January 2018 Target Best of Boots Beauty Box Review

Ugh, I thought I was done with the interminable month of beauty boxes that was January but no, there’s still the January Best of Boots TargetBeauty Box. I can make this really succinct: there was more than just skincare? Meh to that! Sorry for the shoddy review here but that’s about how excited I was after I was after I opened the box and saw what was inside. I think I was just initially salty because I was so excited when I ordered this box, nearly bursting with anticipation and the letdown when I opened it and saw the actual contents and sizes was palpable. I’ve had a couple of months to get over it but writing this just made my eye twitch at the memory. As I upload this I realized I have gone through many of the products that I've mentioned and I've also lost the pictures I had stored on my phone of them. This is both embarrassing and infuriating and I sincerely apologize for this faux pas.

Soap & Glory Pillow Plump Lip Gloss - $4.80

Soap & Glory Righteous Butter Body Butter - $2.34

No. 7 Restore and Renew Serum - $5.44

No. 7 Airbrush Away Primer - $6.60

Sleek MakeUp Eyeshadow Pallet - $3.09

Botanics Shine Away Clay Mask - $4.00

The Soap & Glory Pillow Plump Lip Gloss was alright. The shade was more bubblegum pink than I would ever gravitate towards but at least it is sheer enough that I can actually wear it in public without too much fuss. The pumping effect is very mild. It is barely noticeable to me and nobody else has noticed any effect on my lips. I can feel the plumping irritants working though. It takes about 5 minutes to feel the full effect and even then it’s a mild warming sensation that isn’t painful in the slightest. I’m looking at you, Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme. I almost forgot to mention that it has a very sweet flavor and smells like chocolate cupcakes.

Soap & Glory Righteous Butter Body Butter is a highly perfumed body cream in a tub that leaves a pretty heavy residue behind (hell, it works on the bump though). While I find the (rose?) scent to be a bit daunting, this lotion does prove to be effective on the baby bump at night after a shower. I prefer using it on my legs though, that’s where most residue forming creams and lotions end up being purposed. Unfortunately my husband loves the scent so I have to lotion carefully lest I want to put out a mating call to the bull.

My first encounter with the brand No. 7 was the Restore and Renew Serum. I had no complaints. It blended into the skin very well, left me feeling hydrated, had no ridiculous scent. It wasn’t my favorite serum, that title might go the L’Oreal Revitalift, but really I have no qualms with it. I feel like I did manage to kill it off in record time though.

No. 7 Airbrush Away Primer was my favorite item in this box and I’m actually still using it. It is a white primer that is hydrating while maintaining that silicone, pore filling texture. I’ve found maybe two other primers so far with this nearly perfect texture and consistency. Here it is, early April and the tube is maybe half gone. To be fair, I haven’t been wearing base makeup fir a while now as time is a factor.

The most disappointing item in January was easily the SleekMakeUp Eyeshadow Pallet in the shade When the Sun Goes Down. I already started off irritated with the comically long color way name where “dusk” or “sunset” could have sufficed but then hey, I’m not the marketing team. The term pallet is used very loosely here. The dots of eyeshadow are smaller than a dime. The colors were powdery with little pigment payoff and difficult to swatch on my skin, the pans too small to even get an effective finger swatch, let alone fit a brush in there. Lastly, there was very little, if any, variation in may of the shades, just multiples of the same brown hue. This got passed on apologetically to someone very quickly that it barely survived the switching phase.

The second most disappointing item in the box was the BotanicsShine Away Clay Mask. So the packaging states “shake well,” which I did. While shaking there was just an unsettling sloshing sound of the separated liquid (the Micro nerd in me almost said supernatant), and we’re talking some pretty fierce shaking. This mask was so watery coming out that it made application extremely difficult. It just kept running through my fingers into the sink without resistance. The plus side: it dried very quickly. The obvious downside was that there was a lot of wasted product. When I finally got down to the dregs one day in the shower I tried to squeeze the tube and was stymied by a huge clog. Apparently I didn’t shake hard enough. My husband then tried, give up, and threw the tube in the trash out of frustration. I’m not one to try to duck around with scissors in the shower. If my showers require tools then that is just a step too far. On the bright side, it dried very quickly due to the consistency. By tie time I could start applying the mask to another section of my face, the previous section would already be dry. I’d say maybe 2 minutes total of dry time. It left my face feeling tight, which didn’t actually bother me since I just ended loading up on serum and moisturizers afterward. I didn’t notice any pore clearing though. Bioré is my best friend for that task.

Swatches of the Sleek MakeUp pallet and Soap & Glory Pillow Plump gloss (flash)

Swatches of the Sleek MakeUp pallet and Soap & Glory Pillow Plump gloss (without flash)

Looking back, I hate the No. 7 box slightly less than I remember, but goddamnit, some of the products were so disappointing *coughSleekcough* that it overpowered the good that I saw by way of the primer and serum and hell, why not the body butter. Those three items make up for the cost of the bid but I mean, come on, try just a little harder, Target.