What's in that box: November Lust Have It

I was quite surprised to receive my Lust Have it Box today - I usually expect it around the middle of the month. The good thing was that for once, I hadn't sneaked a peep at what other people had received so it was well and truly a surprise!

So, what was in it?

Yet another jam packed full box of beauty samples, with a couple of full sized products this month as well. One such full sized item was the Nude by Nature Chique Natural Mineral Lip Liner which you can see in the pic above. Unfortunately, The Crazy Kid nicked off with it so I wasn't able to reclaim it until tonight. I swatched it on my hand but for the life of me can't take a decent pic in this lighting so you will just have to trust me that it is a natural looking pinky brown. The RRP of this is $14.95, so you already have the value of your box back in one item!

Three x 5ml RoC Complete Lift NEW Technology Daily Moisturiser. I wouldn't have been disappointed to receive only one of these so to get three was incredibly generous. I suppose Lust Have It market themselves as providing deluxe sized samples so this well and truly ensured that it was deluxe. I have head many good things about the RoC brand but as yet have not tried any of their products so really looking forward to playing with this one!

Five x 10ml sachets of Kerastase Nectar Thermique. Again, super generous, although this time around if we did only receive one of these sachets I would have been a tad disappointed, but five is huge! A full sized bottle of this is 150ml so you pretty much get 1/3 of a bottle. I have this already and it is amazing. I am pretty unco at straightening my own hair, so this Nectar ensure I don't wreck my hair and it leaves it so shiny and soft. Gorgeous stuff!

Two x 1.5ml samples of Lancome Tresor Midnight Rose. I have stuck one of these straight in my handbag - it makes an excellent little purse spray (especially as I am a bit prone to getting stinky!). I was hoping the fragrance would be more rosy but, to me, it is incredibly fruity. In fact, it smells exactly like black current to me. If you are a fruity fan I think that you will love it 

Finally, a full sized Hawley International Miracle Nail Shiner. I love these things. They seriously leave your nails looking like they have clear polish on them.

This was probably the Lust Have It box with the most varied contents, so far, literally covering you from head to toe (well, if you decide to buff your toenails then your covered!). Personally, I am a bit of a skincare junkie so they are the items I most look forward to but if you are after a good range of products to play with I think that you will be quite happy with the November box. It was excellent value, as usual, with the contents coming in at around $50.

I now can't wait to see what will be in the December box. I wonder whether there will be any Christmasy items. I kind of hope so...I LOVE Christmas!

Were you happy with the November box? What are you hoping will be in the December box?

This box was provided for consideration.

Lust Have It loot: the contents of the September box

After the huge success, in my eyes, of the first Lust Have It box I was wondering just how the second box would stack up. Well, I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised. Value wise, it was going to be difficult to compete with the first box as the BIOeffect EFG serum sample and the Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant samples alone were worth over $65. I calculated the value of this box (based on the full sized RRPs) and it came in at just over $30 - so again, excellent value for your $14.95 subscription fee.

I have tried many a beauty product in my 30 years and 364 days on earth (yep, its birthday eve!!), yet I had not tried any of these samples before so that made this box particularly exciting for me!

So, what was in the September box?

We got the following samples:

• Lancome Hypnose Doll Eyes Mascara (2ml)
• Pure Fiji Coconut Milk Shower Gel (there's no volume on the bottle and I am hopeless at estimating - maybe 50ml?)
• Kerastase Elixir Ultime 5ml
• Urban Rituelle Florish Organics hand cream 20ml
• Nicole by OPI nail lacquer in Save the Last Dance (silver) and Prized Possession (purple)

I don't wear mascara often, so I despise paying full price for it as it always dries out before I come anywhere near finishing it. Therefore, this is a sample that I LOVE to have received in my Lust Have It Box. I haven't taken it for a test drive yet but will do so this weekend and report back but I have heard that Lancome mascaras have the reputation for being the best on the market (though I did hear that from a Lancome sales assistant to my source may be a tad biased!).

I am pretty sure that the Elixir Ultime is Kerastase's version of Moroccanoil - in the list of ingredients is argon oil. I love Morccanoil so am sure will equally love this. If you can see on my hand I have squirted a pump of this oil - it is completely clear - it seems runnier than Moroccanoil though absorbs in just as easily. This sample bottle has its own little pump so it makes it so easy for dispensing the product. It's a good size - I'd say you would get a minimum 2 weeks use out of this.

