Too Many Target Beauty Boxes (Pt. 1): April 2018

Oh my god, let’s take this all the way back to April for a bit.

Every month Target releases at least one beauty box that ranges in cost from $5 to $10. Let’s be honest, they are usually pretty underwhelming and as a result, I only buy one that piques my interest every 2 to 3 months. The good thing about these boxes is that they are stuffed with items you can find in Target stores or online. The downside is that they are usually extremely generic products (so as to reach a wider audience) or just entirely underwhelming because they are not innovative in the slightest.

This is going to be a mega post of sorts, covering two boxes I purchased back in April and two I bought in July (after writing 6 pages in Microsoft Word I had to just break this into two different posts).

 ·The first April box was the Wakeup and Makeup box. Inside was:

• One Sonia Kashuk Brush Cleansing Wipe
• An ELF Beautifully Bare Blending Brush - Full Sized
• The ELF Beautifully Bare Face Palette - Full Sized
• Dove Dry Spray Invisible Sheer in Fresh - Full Sized 
• Dove Dry Shampoo in Coconut
• Covergirl Peacock Flare Mascara - Full Sized 
• Honest Beauty Refreshingly Clean Makeup Remover Wipes*

 *I linked to a similar product because the one that came in the box no longer exists on Target's website.

I felt like such an ass using the Sonia Kashuk Brush Cleansing Wipe. It’s a small, oddly oily wipe that you’re just supposed to swirl your brush on to. It did a great job of cleaning my blush brush but it dried out so fast that one wipe is good for one, maybe two brushes. The entire concept is just too wasteful for me, and I’m racking up garbage left and right through subscription boxes. 

The ELF Beautifully Bare Blending Brush is hands down my favorite item in this box. I need to replace my blending sponge so I’ve been leaning very heavily on this brush to blend out tinted moisturizers and correct mistakes when I over-rouge my cheeks. It’s a little shorter, but the stubbiness makes it easier to handle. Cue the flashback to my college dating life... I live how dense the synthetic bristles are, making it great for blending liquid or cream products. The oblong shape also makes me think it would work great for contour, a beauty technique I don’t even know how to begin to approach.

 

I enjoyed the short time I had with the ELF Beautifully Bare Face Palette but it was not an item I reached for often. The highlight shade wasn’t the best match for my skin tone, the deep blush looked amazing on my skin tone for an almost non-existent flush, and lighter blush shade did not show up on me at all. The lighter shade, highlighter, and bronzer were patchy and powdery as shit when either swatched or applied. My biggest complaint about this palette is the packaging itself. I love how pans can be popped out to mix and match colors between similar elf palettes to get a set that you dang but holy crap, the fingerprints on this quad are serious! Imagine a high school boy who lives off of porn has a chrome colored keyboard. It was pretty bad. I passed this on to my mother who promptly losses it by the end of the weekend. Yeah, I had some regrets after letting this little guy go.

I love nothing more than receiving deodorant in a subscription box. April’s box saw Dove Dry Spray Invisible Sheer. The scent, Fresh, just smelled like deodorant /shrug. I am ambivalent, leaning negative, toward spray deodorants; I worry about inhaling anti-persprint. It does roll into little pellets in my sweat pits by the end of the day but hey, at least my clothes don’t have white streaks? I’m actually working on this deodorant so I say “Well done, Target.”

I had to give away my sample of Dove Dry Shampoo. Nobody in this household has the hair for this kind of product and my mother-in-law just doesn’t care about things like that. Oddly enough, this didn't smell a thing like coconut. It was as if whoever formulated the scent had never heard of cocoa, nuts, or coconut. That's how far off it was. It smelled closer to the deodorant than it did anything coconut.

 

Covergirl Peacock Flare Mascara was alright for the five minutes that it lasted. It was almost a charcoal black, certainly nit the blackest black mascara that I’ve ever seen. The wand was made of the hard plastic molded spikes and application was uncomfortable without being outright painful. The formula was a bit clumpy for my taste. Two coats would become a bit dicey and I would risk having spider lashes with one ill placed swipe. The tube dried up so quickly that I was actually disappointed. It finally found its final resting place in a trash can at a Weezer concert in August.

Finally for this box is are the Honest Beauty Refreshingly Clean Makeup Remover Wipes. They weren’t great. So far I’m not too thrilled about the makeup end of that brand, sorry Jess. The wipes were a bit dry and pretty piss poor at removing makeup. And then there’s the scent! These wipes have the same scent as an Honest face wash I received from the second Target box. It’s. Heavy, disgustingly strong perfume scent that I would much rather not have on my face. Really, these wipes might make for better perfume sheets and dryer sheets than makeup remover wipes. And even then, I still prefer the scent of dryer sheets.

