especially going into New Year's resolution season, this box's focus on fate, luck, and aspirations should be fun! Let's check it out:
It sounds superficial (well, probably because it is superficial), but one thing that's sold me on this box more than others is the sleek design. It isn't just called "modern"—it looks the part, too. It makes what could be an extremely cheesy experience feel a much less so. It's sort of the difference between a Lifetime movie and cool indie rom-com, if that makes sense. (Not to knock Lifetime. Did you see Liz & Dick with Lindsay Lohan? LEGENDARY.)
The first step in the date is to whip up a cocktail. My partner Alistair and I are 100% down for anything and everything bourbon-based, so this was a great pick for us. It was kind of a bummer that you have to spend time and additional moola stocking your bar cart before you even get started on your date. (None of the supplies for the drink are actually in the box.) The good news is that, in the scheme of things, this is just a nice-to-have—you can still have fun with the box sans a cocktail in your hand, or you could replace it with something you've already got in your home.
The Golden Book of Fortune Telling - Retail Value $14.95 (found here for $12.90)
The next step in the date involves cracking open this metallic-gold tome and reading up on our fortunes. There are a few different kinds of fortunes you can research via this book—birthdays, zodiac fortunes, name fortunes, translations for things you see in dreams, color meanings, and love and friendship information. I love this kind of stuff, and while Alistair doesn't take much stock in it, he and I had fun judging the validity of each fortune. While according to the book, we're not the best astrological match (he's a Libra and I'm a Leo), we're also not the worst! We took that as a win, haha! My name fortune seemed a little foreboding ("Gather your strength. You're going to need it."), but at least I had one. (Oh, the trials of having a name like "Alistair"...). We were both most pleased with our zodiac and birthday fortunes—Alistair likes balance and justice, I like living boldly and being at the center of the action. They seemed spot on for us!
Next, the box had us flip the cocktail recipe over and ask one another the "Communication Activity" questions on the back of the card. I wasn't super surprised but did find it interesting that we both shared a bias towards free-will over fate. We talked a lot about the "What does having 'good fortune' mean to you?" question—we share an understanding that "luck" usually boils down to privilege and coincidence, but that doesn't mean that we don't have plenty of gratitude and happy surprise in the face of those "lucky" moments (an unexpected job offer, a chance meeting with a long lost friend, finding a $5.00 bill in your pocket on laundry day...). Long story short, the activity prompted really interesting, surprisingly deep conversations that I'm betting we would NEVER have had otherwise. And while attitudes on luck and personality tests might not impact us much on a day-to-day basis, I definitely felt enriched afterward. I feel like we have deeper understandings of our individual perspectives on life in general and how we approach things.
Flying Wish Paper - Retail Value $11.00
This next step involves... flame! I didn't get a good pic of these papers in action (I was too worried about the room/cats catching fire, to be honest, ha!), but you can see a video on the Flying Wish Paper site. After writing a wish on the pink paper, you crumple it up (I guess to make it sturdier?), roll it into a tube around your finger, then set it upright on top of the circle in the middle of the sunflower-printed card. When you light the rim on fire, the paper burns down, then shoots into the air before it singes completely. We were so-so on the spectacle of it all (pro-tip, set the tube up carefully or else it could just slump over while on fire...), but coming up with wishes was cute. You had to do three of your own and then three together, and share 'em all. I'm of the camp that telling your wish voids the effort (like telling people what you wish for when you blow out b-day candles), but I was happy to talk them out for the sake of the activity. It's HARD coming up with that many wishes! I think I ended up with two rather general, blanket ones. Alistair got to three (the dude's good at following rules, what can I say). And then we came up a few together. In the end, it really was like a "wishlist" for our upcoming year—places we'd like to go, things we'd like to do more or less of—and it was nice setting "goals" together in that way.
Two 3 ml Packets of Intimate Earth Discover Serum - Buy a 1 oz bottle for $19.99
Kids, cover your eyes. This subscription box always includes at least one sexy li'l activity, and this month was no different. The final step of this date involves "sexy exploration" featuring these stimulating serums. From what I could tell from testing it (On my hand! On my hand!) this formula is some kind of minty blend of ingredients. It's light and smooth, and I appreciate that it's got more organic potions inside of it than the stuff you find at drugstores. I think it's nice that this box does its best to connect you mentally and physically as a couple. I love our usual physical-touch activity, which is snuggling on the couch watching The Great British Bake Off, but it's nice to have an excuse to break out of the routine 🙂
The Verdict: I really like this little date box! I'm big on communication, but I'm also the one in the relationship who does more of it more willingly—my partner isn't shut-off by any means, but he's not as apt to gab about all of his feelings and worldly observations as I am. But something about this fortune box really got both of us sharing, and sharing deep things, too. I loved the opportunity to spend about two hours or so focused on just the two of us. We talked, we laughed, and we got to know a bit more about what one another wants from life and our relationship. It was really nice to get a little vulnerable and talk about our big dreams for the next year and for our time together. We're 2+ years into being a couple, so we felt comfortable really putting ourselves out there, which I think is key to making this box work best. That said, I do think this could be a cool get-to-know-you box for newer couples or a way for longer-term couples to access untapped parts of their relationship.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Yes! This particular box is still available as a one-time purchase here! If you sign up today for the quarterly subscription, your first box will be the Spring box arriving around March 18-23.
Value Breakdown: This box cost me $55.26. The items I could find retail values for add up to about $25.93 (or about $29.93 if I estimate the proportional value of the serum packets based on the price of the big package), meaning there's around $30-ish worth of value attributed to the experience of the box. Personally, that communication card took up the majority of our date and probably provided the most intangible value. I kind of wish there was a bit more tangible value in there (maybe some ingredients for the cocktail they recommend?), but in terms of what we usually spend on nights out and the quality of the experience we got from this box, I don't think it's too overvalued.
Check out all of our The Modern Love reviews and more date night subscription reviews in our Subscription Box List!
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