Cohorted box, May 2016.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I cancelled my Cohorted subscription last month, making this my last box. This box was going to go one of two ways. I was either going to be so impressed that I'd regret cancelling or I'd be disappointed yet again. It's the latter. May's box contains four products, of which I'm only really excited about one... £35 well spent!

In my post for last month's Cohorted box, I touched briefly on the point that something had been wrong with every single box I'd had, whether that was the box being late, products missing or even just errors with the booklet. This month? The booklet contents is missing a product that is in the box, listing another product entirely. It lists Too Faced Selfie Powders as one of the products. I would have preferred this over the product that seemingly replaced it but I'm assuming this is a similar scenario to the one that occurred with February's box and the Pixi combo crayon.

The Balm Balm Voyage Vol. 2 Palette (RRP £37.50)
I was gutted to see this palette in the box as I already have it! I picked this up last month for £16.99 at TK Maxx and they still have these in stores still. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful palette but it's so easy to pick this up for a discounted price already that it just seems a but of a cop out to include this. I'm sure I'm not the only person who received the box who felt this way.

Hourglass Opague Rouge in Riviera (RRP £23)
This is the only product I could muster up some excitement for and even that dwindled slightly when I saw the shade. I'm going to keep it and I will wear it, but I wish I'd got the red or pink one instead! I'm loving liquid lipsticks at the moment (Isn't everyone?!) so this will be a nice addition to my collection.

Jimmy Choo EDT 4.5ml (RRP £10?!)
How cute is this? This mini of the Jimmy Choo perfume even comes in a mini version of the full size perfume! I have a hard time believing the stated RRP of this as while it is a big sample, it's still a sample!

HJ Manicure nail polish in Lavendar (RRP £9.50)
I' never heard of this brand before but this nail polish is cruelty free and vegan friendly. I'm not much of a nail polish girl so this just doesn't take my fancy. I'm sure this will get passed on to someone who will love it!

Sorry Cohorted. It's not you, it's me. You're just not doing it for me anymore.

Cohorted box, April 2016.

As you may remember from last month's post, I was a bit underwhelmed with Cohorted's March box. Then they revealed the sneak peak for April, a sneak peak that definitely excited me. I had high hopes for April's box, I really did. When I got it, the top wasn't even flat, it seemed to be that full.

Oh yes, this is going to be a great box, I thought. Then I opened it. Underwhelmed doesn't even cover it. I cancelled my subscription after getting this box, obviously I'll still be getting May's box as I've already paid for that. Instead I've hopped onto the Look Incredible band wagon, who are definitely doing a better job with their boxes than cohorted right now. They currently offer two different boxes; a standard one at £18.99 + £2.50 postage and a deluxe box which is the same price as the cohorted box. I'll just mention that their deluxe box this month included products by The Balm, Estee Lauder, Benefit and Bare Minerals. Just keep those brands in mind and compare them to the brands that were included in this month's cohorted box...

Gold Elements Nail Care Kit. Includes hand & nail cream, cuticle oil, nail file and a buffing block. (RRP £29.49)
This seems to be the reason why the box was so full. 4 products in 1! However, this is something I'm not excited about at all. It just makes me think of a gift set I'd get at christmas, never use and eventually end up giving away. I'll be passing this onto my mum who will definitely get some use out of this. Gold Elements is a brand I've never heard of, I think it's an american brand? Cohorted have listed this with an RRP of almost £30, but you can get this on amazon for £20.

Miss Patisserie Bath Melt in Milk & Honey (RRP £3.99)
This is a nice product with a beautiful scent. Even the packaging is pretty. They'd made nice little presents too. But cohorted advertise themselves as a luxury box and this product is something I would expect to see in Birchbox or Glossybox, not a box with a £35 pricetag! Still, this is something I will use and maybe look into Miss Patisserie more to see what other products they do.

The Body Shop White Musk Libertine EDT Perfume 100ml (RRP £24)
Soooo... The Body Shop? I'm not sure how Cohorted can class the Body Shop as a high end brand. The booklet included in the box says this should be 100ml, yet everyone got a 60ml bottle. Great job. It's a nice scent, I've already worn it a lot in the week since receiving the box, but I'll just repeat my issues with this product. It's a high street brand and it's the wrong size.

MDM Flow Lipstick in Panther (RRP £18)
This is a new brand cohorted are apparently and there's a code inside the booklet (mdm10) which you can use to get 10% off all MDM Flow lipsticks on the cohorted website. Again, this is a product that doesn't match the booklet. The Booklet talks about a shade called Milkshake yet it seems every subscriber received this pink shade. I actually prefer this shade to the one in the booklet, but this is just another example of products being different to the description in the booklet. This is an issue Cohorted really need to sort out. I'm not keen on the rose scent of this.

