Eight For A Wish

Today I got my second beauty box from Carmine! You can see my post about January’s box here!

Now, I didn’t like my first Carmine box as much as I did my first Glossybox, (see here,) so let’s see if their second box can improve on that.

Again, I really like the box-style. I prefer it to Glossybox, so that’s a bonus. It’s pretty hard to open, it’s the kinda box that kinda makes its own little suction thing but that’s okay! A little bit of wiggling and it comes open.
One thing that I’ve just realised about Carmine is that their leaflet they include which explains the products doesn’t tell you the cost of the full-size item, so I had to go out of my way to Google the full-size prices. Small issue I know, and maybe I’m a lazy blogger, but it’s annoying regardless.

Andrea Fulerton Nail Varnish in Matthew
Well this was a bitch to photograph. This polish is a creamy nude, but it has very strong pink undertones. There’s shimmer and when it catches the sun it shines a luminous pink/purple which was impossible for me to catch on camera, which really annoyed me. There’s a picture of the colours available on the leaflet and I got sent – in my opinion – the worst colour. They have a green/blue which I would love to try but no :( I hate boring nail varnishes. Oh well. It’s still fairly nice, and as a full size sample it’s worth worth £4.99. Eh. Nothing special.

Balance Me Super Moisturising Body Wash
Last time they sent me a small eye-oil-roll-on-thing from Balance Me which I said I won’t be using, so thankfully this time they sent me something from the company that I actually will use. This body wash smells looooovely and leaves my skin so, so smooth. Mmm. I like this. This is a full size sample, worth £8, and I intend to use every last bit of it. I’m thinking about getting the other one that they gave out as samples, if anyone has the Rose Otto version can you please comment and let me know how it is? Thanks!
There’s a discount code for 10% off their Super Mosturising and Rose Otto body washes if you type in CARMINEWASHES2012 at the checkout at www.balanceme.co.uk which expires 30th April 2012.

Yardley London – Peony
Oh dear. I have nothing good to say about this sample. Perfume samples don’t do it for me anyway, but this smells like old ladies. Carmine say, “This fresh, feminine fragrance captures the scent of the delicate peony flower and compliments it with delightful fruity notes and warm amber undertones. It’s as if Yardley London managed to take spring and put it in a bottle!” Nope. Old ladies. 1 ml sample, full size retails for £14.49. A pretty cheap perfume in my opinion and you can tell by the scent.

Diego Dalla Palma, Il Rosetto Lipstick in 32
This lipstick is quite nice. I’m not a lipstick person, if anything I’ll just use gloss, but this stuff seems quite high quality. I tried it out, it goes on very smooth and isn’t drying or sticky (I’m so sorry, ignore how dry my lips look, I have a problem with dehydration due to my headache tablets.) Sample size, full size retails for approximately £19.50.

SteamCream Steam-infused Skincare in Jane
A nice, full size sample of head-to-to moisturiser/body cream worth £10.50 from SteamCream here. First, I’m loving the packaging. Very cute and sturdy animal print tin, the lid doesn’t come off too easily but it’s also not too hard to pop off. Now, you guys are starting to figure out by now that I love the scent of lavender, right? Well, you should be. So naturally that’s the first thing I pick up when I smell it is the lovely lavender, which is wonderful for calming skin of all types. There’s also so cocoa butter, orange flower water, almond oil, jojoba oil and other essential oils blended in to this cream. It leaves a lovely soft feeling on the skin, I’m probably going to use this as a hand moisturiser above all else, as you can probably tell from the nail polish posts that my hands need a bit of love (when I’m anxious or unhappy I bite the skin around my nails, I KNOW it’s a bad thing to do, and also if I’m on wards and using alcohol gel all the time or washing my hands they become dry. Although the handwash from the Glossybox I reviewed should help that…)
Receive 20% off at www.steamcream.com with the discount code CARMINE20 which expires 30th April 2012.

White Glo Professional Choice Whitening Toothpaste
And, finally, a toothpaste? Well, I guess it counts as beauty so yeah sure, why not? The toothpaste claims that just a drop of the stuff will leave your teeth in mint (haha, I see what you did there,) condition. I tried it, and I have quite sensitive teeth, it did sting a little bit. However, I’m used to using Sensodyne Gentle Whitening toothpaste so using a non-sensitive formula is probably why. That said, there’s nothing wrong with the toothpaste itself, it’s not a gel-paste it’s just a plain old white paste, and when I run out of my current toothpaste I’ll probably give this one a go. But for now, nah. 24g sample, full size retails for £4.

Well. That’s the February Carmine box, what do you think? I’m still not too sure. I’ve got to say that Glossybox are now probably drawing with each other at the moment, though this box was better than the January Carmine box. I like the moisturiser and shower gel, they’ll probably get the most uses, the nail polish will likely sit in my collection amongst all of the others I own, the lipstick… Meh. The perfume? Lol, binned. And the toothpaste might get a use when I’m done with my current, but I won’t be casting aside my Sensodyne.

Regardless, it’s still a pretty decent box and you get a lot for just the £10 + P&P, so I’m still going to keep myself subscribed to Carmine in the hope that they bring out some even better stuff with their next boxes. For anyone interested in beauty boxes I would recommend trying Carmine out, even if it’s just for one box, because you do get a lot for your money, and the novelty of getting a mystery present through the post each month is something that makes me happy.