Welcome to another beauty box review! Today we are talking about this month’s Sephora Play!
Sephora Play!
- Cost: $10
- Frequency: Monthly, renews automatically
- Type of products: 5 deluxe samples of skincare and makeup (more makeup than any other box I subscribe to!) and one fragrance sample
- Reviews from my previous boxes here!
This month’s theme for the box was “step it up!” As usual I do not really know what the theme means but at least they didn’t do another glowy/all-highlighter box haha. This month’s bag reminds me a bit of the Wendy’s girl:
The resemblance is there. But the bag also say “the best things in life are ME!” which I relate to hahaha
Inside the box we have our usual six items! This month, we got…..
Peter Thomas Roth Water Drench Hyaluronic Cloud Cream
$8.12 value
Isn’t the name “cloud cream” just so nice? Makes me think of rolling around on some nice fluffy clouds. Anyway, this is a moisturizer from the brand Peter Thomas Roth. I do not know who Peter Thomas Roth is, but apparently he’s really into skin care. This moisturizer absorbs really quickly and leaves my skin feeling nice and soft. However, I used this as a daytime moisturizer once under my makeup and it was a mistake – my foundation pilled up really weirdly over it and I had to start all over! I learned quickly that this one’s a nighttime moisturizer ONLY for me.
Sephora Collection Waterproof Eye Makeup Remover
$3.75 value
Oh look…an eye makeup remover. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I feel like makeup remover is a bit of a weird choice for a box from Sephora. At least for me, I don’t think of makeup remover as a product that I need to spend big bucks on to purchase a high-end brand’s version. I’m perfectly happy with my $5 jar of coconut oil. I feel like Sephora likes to put at least one of their in-house brand items into each box, which I get, so I can let this one go. The product itself is fine, but I think a generic Neutrogena one or something could product just as good results as this one.
Marc Jacobs Daisy
$4.60 value
I feel like Marc Jacobs Daisy is a really classic perfume for a lot of people. It’s obviously a floral scent but also a bit fruity and feminine. The product page describes it as: “Always elegant, always enchanting—but not too serious—Daisy is a sparkling floral bouquet, spirited and fresh, wrapped in comfort and warmth.” Sure, we’ll go with that. I like the scent and I think the bottle that the full size comes in is really cute too! I can see why this is a really popular scent.
Make Up For Ever Aqua XL Waterproof Eye Pencil in M-10
$5.25 value
I’ve heard great things about Make Up For Ever’s Aqua line, and this eyeliner is awesome. It glided on super smooth – a rich, matte black – and didn’t budge at all. I wish Sephora would have gotten a bit more creative with the color because looking at the product page, it comes in a TON of cool colors! I understand wanting to include products that would be useful to everyone, but that hasn’t stopped them from including foundation samples that made me look jaundiced in the past. Despite that, this is a really nice eyeliner and I’ll throw it into my rotation in my makeup bag.
Kate Somerville Exfolikate Intensive Exfoliator
$12.00 value
This is a gentle exfoliator meant to be used a few times a week for healthy and glowing skin. The product page calls it “a 2-minute facial”. I liked this a lot because despite the name “exfoliator” it’s surprisingly gentle. It also smells really good. I couldn’t see myself buying this normally but it was fun to try out!
Smashbox Photo Finish Primer
$9.00 value
I already wrote about this in my Favorites, but I love this primer! It goes on super smooth, almost velvety, and does an amazing job of mattifying my face. My only issue with getting this in the box is that I got this exact same sample in a previous box last year. I really don’t like when boxes repeat items … You’re telling me that out of the THOUSANDS of items for sale at Sephora, you really couldn’t find anything else to include?? It’s like when they only put up nine nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s just lazy!!!!
Anyway haha…I swatched what I could from the box below:
That eyeliner seriously would not budge. Even when I wiped off the moisturizer and primer over it, it still stayed on and I had to scrub it off with coconut oil!
Also included in every Sephora box is an info card telling you about the products and how to use them, as well as a card good for 50 bonus Beauty Insider points with your next Sephora purchase. Honestly I’m feeling like I’m due for a nice long rant about Sephora’s point system and why it could be better but I’ll save that for a different post lol. Here’s the info card anyway, this month’s was fancy and double-sided! Click on either image to see it larger:
Value & Verdict
So the total value of this month’s box is $42.72. This is right around average – I’ve mentioned before that I’m nerdy enough to have a beauty box spreadsheet, and one of the things I do in it is calculate the average value across all the boxes I’ve received. For Sephora, the average overall box value is $41.77 – so this month’s is pretty much right in the middle! You can see all the averages of my past boxes in the graph below:
Don’t judge me for how much work I put into my makeup research okay haha
As for personal value, this box is about in the middle for me. While I LOVE that Smashbox primer, I can’t help but be a bit disappointed that they brought back an item that has already been in the box before. None of the items are “duds” per se and they’re all of high quality, but none of them really stick out as something that I love and could see myself repurchasing. So it’s about middle of the road for me, as far as boxes go!
And that’s all for today’s post and my review of Sephora Play!’s April box! I hope you enjoyed this post and if you did – click here to check out some of my reviews of other past beauty boxes! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time 🙂
<3 Kaela
