About a month ago I subscribed to the first local beauty subscription service, SaladBox. (Over the next few weeks, more services announced that they would be launching soon, i.e., GlamourBox and SampleRoom.)

For just PhP 500.00 per month, a subscriber will receive a box filled with four or more beauty and lifestyle product samples. The SaladBox team greatly values the money their subscribers spend so these products will have a value of more than PhP 700.00. SaladBox is currently in partnership with a lot of beauty and lifestyle brands, both local and international, up-and-coming and timeless classics.

To show our appreciation towards our subscribers, SaladBox will also host a weekly flash sale—these deals won’t be seen in any other group buying website in the country—wherein only the subscribers can take advantage of the awesome discounts that SaladBox negotiated from their partner merchants. First deal in line is from Lay Bare Waxing Salon.

Subscribing allows you to receive monthly beauty boxes. Each box contains four or more samples, full-size or promotion-size, from different high-end and up-and-coming brands. If you like what you received, you can purchase the full size on the website. Like a try-before-you-buy thing. October is their first month of SaladBoxes.

Contents and first impressions:

1. Sakura Hand Foam Sanitizer - Two full-size bottles, but still small enough to take on international flights! This is going with me to Bangkok. It smells like the generic hand soap you find in (the nicer) public restrooms, but is released as foam and needs no water.
2. BC Fragrance Spiced Fig Tea Room Fragrance - A floral scent with a bit of spice. Definitely makes a room smell lovely, and the scent doesn't fade fast. But with this sample size, you'll probably use the entire bottle on one room.
3. BC Fragrance in Relaxing Mint - A bit of a miss for me. The scent is quite strong. It's like spraying Binaca on your pillow.
4. Virginia Olsen Minerals Eye Shadows - Travel-size loose pigments in Solar Flare (a matte orange) and Lodo (a shimmery gunmetal gray). I'm still trying to master neutral eyes okay, so don't expect any enlightening reviews on these. :p All I can say is, they're very pigmented.
5. Black Beauty Shampoo in Gold and Crystal - Trial sachets. The Crystal one is anti-dandruff. I can't use these yet because I'm still on sulfate-free shampoos after my Brazilian Blowout, so I'll give them to my sister.