little white truths

Urban Skincare Co Repair + Body Balm 

This looks nice, and I haven't heard of this brand before so that's a good thing. Looks like it's for dry areas of your body. I'm definitely looking forward to trying this.

UPDATE: I ended up liking this a lot more than I thought I would - it's a great moisturiser and manages to be super moisturising without feeling heavy/greasy. I like the smell too. Indeed, I liked the product enough that I used the discount card included in the box to buy the $9.95 travel kit (which I got for $7.96, no shipping costs). 

This purchase passed my spending ban 'rules' because Mex asked me to buy soap and shampoo/conditioner for him a few days ago, and the kit includes those things. This body moisturiser is definitely one I'll look at buying in future.

Uriage Surgras Liquide 

Just reading the tube, this is an extra rich dermatological cleansing gel. It's soap free and designed for sensitive skin on your face and body. I've heard of this brand but never tried anything from Uriage so I'm more than happy to give it a go.

UPDATE: I tried this on my face first but have since been using it as a body wash. It's far too gentle for me and doesn't feel like it cleans well. 

I think it would be great if you had sensitive skin - and while I do have skin that tends towards sensitivity, this cleanser didn't grab me at all. I'm happy it was included and that I got a chance to try it though - as mentioned, I hadn't used anything from this brand before and I wanted to.

Glam Manicare Express 3 in 1 Nail Art Pen in Golden Girl

This was a good inclusion: I'm guessing that most of us don't have anything like it so it won't be going into the 'just another nailpolish/cheap cleanser' box. I'm looking forward to playing around with it, although I suspect I won't get a hell of a lot of use out of it. Still, looks like fun.

UPDATE: This was fun to use for my first attempt at nail art (which was pretty rubbish, by the way - that's why I haven't included photos of the results!). I'm glad I received this so I can muck around with it, but I definitely can't see myself using it too much (particularly because I'm not a glitter fan). Also, it was easy enough for a nail-dunce to use so that's a good thing!

The Cosmetic Kitchen Macadamia Wax Creme Highlighter

Without having tried anything, I'd say this is possibly the best item in the box - and the one I'm most excited about. 

We've had a few products from The Cosmetic Kitchen show up in LHI boxes and they seem to be of reasonable quality, so I'm happy with this inclusion. It's also an interesting one: while I have highlighters, I've nothing like this one (they tend to be powders or liquids) so I can't wait to use it.

ModelCo Lip Lacquer Liquid Lipstick in Casablanca (RRP $24 for 3g; received full size)

Now this one makes me grumpy. We were given a choice between five colours. Lust Have It didn't photograph or swatch the colours for us, so like most people I Googled the different colour choices to see what I wanted. Images of two of the colours could be found online (Viva and Morocco) because they'd been received in a Birchbox; however none of the other colours could be found (I guess because it's a new product) so - also like most people - I went to the Modelco website.

There, Casablanca looks purple (see here). In reality, it's a dirty browny pink shade (not even in the same colour group!). It looks nicer in the above photo - brighter (I wish it looked like that) - but from the look of the colour in the tube, it's muddy and not very nice at all. I won't open it/swatch it yet because I'll wait to see what LHI does about it.

While LHI obviously doesn't have control over ModelCo's website, it's certainly responsible for the products sent out and this issue could quite easily have been foreseen and avoided.

UPDATE: Here's this one photographed in natural light (above) and swatched below. As you can see, it definitely falls within the pink/brown department - not a glimmer of purple in sight. On the lips (and you can kind of see this in the swatch below) it almost pulls red, although I think that's because it's so sheer and therefore the colour of your lips comes through.

My thoughts, aside from the colour issues: it's not a lacquer, it's a gloss. It's sheer, sticky and doesn't stay put. It smells quite strongly of strawberries and the colour pay-off isn't what you'd expect from a lacquer product, nor does it last like one.

So much annoys me about this: first, ModelCo's refusal to agree that the website was totally off (we got a generic email talking about everyone's computers showing up different colours - but we ALL expected this to be purple); second, ModelCo's 'Here, have a $10 voucher instead', which I refuse to use because that only covers the shipping cost of an order; third, that the product is called a lacquer when it really isn't one.

However, I have to thank Lust Have It for being responsive to my email about this product and trying to deal with the situation. While LHI was silent on my FB post about this (but of course happy to remark on my post reviewing the box - I really don't like that), I was very pleased with the responsiveness of their customer service team in trying to sort out the issue for those of us who chose Casablanca (and Viva, which wasn't at all like the description apparently).

I won't use this, and I now don't want to buy anything from ModelCo because I don't like how the company dealt with this issue. So ModelCo has lost a potential customer.

Verdict

I'm really not sure how I feel about this box, except to say that it's clearly been a month of oversights on LHI's behalf: first, the box was late (very late) and I received no communication about this, nor any apology for it; second there was no product card (sure, these things happen - but just look at the mess this month!); third, looks like we were lied to about shipping dates because the boxes weren't sent when we were told they had been; and fourth, LHI asked us to choose a coloured product without giving us proper guidance about the colours available and without checking that we had an accurate reference point by which to choose from those colours.

All I can say is that I'm really glad the wax highlighter was included. I'm ok with the box for that reason alone.