It’s been a while since I’ve unboxed any beauty subscription boxes but I have a Beauteque’s August Beauty Box to share with you. This month is the cutest theme, “But First, Brunch.” I love eating and I love skincare, so why not have my skincare look like my favorite brunch items? This was a PR gift and if you use CECI25 at checkout, it’s 25% off your first month if you wish to subscribe (I get no commission). The BB (Beauty Box) will have 6 full sized items every month and the more months you subscribe, the better the deal. Beauteque also has a Mask Maven monthly subscription that features 9 masks as well! It’s essentially a mystery box but they’ll reveal 3 items every month if you’re curious.
The August Beauty Box contains:
- The Saem Body Lotion in Apricot (retails $12.99)
- Mise En Scene Perfect Serum Treatment (retails $15)
- Saresmin Perfect Solution Serum (retails $8.99)
- Skin7teen Caffe Latte 3-Step Mask (retails $5.99)
- Baviphat Liptone Lip Tint in Rosewood (retails $7.99)
- Sandepin My Honey Clean Sponge Cookie (retails $6.99)
Beauteque BB Pricing and Shipping
The whole box totals $57.95 in value! The Beauteque Beauty Box subscription is priced cheaper per box if you sign up for more months. The lowest tier at $24/box already gives you major savings.
Beauteque BB Prices and more info here:
- Billed Monthly @ $24/box
- Pre-Paid for 3 Months @ $24/box (pay $72 upfront)
- Pre-Paid for 6 Months @ $23/box (pay $138 upfront)
- Pre-Paid for 12 Months @ $22/box (pay 264 upfront)
- All subscriptions renew automatically at the end of the term; renewals are non-refundable.
- Don’t forget to add shipping on top of these prices; it differs for each country
- USA is $3.95
- Canada is $6.95
- Check here for your country
Bonus! There is always a free gift for signing up, check out https://www.beautequemonthly.com/beauty_box to see what the gift is and what the code is (it changes every month). Caveat that if you redeem for the free gift, you won’t be able to use my code, CECI25 for 25% off your first box.
Quick First Impressions & Thoughts
The Saem Body Lotion in Apricot (retails $12.99)
The Saem is a very under-rated road shop brand. I actually really like their harakeke toner in the red bottle. They also make some nice makeup and I go into more depth with my store visit post in Chinatown. The apricot lotion runs actually a little drippy, it will slide down when held vertically. I prefer to put this body lotion on my dry legs and not my hands. There’s this residue that feels draggy on the palms of my hands that I’m not crazy about. Not my favorite body lotion. It contains olive oil, sunflower seed oil and jojoba seed oil, full CosDNA list here. Oddly enough, there’s no urea on the list which is usually a common lotion ingredient to enhance absorption.
Mise En Scene Perfect Serum Treatment (retails $15)
Mise En Scene can be found at popular Olive & Young in Korea. Olive & Young is like an Ulta where it is a quasi-drugstore/Sephora selling luxury makeup and cosmetics. I already use the hair serum and it has worked wonders to my hair. I didn’t pick up this conditioning treatment in Korea because I didn’t have room in my luggage. This was finally meant to be! The conditioner is a thick yellow color and I emphasize THICK. It does a great job in putting back moisture in my hair and it makes it smooth too. I tend to put it in the middle to ends of my hair because it’s way too thick for the roots unless you work in some water and massage it thoroughly. Star Ingredients are shea butter, olive oil, argan oil, coconut oil, apricot, camphor oil, seaweed oil and jojoba seed oil. Full ingredient list here. On my leaflet, Beauteque’s tip is to wear a shower cap to let the steam aid in product penetration!
Saresmin Vitamin Solution Serum (retails $8.99)
I never heard of this brand before but Saresmin is indeed made in Korea. This serum is in cool fake syringe where it dispenses the serum in about 5 uses – 1ml for face AND neck. While this seems really cool to use, the syringe is actually VERY sensitive and it shot out 2 uses. The packaging warns you to gently push it out and I was mindful of it but it still shot out! There is a total of 5ml in the syringe and there are clear markings on the outside. I like how there is a cap on the end so you can store it without worrying about it getting dirty or leaking. Main ingredients are niacinamide and Vitamin B3. Other ingredients are pine needle extract, grapefruit extract, safflower extract, rose damascena flower extract and chrysantheum flower extract. The packaging says “oriental herbs and white flower plants,” the rest of the ingredient list has more floral extracts which are always good in my book. The serum was a spreadable gel and absorbed pretty well, even though I had accidentally squirted out about 2 ml (with some ending up in the sink). Honestly, this serum felt like sheet mask essence bottled up in a syringe so it’s good if you don’t like sheet masking! Since you can get 5 uses out of it, it’s actually cheaper than buying 5 sheet masks (unless you’re looking at $1 sheet masks)!
