The concept of beauty subscriptions is just the most tempting thing pretty much ever. You pay a few a few bucks and once a month you get a box of pretty little surprises delivered to you door, what’s not to love about that? But having been subscribed to a few of them on and off for a long period of time now, I have to say that finding the best beauty subscription for you is not that easy. To be honest, each one that I’ve tried has been really fun but they all have their pros and cons. It kinda comes down to what you are looking for in your subscription box. What type of magical makeup surprises do you want showing up at your front door every month? Not a bad problem to have, huh?

To help you sort out your first world problems which one might be right for you I wrote down a list of what I think the pros and cons are of the ones I have experience with (which are BirchBox, Ipsy and Glossybox) in hopes that it will help you make a more educated guess if you’re thinking about signing up for one but you’re sitting there unsure of which to pick. No worries, gorl. Quinnface gotchu.

Keep in mind that what I see as a con, you might see as a pro and vice versa, but the idea is that you’ll get a better idea of what to expect from each, ju know what I mean?

Ok Let’s get into it.

BirchBox

PROS:

• They often work with well known, established brands to give you a sneak peak at highly anticipated products.
• Their points system is really easy to use and you can build up points for free products really easily. It’s not a special promotion type of thing, you can use the points toward anything on their site.
• I have found some of my holy grail products through their samples.

CONS:

• Sometimes months would go by without anything in one of my boxes appealing to me.
• They offer a beauty profile system which is supposed to determine your preference in what you receive but I found that it was not very accurate, and I have seen a lot of feedback from other customers who felt the same way.

Ipsy

PROS:

• They Work with a lot of small, up and coming brands which is nice because you get to discover new things and see what beauty companies are on the horizon of being the next big thing.
• There were definitely more full sized products in them than in BirchBox.
• Each month the products come in a cute makeup bag instead of a box.

CONS

• Each month it comes in a makeup bag….Yeah that’s a con too. I literally have an entire drawer full of makeup bags that I will never use. I have more than I can even manage to give away. Who can possibly use all of these?
• Sometimes the smaller brands don’t deliver the best quality. I have really picky standards, and a lot of times the small brands absolutely kill it, but other times not so much.
• Similarly to BirchBox they often send things that don’t fit your beauty profile. In the case of ipsy I’ve actually seen them send “light/fair” concealer to my friend who has a deep brown skin tone, so something is getting lost in translation here. The only pro in that is that I get her concealer lol.

GlossyBox

I have only been subscribed to this service for six months as opposed to the previous two which I had been receiving for nearly two years, so in fairness if my experience changes with time I will come back and edit this to reflect that. But I just wanted to throw that out there, because my opinion on the others did change over time.

PROS:

• Tons of full sized products! I would say most of the things I have gotten have been full size.
• The products are often high end or salon quality.
• Super chic packaging and sturdy boxes that I find very easy to re-use for organization or packing up gifts for people.
• The products seem to be a little more trend focused, which I like because I’m always trying to be up on the latest stuff.

CONS

• It cost’s twice as much money as the other two. (That’s the only con I have so far but it’s a big one)

So if you’re still looking for the best beauty subscription for you, I hope that was helpful, and if you have a favorite beauty box let me know what it is and why. Which ones have you tried, has anyone done Julep Maven? I’m so curious!