Look Fantastic Beauty Box September 2017 – Unboxing and Product Reviews

I said this many times but it is important, once again the Look Fantastic box still manages to be the first to arrive out of all four Beauty Boxes I subscribe to (Birchbox, Glossybox, Look Fantastic and Cohorted), way ahead of the others (sometimes even a week +). Great job Look Fantastic.

Since it is Look Fantastic’s birthday month, the September’s Look Fantastic Subscription Beauty Box was a “Birthday edition” theme. As cheesy as it might sound, I was actually quite excited about this theme, as it made the box feel a little extra special. And it didn’t disappoint! It was for sure, more special than other months.

The box was very beautiful too. It is a turquoise box with a white lid that has shiny, silver stars that catch the light and change colour. At the top of the lid it says “The Birthday Edit” and “Look Fantastic” written in silver and turquoise respectively. It looks special and it feels special. Look Fantastic definitely hit the birthday theme with this design.

This month’s quote inside the box, under the lid, was “A whole year more beautiful”. A very lovely quote that fits the theme like a glove.

This month the box contained 8 products (1 more than usual) and the two monthly magazines that always accompany this box, a small Beauty magazine and a travel size, full version of ELLE magazine. Good value for money as always.

From left to right, the products were: a hair mask, a moisturiser, a brush, a contour stick, a lolly, an eye shadow palette a cleansing cloth and a cleansing balm.

So let’s dive in a little more deeply into how each product performed after a week’s use. Bear in mind that these are my personal opinions and as beauty is a very personal thing, we all have different skin, beauty requirements and biological build which can influence things. What worked for me might not work for you and vice versa. If you tried any of these please leave your comments below!

 

Christopher Robin Cleansing Volumising Paste

This is a French product, a hair mask, that you are meant to use after your shampoo or conditioner, on wet hair. Thankfully, unlike a lot of other hair masks, you don’t need to wait around the shower for 5-10 mins, this one is a massage and rinse one! That’s a major plus in my eyes. I always hate waiting in the shower.

The packaging is just a plastic, small tub but it feels quite sturdy. The branding is very simple and presentation wise, the tub has an overwhelming amount of text. I’m not sure if it looks like a hair mask but it doesn’t look like anything else specific either.

The actual product is a brown paste that looks like…honestly the most accurate description is poo. It doesn’t look very appealing at all but thankfully it smells really nice and so it doesn’t end up being too off putting. The smell is sweet and cosmetic, a bit like a floral cream.

The most amazing thing about this hair mask though is the transformation of the formulation. I am a chemist and even I was impressed. This poo looking brown paste almost instantly transforms into the most gorgeous silky, smooth, white foam when you work it in your hair. It feels amazing, smells nice and your hair feels great.

It definitely gave my hair volume even though my hair is fairly thick and unruly. What is even better though is that the volume was fairly natural looking and not crazy puffy. This product definitely works, so if you struggle with volume you might want to give this one a go.

It is paraben, silicone, SLS and colorant free and is suitable for coloured hair too. SCORE = 9/10.

 

Decléor Hydra Floraal Anti-pollution Hydrating Gel-Cream

This is a face moisturiser that you can also use as a make up base and it is meant to protect against pollution. Unfortunately though, the tube came without it’s original packaging and so I have no idea what the ingredients are, meaning that I cannot tell you if the formulation would truly give you a good make up base or pollution defence. But, let’s be positive and assume it will.

The tube is a fairly standard, plastic one but it feels sturdy. I love that is is intensely yellow, even though it reminds me of sun creams. The white cream smells pleasant and it has a typical cosmetic cream smell. It gets absorbed fully and easily and it leaves the skin feeling smooth and hydrated.

I wish I could see the ingredients so I know if it would work for my oily skin too. After using it, I felt that I was a little more oily than when I use my oil control moisturiser (Esteé Lauder DayWear Matte Oil Control Anti-Oxidant Moisture Gel Cream) but it wasn’t too bad. I wish it had SPF or I could read the ingredients to see if there are any SPF actives in there!

