Hi everyone! Welcome back to both Blogmas as well as my Winter FabFitFun Box! Oh, and advent calendar item reveal #5!

So many things in one post! It’ll be fun though, I swear! I also have a few items I picked up during the Add-Ons sale so I’ll have that in here too. 

I feel like it was so long ago since I got my box since it was overshadowed by my PS4 which arrived on the same day. That was before Thanksgiving! But I couldn’t fit it into my schedule before today so now I can finally share it!

About the Winter Box

Well, this box was, in a word, disappointing. I was not really excited about any of the items, the choice items were hard to pick from because they seemed boring, and the sale was not that exciting. On top of that it seemed like the box is kind of leveling off. 

At this point I don’t think I’m going to renew my subscription. Or if I do get another it’ll be seasonally. But I’m leaning towards canceling. It’s just not as exciting lately and I was so bored with this one. 

So we got another magazine, which I do think is a great new format still. It looks like FabFitFun reached 1 million members so they celebrated that, but the articles seemed boring so I didn’t really read them. They were based on the items so of course I wasn’t interested since I already wasn’t interested in the items. 

This time the charity was Kindness Factory which seems to be about spreading kindness by performing 1 million acts of kindness by 2020. It seems interesting so I might check it out later. 

My Winter Box

I have to say, the items do look pretty in the picture together! 

So the first item I’ll mention is a choice item that Select Members were able to pick. (Select Members are the annual subscribers rather than the seasonal subscribers.) This is the Mark & Graham Colorblock Throw in Gray/Ivory. I’m kind of surprised I went with the grey since I don’t look good in that color (the other was a natural/ivory combo). I think I picked it when I thought it was a blanket and actually, it’s so big I would have thought it was! I tried it on and it’s just so big that I’m not sure how to wear it just yet. It is super warm though so maybe I’ll keep it in the car as I don’t like wearing my jacket. It can be cold in there though so maybe that’s how I’ll use it! It does retail for $49.

Next is a choice item that all members were able to pick. I got the Moroccan Gold Series Treatment Mask. (The other option was a glove/headband set.) This is a hair mask and I got it to use in my mom’s present since I include a bag of beauty items for her and for my sister when I do gifts for them. This was also a category where I just wasn’t interested in either option so if it hadn’t been something that I thought she’d be interested in trying I wouldn’t have known what to pick. This retails for $49. 

Another choice item that I got is the H Halston Jewelry Portfolio. It’s basically a travel organizational item for jewelry. (This was a three item choice category with the other items that were dry shampoo and a necklace.) It’s pretty and hopefully useful although yeah, it was a disappointing category too. This retails for $48.

The last of the all members choice item was the Sherrie Matthews Acupuncture Jade Stone Roller which is another gift for my mom! She had mentioned she wanted a roller and I wasn’t thrilled about the other two choices (over the knee socks and an eyeshadow palette – which I’ll mention again in a bit), so I automatically knew which one to pick! This retails for $45. 

For the select members there were two more choices. This one was actually quite controversial this season. So one of the items was a set of wooden coasters (the others are a lipstick and body sliders) that were really exciting for a lot of members and from the social media stuff I saw it seemed that they would be the most popular. Right after the choices opened people were complaining that they were sold out already and it was eventually revealed by FabFitFun that they found “flaws” on a large portion of the coasters so they decided not to offer the ones that didn’t meet the standards for the box. Since there weren’t many they sold out almost immediately. I hadn’t cared for them or any of the other options to be honest. When I logged on to make my choices (I always wait a few hours because the site always crashes) this was already well-known so I picked a “mystery” item. The site said the item would be of equal value to the other options (ranging $18-26). I ended up with two or three items which are below:

