Boxyluxe

I told Rob back in April that I had bought "kind of an expensive thing" that I was thinking would be my main birthday present. He didn't even ask what I meant at the time, but I've been showing him as it all arrived - it was a whole quarter (i.e., 3 months) of Boxycharm that I was referring to, with two add-ons, one for the skincare box and one for the Boxyluxe box. He actually thinks Boxycharm is pretty cool, as much as he ever has an opinion on this kind of thing, because you always get a lot for your money. I spent, what, well over $100 total, but I got a ton of stuff, much of which I will use for myself but the rest of which will become gifts later on. The regular boxes are always worth $100 or more retail, the skincare box was over $250, and the Boxyluxe box here was over $350 total. So that's a total of, wow, more than $800 worth of stuff, theoretically. (I say "theoretically" because I know MSRP is not always what things actually sell for. Still, it's a good deal, however you look at it.)

I've already shown the April and May boxes and the skincare box. The Boxyluxe box is only once a quarter, and it's mostly the same items that are in the regular box (June, in this case) plus several more added on - mine had nine items total.

Here's what was in the Boxyluxe box:

plus some more:

I don't seem to have gotten a picture of the hairdryer which is what's in that bag that says "PYT" - but it's small and really light, which I think increases the chance that I will actually use it. (picture here) The only hair dryer I own is big and old and I never bother to pull it out. So that was the thing I was most excited about. But I'll use a lot of this stuff, especially the Farmacy serum.

This set is called "Getaway" and here's what's in mine (I looked at several people's videos and theirs were more or less the same - you got a choice of several Tarte items, and there was one other item  that was different for some people):

• Tarte Pro Glow 3 cheek palette (which I think may be a Boxycharm exclusive) - $45 (inside picture here)
• Touch In Sol No Poreblem Prime Essense - $23
• Dominique Cosmetics Lemonade Lipgloss - $17
• PYT mini turbo hair dryer - $85 (seems to come in a variety of summery colors - mine is coral)
• Dr Brandt Clean Biotic yogurt cleanser - $35
• Farmacy Honeymoon Glow AHA resurfacing night serum - $58
• Living Proof Full Dry Volume Blast - $29
• Trestique Good Vibes mascara - $25
• Skin & Co Truffle Therapy Radiant Dew Mist - $35

(I have some more - unrelated - Tarte stuff which I bought directly from them. I'll try to get that up this week soon, too.)

Here's Boxycharm's own video about this:

(I didn't even know these videos existed, this is my first time seeing one.)

I actually watched several "unboxing" videos and I'm not going to link to all of them. (I tend to do my video-watching very late at night, so I'm not even sure I could find them all again.) I know that some were more enthusiastic about this box than others. At least one person was all, I have hairdryers, what do I need a tiny $85 hairdryer for? Anyway, Kathleen Lights is usually my default makeup expert whose videos I link to most often, but I don't see a Boxyluxe video from her. Either she only got the regular box or she took the other one down for some reason, I'm not sure which. So instead here's Alexandria, showing both this and Ipsy's upgrade box and comparing the two.

You Do Hue (aka Sesame Street polishes)

China Glaze has a Sesame Street tie-in! I only bought a couple - this is Free To Be Sesame:

It's a good old-fashioned microglitter, like those Christmas ones I was so crazy about maybe five years ago. Which means it's going to be a pain to get off, but I don't care.

Then I got Monsterpiece, which looks like it might be a similar texture at a glance but is not microglitter, it's some kind of a holo mix:

I went back and looked at (and ran my finger over) my swatches to be sure - Free To Be Sesame is rough-textured and Monsterpiece is not. Anyway, I love this kind of pink in the summer. I'm sure in the end this will be the one I end up wearing more!


The caps are adorable - I think they are just random, like the caps were in the Grinch set last year. I did get the Cookie Monster on Monsterpiece, but on the other one I got Big Bird:

 (There is a Big Bird Yellow, although that's not the name of it.)

Polish Pick is the place that always has the super-cheap China Glaze prices (I think they're $3.25 or something) so that's where I've been buying mine lately. This is a limited edition set, though, so grab 'em if you see 'em.

Self Made Mermaid duo

NailsInc was having a sale on their website, and I decided I wanted to try out another one of their duos, the Self Made Mermaid set:

The two polishes are Ocean Ever After and Mermaid Parade:

Ocean Ever After is the star here, as far as I'm concerned:

It's a super-shimmery aqua.

The other one is pretty, too but really sheer - that's Mermaid Parade:

I'm sure I will play around with layering these two - I tried one coat of each but I suspect it will take two of Ocean Ever After to be opaque.

Insta-Dri x Crayola metallics

I've been trying not to buy a lot of nail polish lately, and so apparently I missed hearing about this set when they first came out at the beginning of the year - more Insta-Dri/Crayola polishes, this time in metallics:

Apparently they make metallic crayons now? I had no idea. (I am so old that my mother wouldn't even buy us the 64-color box of crayons when my sister & I were kids, she thought that was too exotic, or something. My mother was kind of weird about stuff like that, though.) So now they're mostly sold out, but I did manage to find a couple of colors - one from Amazon, one from Walmart. There are more of them around but this is about all that I could find at something resembling a normal retail price, anyway.

Anyway, I do really like these, and if I come across more of them at a reasonable price I'll buy some more colors.

Metallic Seaweed came last and I haven't worn it yet, but it looks pretty cool.

I have worn Shimmering Blush and I like it:

I used two coats for both swatches above, and I believe that's how many coats of Shimmering Blush I wore on the nail. I also ended up putting matte top-coat on it, on the nail:

April Boxycharm (a little late!)

Here's the Boxycharm box from April - I had mislaid the postcard with all the information but I finally found it again. The theme is "Peace, Love and Boxy" and here are the contents:

"Peace. Love and Boxy" is kind of vague, but this is meant to be a festival theme, that's plain enough. The Pur palette is on their website selling for $36. It has a couple of fairly wild glitters but also has some very usable colors in it.

I like this Luxie brush set:

They are (per the packaging) a large and a small shader and a small contouring brush. I've already used those quite a bit.

Here's the items, which I believe totals over $125:

• Pur Festival Palette - $36
• Luxie Summer Daze 3 piece brush set - $28
• Artist Couture Diamond Glow Powder - $27
• Butter London Power Up Mascara - $20
• Beauty For Real Finish Line Liquid Eyeliner - $16

As always, I'll give away the mascara, but I've put the rest of this into my rotation. I got the Avengers palette about the same time this came, and since my husband picked that one out for me I've really been trying to use it, and so I haven't really used the Festival palette yet to speak of. The regular Boxycharm box is $21 so if you get even a couple of items you will really use, it's worth it. That's how I look at it anyway. And whatever I don't use becomes gifts later on.

Here's Kathleen's video about this same box, and this one is especially interesting if you have the box, because she does an eye look with the Festival palette, and uses the brushes:

Her box is the same as mine, except that she got a different eyeliner and she hated the one she got. I like mine so I'm glad I got what I got!

This was mine - just a black liquid eyeliner, but it works well.

NOTD: Everly

I hadn't gotten around to wearing the new Zoya holos that I bought around Christmas time, but here's Everly:

Zoya describes this as "a full coverage, diamond holographic fuchsia red." I called it a strawberry red when I swatched it (here). I guess "fuchsia red" is where Zoya is hedging - so, not quite your average red or your average fuchsia. It's pretty cool. I wasn't sure I would like it that much, but I do.