Like cats, Steve Buscemi and baked goods - my love for beauty subscription services is very well known. I love everything
about them, like the samples, the brands featured, the occasional full sized product
and the fact that each month you basically get a present delivered to your
front door filled with products that would have been quiet expensive to try individually.
So during my nightly Internet searches,
which mostly consist of videos of pet crows (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVZDFYbIHiQ) I
stumbled across ‘The Parcel’. A new beauty subscription service, The Parcel
teams up with magazines to deliver the picks of your favourite magazine beauty
editors seasonally. But because it is seasonally, you only get this genius box four
times a year.
The Parcel have only released the Marie
Claire: The Spring Edit but have already formed a partnership with Girlfriend
magazine and hopefully will team up with every single other Australian
magazine, because the idea is the best thing since nipple tint. Not that I’m a nipple tint enthusiast, but
without it Benefit Cosmetics would not have existed.
So I signed up and waited very patiently
for my Marie Claire parcel to arrive, and when it did, oh boy was it worth the
wait because inside I found a wonderful range of high end products:
L’Oreal Elnett Satin Hairspray
Just as I’ve made my way through so many L’Oreal
products, especially the hairspray that sometimes haunts my dreams, I am
confronted again with another can of the Elnett Satin Hairspray. Like I’ve
stated previously this hairspray does amazing things (unfortunately it can not
make pan fried toasted cheese sandwiches) and provides great staying power. It came in a 75ml can, which is a great size for my purse and travels.
Benefit They’re Real Mascara and Push-Up
Liner
I am already obsessed with everything
Benefit, especially the They’re Real mascara, but for a strange reason I have
not yet gotten my mitts on the liner of the same name. The gel liner comes in a
wind up pen and aims to fit perfectly against the lash line. One of my best
friends even asked me to write a blog post on it and said I can borrow the one
she keeps in her car, but we kept getting distracted by the good looking
waiters at Outback Jacks to remember to retrieve it after dinner. But there is no need to now because there is a
generously sized sample of it in the Marie Claire Spring Edit as well as
enough mascara to last me a month. Bonza!
Pantene Pro-V Daily Moisture Renewal
Shampoo and Conditioner
People like to complain and my days as a
waitress can confirm this. Just jump on the Instagram account of fellow beauty
subscription service Bellabox and you’ve got some serious whiners complaining
about not so serious things, like the fact they always get shampoo and
conditioner in their sample box. People should be grateful for what they get
because there are bigger problems in the world and BSS is luck of the draw, so
suck it up. Me on the other hand? I freaking love getting Shampoo and
Conditioner because you get enough to last a week and get to try so many
different brands. So people need to stop complaining and wash their hair, which I did with this tonight before I wrote this post and the smell is
absolutely divine!
Lancôme Paris Visonnaire Advanced Skin
Corrector
With Lancôme being a scary expensive brand
with an even scarier and non-approachable counter at David Jones, I was pleased
as punch to find one of their serums in the box. With a retail price of over
$97 dollars to try the product full sized, I am peachy keen to try its mini and
more affordable twin. Visonnaire aims to correct wrinkles, pores and the skins
texture within six weeks once applied after cleansing morning and night. I'm always
a fan of skincare products and can not wait to pop this one on tonight.
Gwen Stefani by OPI Nail Lacquer in Push
and Shove
I love everything about Gwen Stefani. Her
hair, her porcelain complexion, her music (both No Doubt and L.A.M.B eras) and
the fact she is quite nifty at collaborating with great brands like OPI. This
full sized bottle of silver chrome nail polish is worth a sweet $19.95 and the
colour is pretty amazing. I’m always a sucker for pretty polish.
 |
| As swatched on my hand |
Revlon Colorstay Moisture Stain in 015
Barcelona Nights
Marketed as ‘not quite a lipstick nor a gloss’, Revlon Moisture Stain provides a
great pop of lip colour without the transfer problems of a lipstick or the
stickiness of a gloss. The colour is absolutely beautiful and one I can see
myself wearing everyday; and with a RRP of $25.95 which is essentially the cost
of The Parcel, I would say that is pretty amazing value.
Overall this BSS is pretty darn amazing.
The variety of different products and brands, as well as the inclusion of two
full sized products makes it an absolute winner. Marie Claire and The Parcel
have done a wonderful job but the only downside I can find to this is that it
will only be arriving on my doorstep four times a year. Would be a ten out of
ten if it arrived every month/week/day/hour or minute, but they can’t all be
winners can they?
You can find the wonderful poppets of The
Parcel right here: http://www.theparcel.com.au/
