June Sephora Play

Here's the contents of June's Sephora Play box:

I talked about the new format (bag-in-box + less-elaborate brochure) last month; unless something changes again I'm not going into any detail about that. This month's bag just says "Play!" on it and the theme as you can partly see, is The Minimalists. The short version of the lineup here: Tocca Florence fragrance, Bare Minerals Bronzer, Becca Backlight Priming Filter, Benefit They're Real!, Tarteguard sunscreen, & Bumble & Bumble Don't Blow It. (More info here.) I don't wear mascara, so I won't use that, and the odds that I'll use the bronzer are very low - I might try it but I'm pretty sure I said that about one last summer and maybe the summer before, too, and I never did.

I read somewhere that the commercial viability of the monthly box-o'-stuff is waning, generally - not that that's a surprise, really. How many samples can you use, especially when it's the same type of item over and over? (The example that comes to mind first is Ipsy and their eyeshadow pencils.) There's a reason that I dumped Ipsy and was unimpressed with Birchbox, though, and I'm still getting this one. They just do a better job of picking items, for me. Even though I won't use at least one of these items, and probably two, it's still a better percentage than I was getting from Ipsy. -- That said, I do wonder how Sephora Play is doing, financially speaking. The downgrade in packaging reads to me like a cost-cutting measure, but it's not an unreasonable one whatsoever. Play! had such an advantage going in, of having Sephora's retail might behind it, plus Play! doesn't really have to make money on its own, it just has to drive the subscribers to buy further items, and based on my experience, that part totally works. I own quite a lot of products now that I would never have thought of buying without the chance to sample them first.