Birchbox Customer Appreciation Day

Inside the Birchbox store

Yesterday, in honor of its fourth anniversary, Birchbox held its first Customer Appreciation Day.  What does that mean, you ask?  It was actually pretty sweet.  Birchbox made in-person deliveries across the country to people who were "nominated" (i.e. entered into the contest).  I sadly was not one of the lucky recipients, but judging from their Facebook pictures, it looks like Birchbox showed up to deliver tote bags (not sure what, if anything, was inside), flowers and balloons, which I think is super sweet.  They also notified a bunch of people that they would be receiving Birchbox treats in the mail - yet again, I was not one of the lucky ones.  Thankfully, for those of us who were not lucky enough to get treats delivered to us but who are lucky enough to live in or near NYC, anyone who stopped into the Birchbox Soho store got to put together a free Birchbox to take home.  How could I say no to that?

BYOB: Build Your Own Birchbox!

So I pushed out of my mind the fact that I would have to be late to work (the store doesn't normally open until 10:00 am, and today they didn't let people in until around 10:15 am) and made my way over to Soho, and thought I'd share a bit of it with you guys who couldn't make it.

This was the first time I've made it to th Borchbox store, but it's really nice! It's a very clean, modern looking space and they had it decorated with balloons and gold confetti on the floor.

There are little stations with vanity mirrors in the middle where products are laid out to try, and then there are also products lining the walls and organized by category and need, like this skincare wall which has a section for oily and acne prone skin, among others.

Sadly since I was already late for work I didn't really get to stick around and explore the offerings, so I made a beeline for the build your own Birchbox station (as did everyone else).

So many Birchboxes!

The first thing you do here is pick your box color, then you get to the really fun part - picking your samples! One rule, though, you're only allowed to pick one thing from each category (I think the categories were body, face (skincare), hair, fragrance and makeup).  Sometimes I think Birchbox forgets it's own rule when curating our boxes - ahem. But I digress.  Sadly the selection and process were not nearly as extensive as it was when I went to their NYFW pop up shop, but I guess I shouldn't be.  Rather than just browsing and picking out your samples out of giant, candy-store tubes lining the walls, you just move down the line of cases that display the sample choices, and an employee fills your box with your choice in each category. There were roughly 3-5 choices for each one, which basically like your typical pick-your-own-sample, but for your entire box!  Unfortunately a lot of the samples offers I had already tried or wasn't interested in, but I still found a few I'm excited about and they change every month so the options will always be different.

What I ended up choosing:

Body: Color Club nail polish in Peace, Love and Polish. I don't know why but I am seriously loving this polish right now.  Not usually into bright hot pink nails, but  this one is not only a great shade of pink (which would look great with a tan, btw) but it has a gorgeous gold sheen that makes it 100x more appealing to me. In the picture below, you can't really see it on my nails because I put a coat of Sephora/OPI's It's Real 18K Gold on top, but you can see the sheen in the bottle. So pretty!

Other options: I think there was a Whish body scrub, but I can't remember anything else... 

Face: I chose the Supergoop Advanced Anti-Aging Eye Cream with SPF 37. I've never noticed any difference from using eye cream (I don't yet have wrinkles or dark circles) but I try to use it on the off chance it may actually be effective in preventing wrinkles. But since I don't see any immediate effects I have no real way to distinguish between eye creams, so one easy way for me is to get eye creams with SPF, which is rarer than it should be! I figure no matter what, it has to be good to protect that delicate skin from the sun, right? 

Other options: Suki exfoliating foaming cleanser, a Marcelle 8-in-1 serum (I think) and I can't remember what else.

Fragrance: they had about four fragrances (of which I only remember two - Harvey Prince Ageless, which I chose, and Folle de Jolie, which I've already gotten in my Birchcbox). They had tester strips for each fragrance so you could smell it before choosing, which is nice, though they only had one of each that was reused. While this is economical and makes sense as long as you can still smell it, some people might want one that hasn't been held up to other people's noses all day. I didn't care though. 

Hair: Macadamia Healing Oil Treatment. While I just got the spray version of this in this month's Birchbox (and since I rarely use leave in hair products I have way more than I need), the other two options were a curl cream (I have straight hair) and Fekkai's glossing shampoo and conditioner (good sizes! They were bottles and not foil packets) which I have tried and don't love. And the Macadamia oil spray has seemed nice so far, so I'm ok with having another formulation of it.

Makeup: this one was kind of a bust for me. I chose the Laura Geller GlamLASH Dramatic Volumizing Mascara (which is .2 oz, almost 3/4 of the full size!) even though I'm up to my ears in mascara and I rarely use it, because the other options were the Cynthia Rowley eyeliner in silver (which I already have two of, thanks to Birchbox), the Manna Kadar sheer glo shimmer lotion (which I also have two of, thanks to Birchbox), the Anastasia clear brow gel (which I have at least one of from Birchbox) and I think there was one other option but I can't remember what it was. 

All in all, not as thrilling as the NYFW box I made (with the amazing variety of samples there, it was impossible to choose just five of the ones I wanted to try) but it's still definitely nice to be able to pick your own samples. (And let's not forget that Birchbox was giving these away for free, so I really have nothing to complain about!)  One thing I do wish they retained from NYFW is a card that describes all the possible samples and includes brief instructions on how to use it, and the employee helping you can check off the ones you chose.  Not that I need instructions for these particular products, but it would be helpful in general. 

That's pretty much it, aside from the cute bag they put the box in (though walking into work with a bright pink bag that says BYOB at 11 am is maybe not ideal) and the jars of delicious candy they had out.  It was a total coincidence that I only got pink candy! 

Anyway, I thought it was a nice event and certainly wouldn't mind if they did this every year! Happy anniversary Birchbox!