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If youโre constantly running out of shampoo, shaving with dull razors, or are overwhelmed by all the options for hair and makeup products out there, you might benefit from checking out a beauty subscription box. Beauty subscriptions take the legwork out of keeping your cosmetics stocked, offering the opportunity to test out night creams, eyeshadow palettes, perfumes, and more from brands you love and brands youโve never heard of before committing. The best part? Beauty subscription boxes are delivered directly to your home on a regular basis, usually automatically, which is a time-saver. With a beauty subscription, by the time that shampoo bottle is almost empty, a new one is on your doorstep.
Beauty boxes are more than just convenient, though. They are also a budget-friendly way to indulge in self-care, and they make a fun gift for friends or family. Many are filled with products that adhere to a theme or are chosen for the season, creating a more โcuratedโ experience. Some brands give you a heads-up on what to expect in the box, while others make it a surprise. Some services give you the chance to choose what you receive. Many beauty subscription services let you try sample sizes to discover your new favorites, but others will deliver full size bottles โ usually monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly โ so youโre always covered. Thereโs a subscription box for practically every beauty need, and many services take time to customize your products.
Weโve waded through an array of options to select the best boxes out there based on what youโre looking for.
If you want a beauty subscription box that hits all the right notes, itโs Glossybox. Each box has a theme and contains five products representing any or all of the key categories: makeup, skin care, hair care, nails, and fragrance.
The first of its kind when launched back in 2010, Birchbox is still a fantastic beauty box when you compare price to value, as long as youโre fine with receiving sample sizes only. Itโs the go-to subscription for discovering new, often high-end brands and receiving a vast array of product picks tailored to you. Birchbox tends to skew more towards hair care and skin care products.
The beauty editors of Allure magazine curate the products included in the Allure Beauty Box, which is packed with a selection of makeup, skin care, hair care, and more. The value is particularly noteworthy: In each $25 subscription box, youโll get products worth up to $242. Allure Beauty Box offers discounts for new subscribers and savings if you subscribe in bundles, too.
This nail subscription box just might wean you off of regular salon visits. Olive and Juneโs The Mani System box comes with either one or six bottles of non-toxic nail polish (depending on your subscription) thatโs as long-lasting as gel polish, plus all the tools you need for a perfect DIY manicure. The cost is pretty high, but it provides a decent value considering everything you get.
If youโre obsessed with skin care, then youโre probably already familiar with Dermstore, the dermatologist-founded retail site that specializes in products derms love most at prices consumers love. Their skin care subscription box, BeautyFIX, focuses primarily on skin care, but also includes makeup and hair care items. You canโt beat the value: Each BeautyFIX box is worth four times the amount of what you pay, and itโs packed with the most reputable brands you can find, from Skinceuticals to Skinmedica.
With a Prose hair care subscription, you benefit from an online consultation where Prose learns everything about your scalp, hair, lifestyle, environment and so on to custom-make formulas just for you.
The fragrance subscription box category is a saturated market, but two stand out, and Scentbox is one of them. Itโs almost identical to its main competitor, Scentbird, but itโs slightly more affordable and membership tiers are more customizable, letting you choose how many scents you want to test per month, and offering a storefront to buy perfumes or colognes that you love.
The next best thing to seeing your dermatologist each season is signing up for Dermy Doc Box, a four-times-a-year skincare subscription box service curated by the Instagram-famous @dermy_doctor, a.k.a. board-certified dermatologist Dr. Fatima Fahs. Each box contains five of Dr. Fahsโ hand-picked products by brands like La Roche-Posay, Elta MD, and Purlisse. You also get application tips plus discount codes in each box.
Korean beauty, or K-beauty, is a hot topic among skin care lovers especially. South Korean beauty experts known for its impeccable skincare practices, using gentle, natural, effective products. BomiBox subscription boxes offer the best overall assortment of K-beauty products, unlike other popular K-beauty boxes that focus mainly on sheet masks. Bomibox also offers good value.
There are lots of shaving subscription boxes out there, but this one is customizable and affordable with good value, which sets it apart. Dollar Shave Club says its products are unisex, but it seems to be marketed as a male-first subscription. The company has you answer a few questions about your shaving habits and skin type, and theyโll customize your order accordingly. They let you choose between 2-, 4- or 6-blade cartridges, too, so itโs a pretty customized service.
Billie markets itself as a razor subscription for women, and then goes on to make you feel pampered during registration by letting you pick your razor colors and quizzing you about your shaving habits. Itโs affordable, provides value, and products are clean and sustainable.
