As much as I love buying makeup and skin care, as much as I love a good sale and hate to waste a coupon, I refuse to wake up at three in the morning just to stand in line for four hours waiting to score one of five super cheap TVs, Playstations or life-size Elsa dolls.  There may be a math problem in that sentence for someone, but it pretty much boils down to this:  if it involves pants, lots of waiting, and a possible bloody nose, I kindly bow out.  I haven’t Black Friday shopped once in my life.  That’s why the internet was invented, people.  Do you not know this?

Here’s my Birchbox:

First of all, they stuck a little piece of Vosges Pink Himalayan Crystal Salt Caramel in my box, and I almost didn’t get this picture taken before I discreetly and ladylikely inhaled it.  Ugh.  So delicious.  I will take a million of them, thanks.  It’s not a hard caramel either; it’s liquid – the kind where you have to tilt your head back to bite into unless you’d like a caramel trail oozing down your chin.  Not that I’m opposed to that or anything.  I can think of worse things oozing down your chin.  Hot pizza cheese, grease from a jalapeno popper.  Toothpaste foam.  My point is, eat this caramel.  It’s divine.

A beauty box wouldn’t be proper without the forever unwanted perfume sample.  Aside from that, though, enough with the Harvey Prince already.  Lordt.  I think I’ve received his entire scent collection by now.  Seriously, do a search on this blog and report back.  Pretty sure I’ve reviewed like 15 of them.  This time I got the Petaly Noir version.  It’s a Birchbox exclusive, so don’t even think of buying this somewhere else.  If you must buy this at all.

According to my research, this is a very, very feminine scent.  Notes are lily of the valley, jasmine, orchid, patchouli, sandalwood, amber, with slight hints of vanilla and musk.  It is mysterious, provocative, captivating.  Do you want this yet?  It’s also described as “insanely great” which sounds like someone lost their thesaurus at this point.  Or else they are trying to invoke a sexy mood, but then when you get right down to it, you laugh and laugh and ruin everything.  Can’t say that’s never happened to me before.  Anyway *blink blink* …

I’m happy with receiving the Derma e Evenly Radiant Brightening Cleanser because it’s targeted for people with uneven pigmentation, freckles, dark spots, and sun damage.  I have all those things.  I suppose I don’t mind the freckles so much, except my freckles are less cutesy and more splotchy.  They’re probably not even freckles anymore.  As my dermatologist said the last time I went and pointed out all these odd little spots on my face – oh yes, that’s typical of aging and yes, caused by aging and yup, you’re old-slash-aging.

I haven’t gotten a chance to use this yet as I’m currently working my way through something else.  But watch for it in an upcoming Empties post.  Are you excited? (Yes, you are.)

It’s safe to say I really loved the Royal Apothic Cuppa Cuppa Firming Tea Mask.  It’s a visual feast, for one.  The packaging is adorable.  You get 6 single-use tubes housed in a pretty little tin.  The mask itself comes out this luscious muted purple color.  Seriously, this could have been slug trail for all I know, but it’s PURPLE and therefore want it on my face.  I was quite surprised that the mask had a cool tingle effect that lasted the entire time I had it on.  At first I thought my face was going to fall off; I googled WebMD and he said everything was going to be fine.

The instructions say to use the entire contents of one tube and rub all over your face, neck and chest.  If you didn’t feel like all that, I know you could get a couple – maybe three – uses out of one tube.  And because the full size of 6 tubes is $58, I recommend it highly.  The product is supposed to work its magic in 8 minutes, so I set the alarm for exactly 8 minutes.  I appreciate explicit instructions and so should you.  Because I swear, if I read another “apply to eye area” I may scream.  What encompasses the eye area exactly?  Just under the eye?  Or can you add the lid, under the brow, and above the brow, too?  Or maybe a combination of under eye/under brow only?  Or perhaps just on the orbital bone?  And if that’s the case, would that be directly on the bone or just in the vicinity either slightly above or below the bone?  Yeah, nobody actually knows.

Once the timer went off, my mask wasn’t dry.  Not sure if it was supposed to be or not, but to err on the side of caution (and because the instructions told me to), I washed it off anyway.  My face felt very refreshed and smooth.  This was very much a spa-like experience for me.  All that was missing was a big fluffy white robe and little finger sandwiches.  I know I won’t buy the full size because I do feel like its kind of overpriced for the amount of uses you get.  Because y’all know I’m not opposed to pay $58 for a mask, but I’d like to be able to use it longer than (technically) six times.

Got this itty bitty baby theBalm Cindy-Lou Manizer highlighter/blush/eyeshadow all-in-one thingy. Not to be confused with the Mary-Lou or the Betty-Lou, the Cindy-Lou is a shimmery peachy pink meant to be worn pretty much wherever you want.  I tried it as a highlighter, and it is super duper subtle.  Nothing wrong with being subtle, but if I’m going to go through the trouble of applying highlighter, it bygod better show up.  Cuz I don’t add 27 steps to my morning routine for no reason.   I did not sample this as a blush or eyeshadow because I decided I didn’t want to.  I’m giving this to my daughter for her to enjoy.  But if you enjoy a subtle highlighter, then by all means, do.  It’s still a very pretty color.

Last item in the box is the Amika Nourishing hair mask.  Y’all know I’ve been loving and adoring my Carol’s Daughter Monoi hair mask, but I’m not opposed to trying different kinds.  I only got one use out of the sample they gave me so I can’t say anything regarding the long-term effects, but for the short term … ummmm, it smelled nice.  It was thick and creamy.  But when I was drying my hair, I felt like it was a little weighed down.  So perhaps it coated my strands in a little too much nourishment.  Can that even happen?  Can hair be too hydrated?  The tube says it will seal in my split ends, but I’ll just be honest with you: my hair texture has been pretty much the same for all eternity, so if I have a split end situation happening upon my head, I probably don’t even know.  My hair is poofy.  That’s about all I can say for certain.

Long story short, it’s not a bad mask for the right hair type.  I probably won’t buy it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.  If anything, the packaging would look cute on your counter.

And now for the weird, disjointed outro.  Maybe one day I’ll come up with some clever way to end my posts.  But for now, let’s just stick with awkward.  Bye!