The Best Kind of Girly Makeup Care Package
I got a present from a New York start-up last week. It was from Birchbox! It took about six weeks to get to me : ( but that just meant I was pleasantly surprised, like, Oh hi, Birchbox! Yes, I would love a volumizing hair spritzy thing and some luxurious Italian toothpaste!
OK, I have no idea what this company's numbers are, but I'm just going to gush for a little minute here. Birchbox is brilliant! They should have called themselves Brilliantbox. For one, the concept is super simple and easy to tell a friend about: You pay $10 to get a box of beauty product samples mailed to your home each month. You also get discounts on the full-size versions of those products, access to editorial content online (and in newsletter form if you want it), and — AND — it's a clever idea. Plus the branding is beautiful: I got a brown box packed neatly with five products, each of which came wrapped in tissue paper, tied with ribbon, and accompanied by a few printed notes, and it was just straight-up awesome. Like, I was awed. The attention paid to design, the user experience upon receiving the box — it's downright Etsy-esque.
By the way, did you know Etsy hosts craft nights at their office? If you've ever worked at a normal company you know how extraordinary that is. It's not a brand, it's not a lovemark, it's a cult. And you know what cults do? BUY THINGS. Oh my God! I need to catch my breath!
Birchbox (if their numbers shake out, whatever, boring!) will be a cult. You take a survey when you sign up, so they knows which samples you'll like, and their recommendations are good. A box a month is the sweet spot, too. It's enough time to really try the product — something brands will appreciate — without being overwhelming. And the Birchbox subscriber who converts to being a brand customer will be the best kind of customer the sample suppliers could ask for: someone who's objectively evaluated a product, decided she loves it and wants to pay for it, and feels like she's discovered it, it's hers. Especially if it's something obscure and high-end! It's the opposite of wandering into the drugstore and looking at a rack of lowest common denominator shampoo.
I paid $10 for that box, and I'm going to do it again. And I'm telling my friends to do it, too. It's so efficient! It's perfect for both girls who hate thinking about which beauty products to use and the girls who love nothing more. OK I'm going to go spritz some fancy stuff into my hair.
Adrianne Jeffries is a tech writer for The New York Observer and Betabeat, and despite her extreme enthusiasm she's not being paid by anyone to say any of this.
Yeah, I want this.
I want this, too!
part of me is going, "ooh! ooh!" but the other part of me is going, "ahhhhh….packaginggggg bad for the environmenttttt" *shrivel*……oh, the dilemma!
WAAANT! I usually have to do all my beauty recon myself.
AND… I just signed up. Thanks for this, it's a beauty blogger's dream come true!
I am doing this right now.
i'm sold :/
what did you get in your box?!
Uh oh! Etsy-esque? So once it gets popular, it's going to be turned over to resellers from China and people who use it as their own personal yard sale? Will I get a "vintage" H&M t shirt with pit stains every month?
HOLDONAMINUTE: You can get this in Guam but not in Canada?
More like BirchSUCKS!
I'm just jealous.
hahaha! one time i had to ship something to guam and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it qualified for usps "flat rate shipping" since it was a US territory. bottom line – shipping to canada, $20.00. shipping to guam $5.00. there's your answer.
I just bought this, based entirely on this post. I can't wait to get it yay yay yay yay yayayayayayayayyy
Uh oh, spam attack! add rel="nofollow" your links! (right…?)
Sold me on it! Now I'm just sad that I have to wait until May before it ships.
I just signed up for this too!!!! And then watched a bunch of youtube videos of people unpacking their birchboxes. I will have probably forgotten I signed up for this until it shows up in a month and then it will be like a surprise holiday!
I saw that you get extra "points" for referring someone. I can just sign up normal OR I can sign up and someone gets points. Anyone want to refer me?
I'll refer you!
Thanks! I tried to find you on twitter so I wouldn't have to post my email here but honestly my username is my full name, I"m not hiding anything. victoria.johnson@gmail.com
Wanna do me too? lauren.r.hayden@gmail.com
I subscribe to this! It is pretty awesome. So far I've gotten the Feb & March boxes and been pretty satisfied. In Feb. for V-day, they included a little tin of chocolate nibs and Nars Orgasm Illuminator. Also awesome face scrubs, mascara, etc. I got the same things as Adrianne in my March box but they do vary from person to person a bit. They don't actually customize the samples to you though, but hopefully they will in the future as their subscriber base grows.
I'm in too.
I've been doing this since I read an article about it in Fast Company. Great idea really taking upon the whole sample concept that was a major part in making Sephora big. Before them, people didn't know or didn't get the chance to pre-try a product or try several new products.
And as a designer, I cannot deny the lure of the excellent packaging choices!
So apparently I still don't know important things about Sephora and sampling products. Can you (or someone) explain what exactly the deal is? Is it just the free samples you get with an online purchase, or can I buy a regular item, take it home and try it, and return it if I want to? Because that would rock/cause me to spend so much more money at Sephora.
You can definitely return products that are opened to Sephora, provided you haven't like used half of it or something. A lot of drugstores will do that too, by the way – I know people who have returned products to Duane Reade after the first application gave them a rash or whatever.
Re: Samples specifically, yes, you get a pile of free samples with every order and if you sign up for the (totally free) Beauty Insider program, you get a large size sample or full size product when you amass enough points (full sizes start at 100 points). It's pretty cool actually.
You can also ask for a sample of just about any product in the store. They have lots of little jars and things to put creams and other products in. I've heard the sales people are actually supposed to give you like 3 every time you go in there, because they're supposed to be suggesting things/samples to you. It hasn't been my experience that they're jumping out of their skin to give you things BUT it is definitely their policy to give you samples if you ask. Like you could go in and say "I'm looking for a medium coverage foundation for my dry skin, I like a dewy finish and SPF" or whatever and ask to be color matched for 2 or 3 foundations that you will get a few days worth of sample for or whatever. They'll probably be more interested in doing this if you've already got a product or two that you're definitely going to buy already in your hand, but they should give it to you either way. From their perspective, they'd way rather you take a 1/2 teaspoon of a couple products for free, then decide you want to pay for it and continue to buy it over and over than either never buying something because you're afraid you won't like it or paying $40 for something, using it once, then returning it and having to throw it away. Sort of incredible more companies haven't caught on to this.
This is my problem with Sephora samples as well as Birchbox: I feel like they are going to send a bunch of skin-care regime stuff, and not enough of the fun color products. There seems to be a little of each in the Birchboxes so far, but you can see from Sephora's samples that beauty companies really prefer to give out their latest moisturizer or whatever. So I'm waiting for a while on a Birchbox subscription to see how that goes.
Are we still talking about this? If so: I signed up for Birch Box when I saw this, and when I filled out the little survey of my interests, was asked to pick which thing I would splurge on: skin care, hair care, trendy new colors, etc. So I'm hoping they take those answers into account when packing the boxes? No? Anyways I wish it would get here already!!!! ::sits on hands::