This beauty subscription boxโwhich recently merged with popular subscription service Ipsyโskews a bit pricey, but it has a high value to match. Boxycharm offers three subscription tiers and fills them with full-size products only, primarily makeup, all tailored to your needs and preferences.
With so many generalized beauty subscription boxes out there, itโs refreshing to find one thatโs focused almost exclusively on makeup. Tribe prides itself on including products exclusively by female-owned brands in all of its boxes, helping makeup lovers learn all about new and indie brands they might not find at their favorite stores.
Clean beautyโwhich typically means vegan, nontoxic, and cruelty-free products, sometimes in sustainable packagingโis more popular than ever, and Petit Vour is the subscription box that tops them all. Thatโs because in addition to the integrity of their products, they have an online store where you can buy anything from your subscription box directly if you love it. The brand offers two membership tiers, and both are a great bang for your buck.
For each subscription box, we analyzed what the brand offered in terms of products (their uses, brands, and formulations), product mix, and frequency of delivery. We also also took into consideration the retail value of whatโs generally included in each subscription box and compared it to the cost of each box to determine value. Other factors included customization options, curation by beauty industry experts, and membership tiers. By fact-checking, personally testing products, and scouring hundreds of reviews, we selected our top picks from all of the subscription services on our radar. Our comprehensive list covers what we determine to be the best of what beauty subscription box services have to offer for various needs, interests, and budgets.
If you have considered signing up for a beauty box, youโve probably seen the seemingly infinite amount of subscriptions out there. Some subscriptions cater to a specific niche; others are more general. One box might be skin care-heavy while another is more focused on makeup. Certain services will even tailor their product picks to your individual needs. So instead of wondering which beauty subscription box is best in general, identify which is best for you. Here are some factors to consider:
Beauty subscription boxes run the gamut in price โ some can be as low as $10 per month, while high-end boxes can run over $100 per box. Cost matters, but so does value. Compare the cost of the subscription box itself to the entire value of the goodies inside. Are you getting a decent bang for your buck or are you breaking even?
How often can you expect a new beauty subscription box? That depends on the service itself and which plan you sign up for. Boxes most commonly arrive monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. There are also subscription services, such as shaving subscription boxes, that send you shipments according to your own grooming behaviors.
Hereโs where the tailor-made aspect of beauty subscription boxes comes into play. Many services include a variety of makeup, skin care, hair care, nail care, body care, and fragrance products, which are best for subscribers looking to stock up on a mix of cosmetics. But there are also specialty subscriptions that focus exclusively on one category (such as fragrances) or one popular niche (like clean beauty).
It can pay to ask yourself why youโre signing up for a beauty subscription box. Do you want to discover new brands and products youโre not even sure you need just yet or would you prefer to have some control over what youโre sent? If youโre more discerning when it comes to products, you might prefer a service that takes your preferences into consideration or lets you hand-pick a few products per box.
Beauty subscription services include either all sample sizes, all full sizes, or a combination of both. So first, before committing to a subscription, determine what your goal is. If itโs to test out different products all the time, sample-size products (or a mix) may suit your needs better. If itโs to replenish your supply with a handful of products, or a specific category of product, full-size products will offer more value. Bear in mind that many services let you order full-size versions of any samples inside the box, often at a discount.
Beauty subscription boxes are packages filled with beauty products that are mailed to your home when you sign up for a beauty subscription service. These services often rely on beauty industry experts to curate subscription boxes with makeup, skincare, hair care, and other beauty products, often from third-party manufacturers, to satisfy a general interestโlike overall beautyโor a niche concern, like skincare- or fragrance-only. Beauty subscription boxes are typically delivered automatically on a regular basis (monthly, bimonthly, and quarterly are common frequencies) when you have an active paid subscription.
This is up to the savvy consumer to decide. Each beauty subscription box has a value โ the total retail value of the products insideโand beauty subscription services will often advertise the average value of each box. In order to determine if a beauty subscription box is worth the money, itโs useful to compare the boxโs general value to its cost; i.e. how much you pay per box via your membership.
The products included in a beauty subscription box depend on the service itself, your membership tier, and, sometimes, your own selections. First, choose a service that suits your needs; many subscription services offer a mix of beauty product categories, and others are more specific. Then determine whether the products offered by that service come in sample size, full size, or a combination of both. Finally, compare the serviceโs membership tiers to see what kinds of products, and how many, are included in each tier. Some beauty subscription services pick all the products for you; others allow you some control over picking the products yourself.
Itโs safe to say the lionโs share of beauty subscription services are marketed to womenโalthough some are intended for menโbut most beauty products are gender-neutral by nature, and subscriptions are available to all.
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