L-R: MDM Flow Panther, MAC Clever.

MAC Patent Polish Lip Pencil in Clever (RRP £17.50)
This was the sneak peak for the box that gave me such high hopes. This is without a doubt the best product in the box, it's no wonder they used it as the sneak peak! It has that iconic MAC vanilla scent and it's a perfect nude colour. I've worn it a couple of time so far and I already love it.

So that's it, one cancelled subscription. I've only had four boxes, yet there has been different issues with each one. January's box was late and was missing the booklet. February's box had the Pixi combo crayon missing. March had repeat products that Cohorted had included in a box towards the end of last year. And this month the products didn't match the description. I know other people have cancelled their subscription too this month after also being unimpressed with this box. It seems like Cohorted started off so well yet they couldn't seem to keep up with the standard they'd originally set.

Have you had this month's cohorted box? What did you think?

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Cohorted box, March 2016.

It's cohorted time again! By the time I'd opened my box, I'd already seen what was included online as some people received their boxes the day before. Maybe that added to why I felt disappointed with this month's box as I do enjoy the element of surprise! So this is my third Cohorted box but it's the first one I've felt underwhelmed by. I'll explain why as we go through the products.

One thing I do like, is that Cohorted have changed the packaging. Not the black box, that is the same beautiful black box as always, but the delivery box that the black box comes in. Before it was just your standard brown box, but now they've upped that to their own Cohorted branded ones!

Pixi Crayon Combo in Supernatural. (RRP £14.50)
You may recognise this as the elusive product that should've been included in February's box but got replaced with the Dove true tone. I haven't used anything by Pixi before but I have heard good things about the brand... I'm just not that excited by this product. I'll be keeping it but I don't see it as something I'll be reaching for often.

BareMinerals Heavenly Face Brush (RRP £25)
To be fair, this is a nice brush and I will use it, I just would have preferred to have another make up product rather than a brush. That's all I can say about that!

Nails Inc polish in Cadogan Square (RRP £9)
I'm not really a nail polish girl, I just don't have the patience most of the time. When I can actually be bothered to do them, I have my favourite polishes already and this won't be added to them! I'm not a fan of the colour and I just expected a bit more from this box than a £9 nail polish. I also read on another blog that this is the old Nails Inc packaging that was discontinued... So the the nail polish itself must be pretty old.

TheBalm Nude 'Tude Eyeshadow Palette (RRP £35) & TheBalm Put A Lid On It Eyelid Primer (RRP £5)
The eyeshadow palette is the saving grace of this box for me, so that's something at least. The packaging is adorable and I'll definitely be making the most of finally getting my hands on the palette. Cohorted have listed the RRP as £35 but that's clearly wrong as you buy this from The Balm section in Superdrug for £30. They've also listed the Primer as a product by itself yet I know that you can get this sample size included when you buy the palette. It just feels like a cop out to list them as individual products when they could have added another product to this month's box to pad it out.


Overall, I'm disappointed by this month's box, especially for the £35 price tag. I expected more for my money considering that this is one of the priciest beauty boxes on the market. Hopefully Cohorted step their game up for next month, especially now that Look Incredible have introduced their deluxe box for the same price as this box.

What did you think to this month's box?

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Cohorted box, February 2016.

February's here, which meant I got my second box from cohorted. Just as pleased with this one as my first box. £35 for the products inside is great value. I'd also subscribed to the Look Incredible box and I got my first box from there this month. I wasn't as impressed with that box as I am with the Cohorted boxes I've had so far. Cohorted have set the standard for subscription boxes pretty high and in my opinion, no other box quite compares. My Look Incredible subscription was cancelled the day I received the box!

Anyway, let's take a look what's inside this month's Cohorted box...

The booklet included says the the value of this month's box is £111.50, however the booklet also includes a product that seems to have been replaced with something else.

There's no Pixi crayon included in the box, despite being in the booklet. I've heard from other subscribers that they've had an e-mail to say that this product will be included in next month's box instead. I haven't had this e-mail, but I'm happy with the product that seemingly replaced this.

Elemis Pro-Collagen Hydra-Gel Eyes Masks (RRP £15)
I've never tried anything like this before so I'm quite excited about these. I also like that 2 packs are included, I can see myself and the boyfriend having a his & hers pamper sesh including these! These are said to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles whilst hydrating the fragile eye area.

BareMinerals Pure Transformation Night Treatment (RRP £45)
Since receiving my box yesturday, I've already added this to my nighttime skincare routine as I was that excited to use it. Even after one use, I can already see a difference so I'm intrigued to see how much my skin improves after repeated use. At the moment, I'd like to think I'd repurchase this, but not with the £45 price tag! I had a quick look on Amazon, where you can buy it for around the £15 mark. This was my first ever product from BareMinerals and I think I might have to check out some more of their products.

