Memebox Wake Up Makeup: Unboxing & review

The past few Memeboxes I've received have been strong, very strong. So by the Law of Subscription Services In General, I was bound to end up with a dud sooner or later. Ladies and gents, I present Memebox Special #37, Wake Up Makeup.

Memebox kindly sent me this box for review, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this one was left sitting the warehouse because Memebox's makeup boxes don't tend to get such good reviews. I've personally had a mixture, but this one sadly falls into the "so close... but not quite" category.

If you haven't already heard me rabbit on about Memebox, they're a Korean non-subscription beauty box and online retailer who have taken the beauty world by storm of late. Their boxes are oddly addictive; for more information I refer you to their website here.

Let's see what they put in this particular box, shall we?

Royal Nature The Original Soothing Blemish Balm SPF30 PA++ ¦¦ Here we have a common or garden BB cream. This is formulated with lots of interesting extracts and smells pleasantly of lavender when applied. This gives a light coverage, and blends in nicely without going patchy. The colour matched my super pale skin well, and over time it wore well, not oxidising or sinking into pores. The only downer is that this has an SPF of 20, whereas on the card it's marked as 30. The higher the better as far as I'm concerned, but I suppose this will be a high enough SPF for wear during the British winter.

Bbia Downy Cheek in 02 Downy Peach ¦¦ This product did ok, actually. It's a lovely peach shade which blends very easily into the skin. It didn't emphasise my pores or stick to any dry patches, and didn't feel greasy on the skin either. This lasted reasonably well, although it did fade gently throughout the day. Nothing too serious. I'll happily keep using this. 

Cheek Room Two Color LipGloss in Wine & Nude Peach ¦¦ Has anyone else ever seen wine which is this particular vivid shade of pink?! No, me neither... So I'm not quite sure how they came up with the shade name. And who else is heartily sick of the Cheek Room Girl? Funnily enough, not all of us aspire to look like a scarily rendered Scarlett Johansson. Anyway, moving on to the product. I was all ready to hate it, given the packaging and the wild claims made on the card (long lasting lip stain, waterproof, smudge-proof, opaque colour, matte texture with a topcoat that gives a lacquered finish). However, the proof is in the pudding and I've actually been reaching for this fairly frequently. It does none of the things it says it will on the card, but is a nice, comfortable clear lip gloss to wear with little fuss. It doesn't taste weird and gives a super-subtle lift to the lips. 

It’s Skin Babyface Young Girl Gel Eye Liner in 02 Purple Black ¦¦ I think this was probably the worst thing I've ever received in a Memebox. Oh apart from that mix your own face colour thing that looked like it was for a 6-year-old. This is a two-part eyeliner containing a black and a purple. The black is about passable, although certainly nothing special and I found it difficult to get a crisp line with it, but the purple was a joke. It was dried out when I received it and the product had pulled away from the edges of the pot. It balled up, flaked and pulled on my skin when I tried to apply it and it's safe to say the result wasn't pretty. The black portion of the pot isn't good enough for me to save, so this is going in the bin. I may keep the brush. I'm still debating that one.

Shara Shara Creamy Dual Auto EyeStick in no.3 Celeb Burgundy ¦¦ Aha, another dual ended eye stick. Unfortunately, this suffered the same fate as the last one, in that the shadow end of the stick was pretty useless. I'm not normally a fan of pink eyeshadows, but this one looked alright just after application. I was all ready to change my mind, and then I looked back in the mirror and... it had disappeared. It was really that fast. There was just some gold glitter left behind to remind me that there had ever been any colour there at all. No good. And that was over a primer! The eyeliner, however, was a different story. This is an unusual burgundy colour, and unlike anything else I own. It applies well and stays on the lid throughout the day. The colour, being red based, does have the tendency to make me look a bit ill, but I think for people with a slightly more 'healthy' skin tone, this wouldn't be an issue. If I dress this up with other eyeshadows I think it could look quite pretty. So I'm looking forward to experimenting with the eyeliner end, but I kind of wish they hadn't bothered with the shadow end.

Shara Shara Glitter Pearl Powder in GL02 Bronze Gold ¦¦ Uh oh, more Shara Shara. So far, I'm not getting a great impression of this brand. I've received an eyeliner from them before, which was fine but nothing special, and here we've got two more products with limited appeal. This is a pot of glitter, basically. Nothing more sophisticated than that. The shade of glitter I received was quite nice, actually, and it's just down to my personal taste that I don't like to wear a lot of sparkle (and wow, does this sparkle). My issue with this product is that it's so hard to apply! The sponge applicator piles it on, and then it proves impossible to blend out. It just sticks obstinately where it was placed. Which, for such a loud product, is not a good thing. I can't imagine using this as a highlighter as suggested, unless two circles of glitter is a look now? Oh and let's not mention the packaging. What has a corset got to do with anything? Why can't we keep things classy around here (I'm looking at you, Cheek Room Girl)?

Cellbydate The Real Galacto Zero Essence ¦¦ This was a bonus product, and I'm pretty excited to use this. It comes in a nice looking frosted glass bottle, with tasteful designs on it (ahem). This is an essence to use after your toner, and I'm just about to run out of a sample sized essence so I'll be getting on to this shortly. It promises pH balancing, sebum balancing, moisturising, revitalising, soothing, and skin boosting effects according to the bottle, so we'll see! I'm pleased to have received this and here's hoping it lives up to its claims.

Left-right we have some of my trademark dodgy swatches for: Shara Shara Glitter Pearl Powder ¦ Bbia Downy Cheek ¦ It’s Skin Babyface Young Girl Gel Eye Liner ¦ Cheek Room Two Color LipGloss ¦ Shara Shara Creamy Dual Auto EyeStick

And bringing up the rear, here's the swatch for the BB cream. 

Overall, there were a couple of decent products in this box but most were duds or not something I'd choose to wear. I do think makeup Memeboxes are a complete gamble, not least because it's virtually impossible to put together a makeup box that everyone will love. Still, I have received better boxes and as for the theme, I'm not sure how whacking a load of glitter on your face before using three different eyeliners on it constitutes "wake up make up" but there we go. 

If there are individual products listed here that you think you'd like to give a go, I've linked to them in each header (these aren't affiliate links). A lot of the products are showing as out of stock, but Memebox have said that they will try to get frequently wishlisted items back in stock. 

If you're interested in purchasing a box or two, here are some codes which might help you:

1. $5 off any purchase over $30: 02JYH5*

2. $5 off on entire order when purchasing over 3 Memeboxes: MEMEBUNDLE3

3. $8 off on entire order when purchasing over 4 Memeboxes: MEMEBUNDLE4 

4. Free shipping on orders above $30 from USA SHOP: No code required 

5. Free shipping on orders above $70 from Memeshop: FREESHIPPING

6. 20% off any USA SHOP order: GIVETHANKS

Did you receive this box? What did you think of it?

-Rachel

The box reviewed in this post was provided by Memebox for consideration. However, I have bought Memeboxes by the drove since they started shipping to the UK and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Memebox to a friend. I'm solidly in love with the company as I'm sure you'll know if you've read my blog for any length of time!* denotes an affiliate link or code, if you'd like to use it then thank you for your support but please don't feel obliged to.