Skin7teen Caffe Latte 3-Step Mask (retails $5.99)
Drink up, skin.
A 3-step mask meant to treat your T-Zone and U-Zone uniquely since these areas of face produce oil differently or need more hydration! This isn’t your typical 3-step mask because there are two different packets of essences to pamper your T and U-Zone and then a sheet mask is used to sandwich all the goodness into skin to maximize absorption! For those not familiar with the different “zones” of your face, the T-zone is your forehead and nose where it’s probably oilier and more prone for pimples to pop up. Your U-Zone is your cheeks, jawline and chin (can you imagine the U-shape now?).
- T-Zone: This essence is supposed to tighten pores and give it an “ice” feeling. It has witch hazel which helps combat acne and pimples. CosDNA here.
- U-Zone: This is a milky essence meant to hydrate your parched cheeks and jawline. There’s also Vitamin E, betaine, and allantoin that are skin-conditioning ingredients. CosDNA here.
- Sheet Mask: Bring it all together by placing a sheet mask to help the essence absorb deeper. Main ingredients are sodium hyaluronate (an essential skin-plumping ingredient), coffee arabica, ginseng root ferment filtrate, soybean ferment filtrate, saccharomyces (potato extract ferment filtrate), cerminde and betaine. Being that this is a brunch theme, it was chosen for its coffee ingredient. The caffeine in coffee has antioxidant properties and it can have a constricting effect, which can help improve the look of redness. CosDNA here.
Urban City (Baviphat) Liptone Lip Tint in No. 5 Rosewood (retails $7.99)
Love the tint. Hate the smaller bottle neck.
Forgive the confusing brand name of this cosmetic brand (they are also known as Urban Dollkiss). I’ve started to see this makeup brand cropping up in CVS here in NYC! I have to say that I don’t have the highest opinion of them in regards to their shitty sheet masks but let’s start fresh with their makeup! Obvi this was chosen because of its adorable apple shape and smell. The tint is a very gorgeous soft red shade. You can keep it on as one layer or keep layering to build it as a deeper red. I like swiping on 3 layers because I can still see my lips if I don’t layer it on. It’s NOT an all-day, it-never-budges-lip tint. This doesn’t last through my morning coffee and it will keep the slightest tinge of color so I don’t look dead at work. It’s an ok lip tint. My only gripe is the small opening – it’s too damn small! I first noticed it when the brush had a bit of difficulty pulling out (haha) of the hole (haha). I was scared that the entire doe foot was going to break off and get lost inside the bottle. The bottleneck just needs to be made a tad wider.
Sandepin My Honey Clean Sponge Cookie (retails $6.99)
In the Beauty Boxes, Beauteque will include one tool that will be counted as one of the full sized items in the box! Thanks to an Instagram follower, I was told that this beauty tool is a “dupe” for the popular Face Halo makeup-washing fibre cloth. It looks the same-ish using a fibre-like material and a black trim with a tab made for hanging. I had to look up what a Face Halo was but it was popular because it claims to ONLY USE WATER to take off your makeup. WUT. First, I think that’s kind of gross and secondly the fibre itself would eventually start breeding bacteria from being wet and soaked in your face grim. I don’t see the need to buy a tool when all you need is cleansing oil and your hands, no cotton pads need to be used during cleansing! Anyway, this Sandepin one says that product is needed in combination with water so it’s not trying to make any claims that you don’t need water. For fun anyway, I tried it with just water on half my face and after swiping with a micellar water-soaked cotton pad, it still had traces of foundation on it – as expected. It’s a very squishy cloth but I really don’t see a need for one more thing to hang in my bathroom when a proper double cleansing routine already does the job of removing makeup, dirt and oil.
Comment!
Does this box excite you? Which items do you think you would have liked?
even though I didn’t like everything in the box, it’s still a very good value for the items I do like.
