Bondi: August – new subscription box!

WHOOPS. Bondi went bust. I’ll have a post about that later, but my recommendation is to NOT get involved in any enterprise led by Bondi or Richard Annington.

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW WAS TRUE AT THE TIME:
I’m really excited to finally share a new subscription service: Bondi New York! Bondi offers 5-free polish in a variety of pretty cremes and metallics, with all of the net profits going to their foundation that supports charitable causes. Their subscription box is $19.99/month, with scaled discounts for 3-, 6-, and 12-month purchases. I purchased a 3-month sub, and the first one arrived yesterday.

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Bondi August 2013

Click here for review and pictures!

SquareHue August: Endless Summer Collection

I drove back home yesterday to find a note on my door saying my neighbor had taken in my packages (so nice of her! She didn’t know when I was coming home), so I spent the afternoon waiting breathlessly for her to get home from work. I had boxes from Skoshbox (review coming soon), Zoya, and SquareHue: I was in polish heaven for the night! So I have a lot of swatches for the next couple of weeks. 🙂

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Click here for swatches and review!

Julep: July Maven Box

I’ve been a Julep Maven for three months now, and each month has tempted me to upgrade my box so I get the whole set. But each time, there has been something holding me back: May was my first box and I could only get it free if I didn’t upgrade, June had the DD cream (which I totally didn’t want). But July’s California Coast box finally did the trick: ten beachy polishes, sea salt spray for hair, and beach oil tonic for skin. Yup, sold.

Julep July Collection

Click for a bigger image; image courtesy of Julep

Click here to see swatches and reviews!

SquareHue: Bloom Collection (swatches and review)

Spring is in the air, except for here in the Northeast where it’s, like, 40 degrees and I’m wearing a winter sweater. But nail collections are in full bloom, including the April SquareHue: the Bloom Collection.

SquareHue Bloom Collection

Recap: SquareHue is a subscription service. For a monthly fee, they send you three full-size polishes, formulated and chosen by SquareHue. You don’t get a choice in color and you don’t know the colors in advance, although each month they put a promo picture and the name of the collection on the website, so you can make an educated guess. You can’t buy the previous polishes after the month is over, although maybe that will change in the future. It costs about the same as a Julep box, and you get far more polish by volume (3 x 0.5mL versus 3 x 0.28mL), but there are no cute add-ons or extras. You can suspend or pause the account, if you can’t foot it that month or the promo pic doesn’t thrill you (I’m on the fence about doing that for May, because I don’t know with that promo pic), and part of the proceeds go to charities: the current focus is preventing human trafficking and both helping victims and prosecuting criminals of it. SquareHue formulas are 3-free, so you can feel good about that, too (although I use Seche Vite as a top coat, so I’ll be birthing three-headed babies, I suppose).

This month’s box contained, as expected, spring colors of yellow, green, and purple, but I was pleasantly surprised when I went through my collection and found no actual duplicates. Each month’s polish names are themed; this one seems to be flower child, which makes sense.

SquareHue Bloom Collection bottles

Click here to see individual swatches and review

October Barkbox

I subscribe to Birchbox, a mail-order service where I pay $10 a month and get a selection of beauty samples delivered to my door. It’s been working out well so far: it satisfies my beauty addiction at low cost, and I’ve been able to use most of the samples (I don’t as a rule enjoy getting scent samples, especially when they seem to be picked for a teenage girl). When I found out that a similar service catered to dogs, I couldn’t resist pampering my little guy. It’s fairly expensive ($100 for a 6-month subscription), but part of the sales go to helping shelter dogs, and I can easily spend that much money on my peanut in one trip to the pet store. My first, eagerly awaited Barkbox arrived today, and Gabranth and I unpacked it together.

Click here to find out more