This hand cream looks rather unassuming, a bit boring even. So much so that it was the last sample that I played with. But OMG does it smell amazing. It contains vanilla, lavender and geranium essential oils and the combination is heavenly and it absorbs in really easily. It has instantly become my new favourite hand cream and this is one sample that I will definitely be purchasing the full size product of. I checked the Lust Have It shop and it is not currently listed there. I so hope that it goes up at the end of the month as I Must Have It!

I assumed that this shower gel would smell creamy because it contains coconut milk...but then coconut milk doesn't smell creamy so why would the gel! It actually smells deliciously fruity of mango.

I have NEVER finished a bottle of nail polish in my life so I LOVE the fact that we got two different mini bottles rather than one full sized bottle - I'd much prefer multiple colours over a larger size. The colours sent were gorgeous to boot. Prized Possession is a bright purple whilst Save the Last Dance is a highly reflective silver. I have swatched the colours and photographed them in both bright sunlight and indoor lighting to show the different hues. Apologies for the dodgy manicure job. I usually scrape where I have got out of the lines off in the shower but I had already showered when I did these swatches so my errors remain!

Prized Possession, 4 coats, sunlight. It took 4 coats of this colour before the streaking could no longer be seen. It is quite a transparent colour so takes a bit of work to build up its opacity, but it is well worth the effort when you do as the colour is gorgeous.

Three coats, indoor lighting. You can see in this pic that three coats isn't quite enough as you can still see the nail underneath.

Save the Last Dance, two coats, sunlight. This is an amazing silver - almost mirror like in it's reflectivity. It is incredibly opaque - two coats was plenty to hide all streaking. I love this colour!

Two coats, indoor lighting. This colour looks equally good in both lighting conditions. Man I love it!

I have to say that I was just as impressed with the September box as I was with August's. It has given me plenty of new samples to play with and there honestly isn't anything in there that I don't like or wouldn't use.

If you would like to get your hands on the September box, I think there might still be a couple left. Check on their Facebook page for updates, otherwise you can subscribe on their website.

Lust Have It are also supporting The Butterfly Foundation and have created boxes to be used by the foundation in their positive image and self-esteem workshops. For $10, you can donate a box to the foundation here.

Another thing that you may not be aware of is that Lust Have It have an option survey you can complete upon receiving your box to give feed back as to whether you were happy with the samples receive. The survey takes all of 2 minutes to complete and you get 10 points that can be accumulated then spent on full sized products in their online store. Here is the link to the survey.

If you have missed all the hype and have no idea what Lust Have It or sample boxes are, this post will explain everything!

Which box did you prefer - the first or second?

This box was provided for consideration.

The day my first Lust Have It box arrived and how being a domestic Goddess clashed with beauty blogging

Once upon a time there was a beauty blogger called Sarah. Sarah loved to research beauty products, then sample said products then finally blog about these beauty products (it would be silly for her to be a beauty blogger if she didn't). One day when she was researching an article she stumbled upon a service, called Lust Have It, where, for a small monthly subscription fee, a mystery box of beauty samples could be delivered straight to her door. This excited Sarah very much as Sarah LOVES presents and especially LOVES surprises.

So, Sarah rang Nicci, the founder of Lust Have It, for more information. Nicci was also very excited about her service and so proceeded to blab all about it, and even spilled what Sarah thought was all of the contents of the first box. Sarah, thinking that she had a major scoop, then blogged all about it. While Facebook and forums were a buzz with Lust Have It fans all eagerly anticipating their first boxes, Sarah was sitting back smugly, for she already knew what was going to be in that first box. Or did she? It turns out that she didn't, for Nicci had been a little bit sneaky and had kept some secrets from Sarah.

At 2.45pm on Friday 12th August the intercom in Sarah's apartment buzzed. She knew that it was her building manager ringing to say that it was parcel time. So she grabbed her son, The Crazy Kid, and her keys and started making her way to the foyer to pick up her parcel. As it was raining, the building manager kindly brought her parcel over to her. Unfortunately this created a new problem as The Crazy Kid had thought that he was getting out of his apartment prison and when he was told that he had to go back inside he had a tantrum. A BIG tantrum. As much as Sarah was busting to open her parcel, she had to deal with The Crazy Kid. So the parcel sat on the coffee table until 3.04pm.

