Birchbox Smeared in Burgundy Lip Butter :( February 2017 Unboxing

      There are two reasons this post is so incredibly late: First off my February 2017 Birchbox arrived damaged and my sample choice (a dark burgundy lip butter) had come apart and gotten over everything else in the box. Secondly, the day I received my Birchbox my father went in to the ER for emergency surgery having a cancerous mass removed from his colon that we know now has spread to his spine, lymph, and liver. Not trying to be a downer but it happened very fast (he's 59), no previous indication and he now has about two months to live without treatment. Hug your loved ones. On to this damned Birchbox!

Birchbox is a monthly beauty subscription service that sends you 5 beauty product samples for $10/month, here is my referral link if you’d like to try it out: Birchbox Sign-up. Use code STILASHADOW to get a FREE deluxe Stila Cosmetics Glitter & Glow Liquid Eye Shadow sample in Kitten Karma when you join OR use code REDHOT to get a free deluxe sample of Smashbox Cosmetics Be Legendary Liquid Lip Metal in Crimson Chrome (still valid as of 9/5/2017, while supplies last).

When I got the box, the outside was damaged but not too bad. I really didn't think there'd be any internal hits taken. Outer box had bent in corner, inner box looks pristine from the top (and a really lovely print).

Upon opening this not too cutesy heart & lip motif I was absolutely horrified.

OH. MY GOD. THE HORROR.

        I'm not proud but I have an aversion to sticky things, especially on my hands. I will go to great lengths to avoid having to touch things that are gooey, sticky, or have a residue. I wanted to throw the whole box away. My sample choice for this box, LAQA & Co. Avo Lip Butter in Ninza, was the culprit. They were out of my first pick for the sample choice so I decided to try the lip butter since I don't have a lot of lipsticks at this time. I have all the regrets. The tube for the lip butter is super thin and crappy, not surprised in the least it came loose and ravaged the other items during the long transport up to Alaska. There is a few uses left for this lip butter (the picture below shows it twisted all the way up), but the stick is all misshapen so I'm not sure it's worth the time of having to fix uneven application. I went and looked at the reviews for the butter on the Birchbox site and apparently MANY arrived broken and/or damaged. Figure out how to send lipsticks guys, people have been doing it for longer than most of us have been alive.

Once I got the courage to take the items out of the box and attempt to clean them off I was severely disappointed. The second item in my February box is Davines SŪ Hair & Body Wash (2.5 oz). I rarely use the hair product samples. The only saving grace to this one is that it is a body wash too. I will take it to the gym. The third item is another hair product, sigh, Oribe's Crème for Style (.5 oz). Nope, not gonna use, don't give two squats about.

My next product is Prescriptives Camouflage Cream in Warm Medium 04 (.24 oz). This is the one product in here that I am happy with. It's a bit on the lighter side for me but it's close enough to work I think and I would only be using it to cover small spots like pimples and hyper-pigmentation. After searching for it on eBay to find the value of the sample size, it looks like this shade is on the more expensive side with a full size going for about $50 (.5 oz tube) . The sample size is .24 oz so that's a really nice amount of product!

The last sample in my February Birchbox is a CLEAN White Woods Eau de Parfum (1 ml). Damn it Birchbox, please make the maximum fragrance samples 3x/year not 6. I hate, hate, hate perfume. I would so much rather have a teeny, tiny body spray sample than a stupid vial of nasty fragrance.

The product card, like the box; lovely from the top, smeared in lipstick on the bottom.

       














          My February 2017 Birchbox contained a total of 5 items: LAQA & Co. Avo Lip Butter in Ninza ($5.50 value),  Davines SŪ Hair & Body Wash ($6 value), Oribe's Crème for Style ($7 value), Prescriptives Camouflage Cream in Warm Medium 04 ($25 value), CLEAN White Woods Eau de Parfum ($3 value) for a total sample value of $41 after subtracting the value of the ruined lip butter. This was my most disappointing Birchbox ever, still a good value for the box but only due to that Prescriptives Camouflage Cream being not only something I will use but a pricey item.

As with most of my Birchboxes there are hair products and perfume which I am not going to use. I will use the body wash (really a hair product tho) and the concealer, and unfortunately there is not much to be done with the lip butter. I did contact customer service, this was the reply when I told them the box had arrived with the lip butter damaged

Roberto (Birchbox) Mar 1, 5:34 PM EST Hi XXXXXXX, Thanks for your reply! Thankfully all your samples are in tact & the product inside them are not damaged! I'm so sorry to hear about the issue with the LAQA & Co. Avo Lip Butter sample! I'd love to send you a replacement, but we no longer have this sample available. I'll be adding 50 Birchbox Points (good for $5 in our Shop to your account in compensation. Your Points balance will update within 3 business days. We're so sorry we weren't able to replace this product for you to try and hope your Points go toward something you love. Learn more about Birchbox Points and your current balance here. Thanks so much for your understanding, and please don't hesitate to reply here with any further questions or concerns. Have a great day! Roberto

The $5 in Birchbox points is totally fine compensation. What I did not like is that the email started with telling me that all my samples were intact when they CLEARLY were not.

Don't doublespeak me Roberto!

Did you get the butter, if so was it damaged? What compensation were you offered for this or another damaged item?

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