To think subscription boxes are a swizz?

[ketchupontoast21]

Loads of my friends seem to be signing up for subscription boxes like Birch Box lately where you basically get a box containing five mystery products a month for a fee of about £10. Apparently it ranges from make up, to skincare, hair products, creams and bath gels. You don't know what you're going to get so it's all a surprise.

On one hand I like the idea of a little treat each month and the chance to try new products. But I can't help but think it could be a giant waste of money if you end up with products you don't like or ones that are very cheap (a soap or bog standard shampoo for example). What are people's thoughts? Are they worth the money?

A bit. Quite good fun if you can afford them.

Total waste of money in my opinion. Plus yet another way of generating mountains of rubbish - cardboard, plastic, etc., - and filling up your home with clutter.

Yeah, they’re most often a huge waste of money. I’ve had a few over the years either for the free first box or with a discount and none were particularly great.

Birchbox was crap, Graze was a waste too and the Toucanbox for my DC. It entertained them for 20-30 mins but then we had pointless crappy crafts that ended up in the bin.

I get Birchbox. Obviously if I needed to cut down spending it would be the first thing to go, but I like it for exactly the reason you said - I get to try out lots of random products, many of which I've repurchased (I discovered Rituals hand cream though them, oh my days that stuff is beautiful)

Some products are a bit meh but at least they're useful (yes I got a soap) and I haven't had to buy bronzer, blush or lip products since I subscribed because they send me loads of little ones. Generally I either like most things or think ok, that one wasn't for me. Nothing is rubbish.

I did the one from You magzine for a while. It was nice, but after a year I had a massive draw full of sample sized products and didn't end up finding anything that I fell in love with enough to order a full size of. And some of the make up colours were plain weird........

I think they're pretty pointless.

I've never heard of this. What other kinds are there?

There are all sorts apparently. You can get food ones, book ones, self care packages. Some are pretty expensive though.

It does appeal to me but the novelty would probably wear off!

Agree the amount of packaging for tiny sized products is horrendous!

They're almost all very expensive for what you get, coupled with the surprise element meaning that you don't know if you'll want/need the items and the fact that quite a bit of what you pay has to cover postage, which is significant for low value items.

The most ridiculous one I saw, which has now unsurprisingly gone bust was Cheese Posties, where you paid about a fiver for two slices of bread, a handful of cheese and a tablespoon of pickle to be sent to you so you could make a 'surprise' toastie.

Ok, some people like the random surprises and seem to see these as a nice gift even though the money to pay for them comes out of their own bank account, but in all cases you could just pick something new up in the supermarket for far far less.

I think it's just horses for courses, really - it's such a personal thing. Some people just love getting a little surprise in the post every month and don't really mind what the products are. I love beauty products, but I'd find it a bit frustrating just getting little samples of things and with skincare, I don't like constantly switching from one product to another every couple of weeks as I generally prefer to stick with the products that really work for me - plus some products, like serums and so on, don't really have an immediate effect and need to be used for a good few weeks before you see their longer-term effects. Hair products are a bit wasted on me because I've got a pixie cut that doesn't even need conditioning because it gets cut every four or five weeks! But I know people who really enjoy Birchbox and it's a lovely treat for them that they consider well worth a tenner purely because it cheers them up.

I get a gin subscription box, was every month but I moved to quarterly. You get a full sized bottle of gin, tonics, crisps/peanuts or similar savoury nibbles, something sweet, and sometimes another mixer/drink.

This month it was an Australian gin, 4 cans of tonic, two bags of sweet potato crisps, a bag of popcorn, pineapple juice, a mixer to make a gin cocktail, a little bag of freeze dried fruit for the cocktail, and a box of fancy Jaffa cakes. It’s £40 a box but most craft gins are over £30 a bottle so it’s always been worth it.

The ones you don't like can be donated - often there will be at least one item in the box that I know straight away I will never use. So that can be donated. Organisations like Caroline Hirons distribute donated toiletries/cosmetics to places like Refuge. Good way to reduce waste!

The thing is with a beauty box is that you can buy a full sized skincare product in the shop and it also turns out to be crap. Samples with beauty are pretty useful, as long as you're the sort of person who likes that thing.

My friend used to get a gin box - really expensive but you can't really go wrong with a monthly bottle of gin and accessories can you.

The cheese toasties one is cracking me up.

I think it totally depends on the box - we had Toucanbox for our kids and it was great - we did the crafts, read the book and talked about the subject.

We now get Yum Yum box which is a monthly snack box from a different country each time and we read all the info on the country, watch a relevant film or youtube video, cook the main course suggested in the leaflet, play the game and then try all the snacks and rank them. It has been great fun and our kids have learnt about countries they simply had never heard of before and also encouraged them to try different foods they have never seen before. It is one of our kids favourite activities and cost less than half the price of a takeaway.

I personally would not bother with a makeup/collectable/equipment type as I feel it would generate loads of waste and crap in my house so we have stuck with the theme ones and made a fun family event out of using them.

It all depends on what you like and whether you as an individual would make use of what you get.

I get glossybox.

Used to get Birchbox as well but cancelled that last year.

Some items are not to my taste, so they get either 're gifted, given away to friends, donated to a refuge centre who do care packs or put in the dress up box for my nieces.

I've found some lovely stuff but it would be first thing to go if I was struggling.

I'd love to get a candle one, but the one I've found doesn't seem to be worth it. And I'd also like a cheese and olive one if anyone knows of any???

Or I guess you could always re-gift the ones you don't like when it comes to birthdays and so on?

The sample sized products put me off a bit. I don't want loads of tiny bottles lying about. I see you get some quite useful full sized bits like lipsticks and brow pencils too though...

DS1 has been getting loot crate. The cost has rocketed due to the exchange rate (it's in US$). It's fun but probably not the best use of money so he's thinking of stopping it.

I tried to get in on this trend with Birchbox but I couldn't believe it wasn't letterbox friendly packaging.

The items are all tiny and I did want to just try things out but I couldn't be bothered tracking down which neighbour had my package all the time (and it's rude to assume they will take in) so cancelled after first box.

Yeah I had one of these for a while and I recently was sorting drawers and found a whole load of shitty little pots and sachets from them that has just sat there for ages. It all got chucked.

That said, I had a razor subscription box kind and actually thought that was good, but it was just the blades and no crap. Although I ended up cancelling as I ended up with way too many blades (obviously normal folk are a lot more assiduous about shaving than I am).

The Blurt boxes are actually quite sweet too.

Does anyone know of any good (cheap) ones for kids 8+? My ds would go mad for a parcel in the post every month!

I liked the You box as you could chose but then you end up with clutter and I am desperately trying to not be tempted. I couldn't use u the products fast enough.

Once a quarter would suit me better.

I've heard of graze but had no idea there were so many of th ese things for different products! I suppose it replaces the high street impulse buy but it does seem a bit wasteful to me

Remember the book clubs in the 80s and CDs and then you always ended up with random books as you forgot to cancel the book of the month

I used to get one about 30 years ago. I wish I could remember the name of the company but it had things like bath bombs in. I'm not sure if it was Lush before they had all the shops. That was quite nice at the time.

I love the idea of a Yum Yum box, it’s the only one that appeals. Only if I did the whole topic approach though.