Dove True Tone Underarm Dark Mark Eraser (RRP £20?)
This product seems to have replaced the Pixi crayon as this isn't included in the book. I couldn't see anything about it on the dove website so I think this might be a discontinued product. A quick web search shows that Boots sell this for £20 so I'm assuming that's what the RRP would have been, but I could be wrong. This isn't something I necessarily would have bought myself, but now I have it, I'm going to make the most of using it. I was going to save this and use it as summer approached but the expiry date on the bottom of the box is April '16 so that plan went out the window. I guess I'm going to have to use it now!

Cargo Long Wear Lip Gloss (RRP £10)
I love getting lip products in subscription boxes and this month, I got a Cargo lip gloss in the shade Tokyo. It's a bright red (It looks more orangey in the swatch photo) and is highly pigmented. I can't wait to wear it properly!

Marc Jacobs Lola Eau De Parfum (Sample size)
I find sample sizes of perfumes handy just to chuck in my handbag for a one off use. I've only ever tried one other Marc Jacobs perfume before so I had to have a sniff of this before putting it with my other sample perfumes. Nice scent, I like it but I'm not sure I love it enough to go out and purchase a bottle.

Chanel Long Wear Luminous Eyeshadow (RRP £25)
My first ever Chanel product! This eyeshadow is in the shade Apparition and it is absolutely stunning! I doubt I'll use the brush that came with it, but I'm going to keep it just because it's oh so cute.

What do you think of this month's box?

Cohorted box, January 2016.

After seeing the contents of December's box, I caved into joining Cohorted's subscription for their monthly beauty box. For those who haven't heard of this service, it costs £35 per month and that includes postage too. All the products included in the box are full size and are all brands that you would have heard of. The total value of the box always equals more than the amount you pay, so while it may seem somewhat pricey when compared to the likes of Glossybox or Birchbox, it is definitely worth the price.

There was a bit of a delay on this month's box and I was already impatient with it being my first box. But oh, it was so worth the wait.


I was disappointed to see no booklet included but the fact that this was missing, was explained in an e-mail cohorted sent out to their subscribers.

So, onto the products included...

Lancome Le Correcteur Pro (RRP £29.50)
I forget to take a photo of this product on it's lonesome. I got excited by the other three items. I have a love/hate relationship with concealers. The majority tend to give me an itchy rash on my undereyes, however this wasn't always the case. It only started after I used a Collection branded concealer and it seemed to set off a chain reaction with every other concealer I dared to use too. The only brand I can wear without this happening is Rimmel (good, old Rimmel! What would I do without you?) So, even though this concealer palette could turn out to be a diamond in the rough for me, I daren't risk it. Not to mention, everyone got sent the same shade, and it turned out to be too dark for my fair complexion anyone. It promptly got passed along to a friend!

Too Faced Soulmates Blushing Bronzer in Carrie & Big (RRP £28)
I was gutted I'd missed out on this in December's box in the shade Ross & Rachel, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this in January's box. I know some people weren't happy about this, seeing it as a repeat product and I know that some people actually got this shade in their December box!
The packaging to beautiful and definitely reminds of all the Polly Pockets I had as a child.
All the blushers I currently own are very pink so I'm excited to play around with this, the coral blush is such a gorgeous colour.

(Did anyone else think Aidan was a better choice for Carrie? Just me...? Damn.)

Too Faced Lip Injection Color Bomb in Plump It Up Pink (RRP £19)
This is definitely my fave product in this month's box. It comes in four shades and I got it in this lovely bright pink colour. Having seen other blogger's boxes, I would have been even more pleased with the berry shade but I still love this one. This is one of those lip plumpers, the obligatory tingle is their on application. It says on the box to only apply to lips and my god, I wish I had! I swatched this on the back of my hand without thinking and while I can tolerate the sensation on my lips, it wasn't pleasant on my hand.
It has a sweet, sickly scent that might not be to everyone's taste but it reminds me of the strawberry shortcake doll I used to have. Basically, this box is bringing out all the nostalgia in me.

Too faced has always been a brand I've wanted to try more of, so I'm very satisfied with this addition.

Cargo Lip Gloss Quad in Argentina (RRP £15)
I've never tried any Cargo products so I'm looking forward to getting to grips with this.  As you can tell from the photo, I've already tried one of the glosses and it came out really pigmented on my lips. I'll probably get the most use from the two darker glosses. This is a really nice addition to my makeup collection.


What did you think to this month's box? Were Cohorted wrong to include another Too Faced blushing bronzer in this box? I'd be interested in finding out what other people think!