I won’t be replacing my Esteé Lauder cream but it was a nice one to try for sure. SCORE = 7/10.

 

Look Fantastic Unicorn Eye Shadow Brush

This is a special, limited edition unicorn eye shadow brush that Look Fantastic created for their birthday box. It is an amazingly nice and sweet touch and it fits the colour scheme and general scheme very well.

The brush looks beautiful and it is of very good quality. I would use it as a packing brush, to pack on the colour on the eye lid or even under the eye to place or smudge a line. These days everyone uses brushes differently, so if you have a different use for it, even better. It shows how versatile the brush can be. It is soft and it washes well.

It was a very good idea to include a birthday, collectable brush especially when there is an eye shadow palette in the box as well. SCORE =10/10.

 

Illamasqua Mini Contour Gel Sculpt in Silouette

I was very excited when I saw this item, I may have even screamed a little. I’ve been literally trying out every single contour stick out there, the past month, and this was the last one left! I’m very glad that I got to try it from this box and I didn’t have to buy a full size of it.

The reasons why I desperately wanted to try this are:

(a) there aren’t many contour sticks out there (only a few companies make sticks, some don’t even make contour kits at all) and if you have large pores, they are your best friend because you don’t need to use a brush to apply them (like you would with a contour palette – the bristles of a brush can uncover your pores) and therefore instead of uncovering the pores you spent 10 minutes hiding, you just glide the stick and work it in with a beauty blender

and

(b) the few contour sticks that do exist, are almost all brown-orange type of colours which is beyond me why beauty companies think that is what we would want. Maybe it’s just me but I definitely don’t want to look orange, I prefer either a cold brown colour that will look like a shadow on the face (=true contour colour) or a bronzer type colour that will give me a proper brown or sun kissed brown colour.

This contour stick is one of the very few that looks like a proper brown colour. Unfortunately though, this product was very disappointing. This contour stick is indeed a true brown colour and even though it looks scarily dark as a stick, it does not swatch that dark. You can control the intensity of the colour by the amount of types you swatch it over, see picture.

 

The only problem is, it is streaky. It falls into pores or lines or skin imperfections and it stays more pigmented in those areas even after you blend it. See picture. I thought it might work better on the face, over foundation and after I hid all my pores etc but unfortunately it was patchy there too. I ended up looking like I have some kind of dirt or break out because it was patchy instead of an evenly coloured area.

I am very sad and disappointed as I really, desperately wanted to like this. On the plus side, it smells very nice. It’s a cosmetic cream meets a dish washing liquid type of smell but it is fairly pleasant.

The packaging is sleek and even though it’s just thin plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap. There is a colour name for this contour stick, “Silouette”, which made me think that there might be other colours to try but I couldn’t find them anywhere, not even on the Illamasque website. I think they only have one contour stick which is strange because even if it worked for me, it wouldn’t work for all skin tones. Or perhaps it would because you can adjust the intensity of it. Hm…

Anyhow, I am quite disappointed with the unevenness of the application, even after blending but I am still trying other ways to make this work. SCORE = 7/10.

 

Lolly Elderflower Flavour

According to the Look Fantastic Beauty Magazine “a sweet celebration deserves something sweet”. Well couldn’t agree more!

Love that they included a lolly in this birthday box, it is definitely another small but sweet touch and I love that it even keeps the colour scheme.

I haven’t tried it yet, just didn’t fancy a lolly these days but I will definitely enjoy this sometime soon. Great little touch. SCORE = 10/10

 

 

 

 

Hikari Full Size Eye Shasow Quad In Tonya

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but there is something extra special about receiving eye shadow palettes in beauty boxes. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t happen often so it feels more special. Whatever the reason, I was very excited to receive this.