In summation: hey yeah! I got a brush and some deodorant! And I managed to go through a full sized tube of mascara.

 

The second April box was called the Treat Yourself Box, aka the Pre-Natal Flip the Fetus Box and it included:

• Bodycology Free & Lovely Coconut & Rose Body Butter 
• Luxe by Mr. Bubble Bath Meltaway
• ME!Bath Bath Bomb in Lavender
• Dr. Teal’s Pink Himalayan Foaming Bath
• Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Red Dahlia
• Olay Regenerist Whip
• Honest Beauty Refreshingly Clean Gel Cleanser*

 *I linked to a similar product because the one that came in the box no longer exists on Target's website

Bodycology Free & Lovely Coconut & Rose Body Butter was a lovely lotion that was very heavy handed with the rose scent, so beware if that’s not your thing. It left a slightly greasy feel though. I passed this on to my mom because I was drowning in lotions at the time, a decision I’ve come to regret as autumn rolls in.

My first flip-the-fetus bath involved Mr. Bubble. The meltaways had a distinctly soapy scent to them reminiscent of dishwasher pods crossbred with laundry pods. Directions say to use three per bath so the package had enough for one bath and let me say; these things took for freaking ever to fully dissolve. It did not contribute any or real scent or color to the bath but it was a subtle yet relaxing experience. The full sized packaging is cute though, and reusable.

 

The ME!Bath Bath Bomb was decadent. The tub turned lavender in color, the smell was amazing in the tub while being overwhelming at first sniff out of the package, and I don’t even like lavender scent. The bath bomb dissolved immediately and was so effervescent, and my skin felt great it was like taking a bath with the sexiest, largest tub of Alka-Seltzer ever. Hell, I almost enjoyed a bath! I wish I had more than one in this box. Definitely something to repurchase when I have a house with my own tub and more than one bathroom. On a comical note, I was stuck in the tub like a beached whale. My husband was on the phone with his out-of-state brother in the bedroom and I was unintentionally left to my own devices getting out of the tub at 38 weeks pregnant.

 

I ended up giving birth to Lily before I could get any use out of my Dr. Teal’s bubble bath, unfortunately and I am very particular about my bathing conditions. I did not get a chance to use it since my mother recently glommed it from me on her most recent visit. I am willing to bet it will never get used. Either that or it was lot in a hotel during her 2,000 mile drive back to home.

Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm is amazing. I received the shade Red Dahlia which turned out to be a buttery, mlbb (my lips but better) shade. I was worried it would be waxy and an ill-matched, warm-toned red but it is perfectly sheer but slightly pigmented. I love the texture too. My past experience with Burt’s Bees balms has been... unfortunate. I find the formula is often too waxy and unworkable you know, the archaic texture my husband would love. This however doesn’t feel at all like I just ran my lips along the inner combs of a bee hive. The application I so smooth with a satin finish and even, sheer tinting. Really it’s the ideal no makeup makeup lip product for a shitty, no maintenance day.

Olay Regenerist Whip was a surprise to me. The sample size was quite generously I had plenty of time to play with it. I love the powdery finish, I can even see it in the whipped texture, almost like a primer and it absorbs so well. I’ve actually used this as a primer/moisturizer duo to skip a step in my routine and I fared quite well. I felt moisturized and somewhat mattified without looking dehydrated. Look for a future update using this and three to four other Olay products. A bonus is that this is an anti-wrinkle product and SPF 25.

Ugh, there goes that Honest Beauty scent again, this time in the form of the Honest Beauty Refreshingly Clean Gel Cleanser. Call it ignorance but why do we have to call it a “gel?” By all means, it’s just a soap, correct? A surfactant, a micell, a detergent, an emulsifier with a hydrophilic head and hydrophobic tail. I can counter your soothing, natural words with my fancy scientific definitions. Hear me roar! Oh good lord, I forgot I had a purpose to this paragraph. So I did not care for this face wash. It was a heavily perfumed, very thin foaming cleanser. It didn’t create much foam and it wasn’t drying but it just wasn’t effective. I felt the layer of soap wash off but I never felt like it penetrates the dirt, oils and moisturizers I had on my face throughout the day. It was actually a bit of a chore getting through 30mL.

Left to right: Burt's Bees in Red Dahlia heavily swatched, Red Dahlia sheered out, ELF Palette

The Flip-the-Fetus box served its purpose. I realize I poo-pooed this box quite a bit but in all honesty, the only reason I purchased this box is because I knew I would spend a good chunk of time as a beached whale in a tub during late pregnancy. Plus I got a couple of good time saving mommy items out of it.