At 3.04pm, when The Crazy Kids BIG tantrum was finally over, Sarah was finally able to open her parcel. Sarah is actually a professional present opener and holds many records in speed present opening. However, she wanted to keep everything looking pretty to take photos for her blog so this time she opened it in a calm and sensible fashion.

At 3.05pm Sarah had finally opened her parcel and had the contents of her first Lust Have It pack in front of her. The pack included a lovely welcome letter but Sarah is the type of person who always opens a present before reading the card so she threw this letter on the floor and explored the contents of her pack instead. What she found was:

•  a 3ml sample of BIOeffect EGF serum (1 months supply). Sarah has previously written about this (here) and is very much in love with this product so was excited to be getting another sample!
• 13g jar of Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant. Sarah LOVES this product as it is so effective yet so gentle as well. It really is daily. And, whilst she already has a full size bottle, this is going to be brilliant for taking travelling (especially as she is going to Hawaii in the near future)!
• a 30ml bottle of Naked Tan Goddess Bronze Self-Tanner. Sarah is unfamiliar with this brand so is excited to try it. The self-tanner smells deliciously of coconut (just like those Reef Oil tanning oils). She will probably wait a couple of months until her body is out of its winter hibernation and is not quite so hairy and scaly.
• a 1.5ml tube of Mirenesse Velvet Lip Lift Moisture Shine lip gloss. This was clear with pink glitter. At first Sarah was dubious about the glitter but then when applied realised that the glitter is barely noticeable and that this is in fact a lovely clear gloss.
• A 1.5ml sample of Armani Code (for Sarah's husband). Quick spray - smells like a nice male fragrance. Sarah can imagine hubby wearing this.
• A Burts Bees sample in a tin. Unfortunately The Crazy Kid has nicked off with this so Sarah can't go into much more detail at this moment. The Crazy Kid has a lid obsession and so must have thought the little tin was another lid for his collection. Sarah thinks that it might have been a hand and nail cream, or maybe a cuticle cream...

Once Sarah had calmed down from her excitement of opening a present she hunted for the letter she threw on the floor and found out that it was double sided - on the front was a lovely welcome note from Lust Have It and on the back was a set of instructions on how to use the products. So thoughtful.

At 3.15pm Sarah sat down to start blogging about her first Lust Have It Box. There had already been a few brilliant blogs written up on the first Lust Have It Box but as Sarah had previously written about what to expect in the first Lust Have It box and about the launch, for continuity she thought that it would be nice to also do a post on her first box. Unfortunately, after only 5 minutes of writing she smelt a smell. A BAD smell. And it was coming from The Crazy Kid. He needed changing. Sarah pondered for a while whether it would be ok to just spray him with the Armani Code sample and pretend that he didn't smell...at 3.22pm Sarah came to the conclusion that this would probably be regarded as bad parenting and so put down her laptop and changed The Crazy Kid. This resulted in tantrum mark II (though only a medium one this time around).

At 3.45 tantrum mark II was over and Sarah could recommence blogging. She blogged away happily until 4.20pm when The Crazy Kid reminded her that he liked to have his dinner at 4.30. Sarah once again pondered whether she could just run across the road to buy The Crazy Kid some KFC and once again came to the conclusion that this is bad parenting (as The Crazy Kid is only 18 months old). So she became a domestic Goddess and crumbed him some home made schnitzel.

At 4.35pm The Crazy Kid was happily feeding himself dinner so Sarah could finally finish her blog. The main thing Sarah wanted to write about was just how good value she thought the box was. It turns out that the first box is worth over $80 - excellent value when you consider that the subscription fee is only $14.95. Sarah rang Nicci from Lust Have It to tell her how happy she was with her first box when Nicci let her in on a little secret, well, it is not actually a secret as it has already been posted on Facebook, but Nicci told Sarah that they have been getting a few enquiries from people wondering whether it is too late to get the August box.  If anyone didn't sign up for a Lust Have It box and are now regretting that decision, there will be a very limited re-release of the first Lust Have It box. That's right - you can still order it! There are not going to be many boxes in the re-release as they only have a limited number of samples, so if you would still like one you should probably order it pretty soon.

Finally, Sarah was able to complete her blog post on Lust Have It whilst still being a domestic Goddess. Sarah and the Crazy Kid lived happily ever after.

The End.

Did you get a Lust Have It box? Were you happy with the samples?

This box was provided for consideration.