• Doucce Punk Volumizer Mascara in Black – This was one of the items I got in replacement of those other items. It seems like it has good reviews online so I have added it to my sister’s gift bag. I did find it weird that the replacement items are no where on the magazine, but I think they might have been proofed for printing or already printed by the time the other items were removed. The item online retails for a variety of prices but it’s listed for $24 on the brand’s website. 
• Spongelle Beach Grass Beyond Cleansing Body Contouring Buffer with Built-In Cleanser – This item was also added in to replace the other items. It’s basically a shower/bath sponge with the soap already on it. I’ve heard great things about it from other FabFitFun members on the chat forums on their website. In fact, these are usually offered during sales and people look forward to getting them to use as gifts and such. I think I’ll keep this one to try it, but it does sound like a great gift idea! The website says these retail for $16. 
• Pur Be Your Selfie Eyeshadow Palette – so this was one of the above-mentioned choice items. I’m confused why it’s in the box as it doesn’t seem like it would be a part of the replacement items as there were already two on there that surpass the original prices. I didn’t add it as an additional item which you can usually do for choice items, so perhaps it was accidentally added? Either way, I’m including it here in case it is supposed to be a replacement item. It retails for $36. 

The last choice item for select members was the Anthropologie x Mer-Sea & Co. Sea Whip Body Cream in “Coconut Sugar”. I added this beautiful item to my sister’s gift bag as I didn’t really need it. (The other option was an essential oil set which I was curious about but I had read on the forums a few days before that the brand wasn’t very good.) I’m sorry to see it go as it is super pretty and I’m sure it’s great but I don’t need it so maybe my sister will enjoy it more. It retails for $24. 

The last three items are items that went in every box for every member. The first item was Thrive Causemetics Brilliant Eye Brightener in “Stella”. I’m not sure what to do with this as it doesn’t seem very useful or interesting. I might try it but I don’t use brightening items often. It retails for $24. 

Next is the Ahava Hydration Cream Mask. I am actually excited about this item as I do have an Ahava product and I do like that one. I don’t use masks often so it might be awhile but I do plan to try it eventually. It does say it can be an overnight mask though which is interesting. It does retail for $33. 

Lastly is the Blaq Hydrogel Eye mask with Hyaluronic Acid. I’m excited to try this too! These sound interesting and while I don’t think I have particularly puffy eyes it is nice to have items around just in case! This retails for $29.

So the box overall has a total value range of $290-335 but mine comes out to $377 because of those extra items. Again, they’re not included so that might be why but it seems odd that the value is so high above the published max of the value. 

My Add-Ons

So I did add two items to my box. The first of those items is the Free People x Understated Leather Travel Eye Mask in a mint blue with hearts. I had gotten a different version of this mask in my previous spring FabFitFun box. I loved that mask and saw it in the sale for a discount, I believe it was around $9 so I grabbed it. 

I also got a pair of Pointe Studio Aloe Infused Cozy Socks in red/pink. I had gotten a pair of these before in black in last year’s winter FabFitFun box. Again, it was a great item that I loved so I got a pair as I think it was around $7. 

The sales aren’t as great overall though, as I’ve noticed the top items are always sold out quickly so there isn’t much inventory. The cheapest items are always plentiful. Also, the way it’s run is that it opens to select members and a few days later all members, then there’s I think two weeks until the end of the sale. So you can add stuff to your cart, and it’s not charged until the end of the sale. So everyone goes crazy and adds hundreds of dollars of items in their cart and then drop everything in the two or three days leading to the end of the sale which makes it annoying to shop. The next sale is on December 26th so I think I will still keep my membership up until after that sale for now unless I get the renewal notice beforehand. 

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Advent Calendar Item #5

So the 5th item in the Blogmas Advent Calendar is…

A face/eye mask! I used this one just to represent the type of item, I haven’t tried this one yet but I would want to have a face or an eye mask of sorts for a skin care item. For me, sheet masks are like a nice little self-care item so it would be nice to have one in the calendar for someone to enjoy. 

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So let me know if you got the FabFitFun box this season and what choices you made! If you didn’t get it, or even if you did, would you agree this box isn’t that great? 

Thanks for reading!

Pamela Silva

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