To me it looks like a small, travel size or sample size palette but apparently, according to the Look Fantastic beauty magazine info, it is a full size palette. Some companies do smaller palettes so it might be true. However, this means that the fact that you would struggle to create a full look out of this palette alone, makes it a punishable offence! If it was a small sample palette you wouldn’t expect all the colours to be cohesive but if it is meant to be a stand alone product, then you would!

Before we get to the colours thought, let’s talk about the packaging first. It is a simple, plastic palette that feels very light and cheap. It makes plastic, squeaky noises if you hold it or press it tight (=cheap) and it doesn’t have a groove to put your finger or nail in, in order to open it. This means that every time you want to open it you have to put a fair amount of force into it and so you end up digging your fingers or nails into the eye shadow pans when you actually manage to open it. See picture! I recommend holding it from the sides with your fingers pointing away from the palette tins so you don’t end up landing in the eye shadow pans, like I did, 3 times.

The eye shadows don’t smell of anything. There are no eye shadow names so I labelled them as 1-4, in order to match them to the swatch colours. With the exception of number 1, the bone-skin colour, the rest were beautiful but still fairly subtle. They all blended easily and lasted for hours (I used an eye shadow primer). The colours did fade though after a few hours but there was no creasing or anything bad in the look. Just slightly less intense/faded. You could create a look out of 1,2 and 4 but I wasn’t so sure about what to do with 3 even though I really like the colour. Colours  1 and 2 are matt where 3 and 4 are shimmers.

Anyhow, it is not a complete palette in my eyes but even though the shadows are only made of a handful of ingredients, they are surprisingly of good quality. This palette came in its original outer packaging which was a very nice touch. SCORE = 7/10

 

Eve Lom Cleanser and Muslin Cloth

According to the Look Fantastic beauty magazine, this is the world’s most desired cleanser which is strange because, I never heard of it.

Anyhow, it is a balm cleanser with literally a texture of a balm, a waxy solid that melts into your fingers, from your body heat, into an oily liquid that you can apply all over your face and neck. I didn’t expect this to work very well but surprisingly it worked perfectly. After you put it all over your face you are meant to wet the cloth that came with it, with warm water, and wash the balm off.

It cleaned a full face of make up completely with not a single trace of make up being left behind. It didn’t make my skin oily or dry. It just worked perfectly.

The cloth looks like any normal cloth, nothing special but has a Eve Lom tag on it. To be honest, the cloth felt a little harsh on the skin, even though my skin is not sensitive or thin, and this was actually the only negative I can think of from the experience. It wasn’t painful or anything really bad, just felt a little harsh but perhaps this could be seen as a partial “exfoliation” step.

This is meant to be suitable for all skin types and skin concerns. I definitely liked it a lot, it cleans much more thoroughly than a lot of cleansers out there. It is a little annoying though that you have to have the or a cloth around and then clean the cloth and hang it to dry every time. It’s an extra hustle step that you don’t have with other wet face cleansers. If you don’t mind that then this is a very good cleanser for sure. SCORE = 9/10.

 

Overall, this month’s box was easily the best Look Fantastic box I ever received. They hit the mark with the theme and the products contained felt special too. I wish they put that much effort and attention to all their boxes because if next month’s box is like any of the previous ones, it will almost definitely be a downgrade. 

Initial box score, in terms of products and first feelings = 10/10

Overall box score after product testing (a sum of product scores) = 8.4/10

Star product = The Look Fantastic Unicorn Eye Shadow Brush scored a 10 but since it is a Look Fantastic limited edition product I thought it’s only fair to also pick another one. The Eve Lom Cleanser and Muslin Cloth worked amazingly well.

 

Did you get this month’s Look Fantastic box? What did your box contain? What did you think of the products? Have you tried any of the products listed? Let me know your experiences!

For general subscription box reviews see the: Birchbox, Glossybox, Look Fantastic and Cohorted general review posts. For help on how to choose the right subscription box for you check out “Which Subscription Beauty Box is right for you?”.

I am not affiliated with any company or brand. These are my views and experiences.

 

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