Carmine Beauty Box – February 2012

On my quest to get involved in the beauty box phenomenon, I signed up for a Carmine Box for the bargainous price of £5!

I already reviewed my first ever beauty box, the Glossybox, here so here’s what I thought of Carmine.

Carmine Beauty Box - Available here

Packaging

Like the Glossybox and all other beauty boxes I’d expect, the Carmine box does a great job on packaging.  The outer box is really funky although maybe not as luxe as Glossybox, but who’s counting? Inside, the actual box itself is really lovely. A sophisticated black matte box with the Carmine print on the inside and pink fil Carmine logo on top, once opened, revealed the signature black tissue paper, red satin ribbon, sticker and product card.

Contents

I received an Andrea Fulerton Nail Varnish in Julia (full size), Fratboy The Balm (full size), Daniel Sandler Eye Delight in Ice (full size), Diego Dalla Palma Lipstick in 42, White Glo Professional Choice whitening toothpaste and a bonus product, Yardley London Peony Fragrance.

Andrea Fulerton

I can’t wait to use this! Andrea is a respected celebrity nail technician and I’m expecting big things from this polish! I got the best colour I could have hoped for in this lovely pinky nude.   I love nude colours as they are so wearable for work etc but I think the collection is getting a bit too big! This is a full sized 5.5ml product, RRP is £4.99.

Andrea Fulerton at Superdrug

Frat Boy

This was previously included in a Carmine box last year, so I’ll assume that it was so popular that they brought it back! I’m glad they did, as I personally don’t mind if products are repeated (although you might if you were a regular subscriber). First impressions were that the packaging is just great. Very much like Benefit but even more retro. The product comes in a card outer case and holds an opening card blusher pan with a mirror on one side and the product on the other. The blush is a very pinky colour with a touch of peach. On my medium skin tone it looked quite nice, bit it looked even better on my paler skinned friend! This is full sized and I think retails at £13. Whilst trying to find the price of this I typed in Frat Boy on ebay, check out what comes up!

Official website for Frat Boy

Daniel Sandler

Already receiving great reviews on the internet, I haven’t tried this yet but it is meant to be really good. A loose powder, the colours are quite pale and shimmery and it suggests using them across the eyelid or mixing with water for a bolder colour. This full sized item retails at £10.25.

Buy Daniel Sandler Eye Delight here

Diego Dalla Palma

I’ve heard other people raving about this Italian beauty brand and it is apparently very well known. I love that these beauty boxes introduce you to brands you may not have heard of and potential wonder products, and that’s their biggest plus point in my opinion. Back to the lipstick, it’s the smallest size ever, a 1.5cm bullet and 4cm in total (I don’t believe I actually measured that). The consistency is really nice and creamy, it smells like vanilla and would be perfect for the handbag. I just happened to get an odd shimmering redish bronze colour which I’m not too keen on though.  The full sized product is about £20!

Official Diego Dalla Palma website

White Glo

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m really excited about using this toothpaste! I’ve been looking into buying something like this or professional teeth whitening in the last few months so this is good timing! It’s also a handy travel size which is great for packing in your overnight bag. The full sized product is about £4 from Boots and I think that includes a toothbrush and toothpicks too.

Buy White Glo from Boots here

Yardley BONUS

Most beauty boxes give you five samples, this month Carmine gave us six! This little vial of Yardley Peony is tiny at 1ml but smells surprisingly nice. I know that they’ve been doing a bit of a rebrand and big marketing push on Yardley so I wasn’t surprised to see it in there. I’ll reserve judgement on whether it can ever replace my favourite perfumes but there are quite a few other scents which I haven’t tried yet.

Yardley official website

Overall

I really enjoyed receiving this box and sampling the products inside. The nail polish is great and really wearable, the Frat Boy Balm is a very useable and useful product that I’m glad I was introduced to and the toothpaste is a real winner! I probably wont use the lipstick and the perfume will go to my aunt or mother but they are only tiny so I don’t mind. I probably won’t use the Daniel Sandler as the colour is touch too pale for my skintone, but overall I’m really happy with what I got. 

If you'd like to give it a try yourself, click here to take a look at how it works and sign up!