Well.. April's box was undervalue and well what a surprise. So is this box. I felt totally conned out of my money so I claimed my money back. According to the company unless I pay up what I was refunded I will not get any more items or boxes from them and apparently its "totally as described".. I'm sorry but when selling a box for $32 which is £21.26 when paid in paypal, and only receiving items worth under £10 .. I don't see how that is "as described".. Why should I pay for their boxes for them to scam me out of my money and send me samples worth under half of what I paid for, for the box...
Frankly I'm extremely annoyed. More so now that they mailed me saying I either pay up or I am not allowed any more boxes or to buy anything from them.
Any DECENT company would try to understand the problems and try to sort them , I complained it was undervalue and I was not happy.. Did they reply? NO. Did they offer a part refund? NO.. Did they even care that they were conning people out of money? Clearly not.
A company like that, I do NOT want to buy from again. My April & TWO May Boxes I got just about valued one lot of $32.
I originally paid £19.50 for two April boxes and then they put the price up due to postage prices going up.. fair enough, so it was £21.26 for Mays. In total £60.26.. They instead sent me two may boxes and didn't even apologize when I posted on their page. Not only that April box was two months late and only valued a lovely £7.04 when I paid £19.50 and according to them that's okay? I could have reported them for that as its fraud since they're clearly ripping people off but I didn't and just claimed my money back.
Their previous boxes were good.. But now I don't think they even care. The lack of communication with customers is awful. I mailed them asking if the boxes were sent and I got totally ignored .. People even get ignored on their facebook page. Its awful.
I previously also purchased a june box and I asked for my money back , I do not want any more of their boxes after the April & May boxes and with how they treat customers.
Please note, some prices are calculated from full size items and since I don't have the contents amount for each item I have no choice but to use weight, but the items may value slightly less since the pots take up some weight.
Please note, some prices are calculated from full size items and since I don't have the contents amount for each item I have no choice but to use weight, but the items may value slightly less since the pots take up some weight.
But anyway..
Here are the contents of my box.. :
Item 1: The Bath Cafe Tart Melt Samples
Okay... not entirely sure how wax tart melts are "beauty related" but anyway they smell nice.. But you can buy these for $1 which is approx 66p as I contacted the company since I wasn't sure of the value.
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Item 2: Sycamore Boutique Under Eye Cream Sample
I originally thought this valued £3.16..but then i realised the container probably had a bit of weight to it and if the total weight is 9g there is no way the contents is 9g and according to the natural beauty box, my sample would be 5g contents approx so does that mean my pot is 4g itself?!! if thats the case it only actually values £1.75 !!
www.etsy.com/shop/sycamoreboutique
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Item 3: Sycamore Boutique Lip Tint Sample
You can buy 3 of these samples for £1.93 making one worth approx 64p!
www.etsy.com/shop/sycamoreboutique
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Items 4 & 5: Holistic Owl Owlchy Ointment Sample & Body Butter Sample
These two samples you can buy for 65p each! so £1.30 for both of them.
www.etsy.com/shop/holisticowl
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Item 6: Molly Rose Balms Lip Balm
Well again... you can buy this for 65p. Apparently the lip balm was supposed to be 9g? hmmm...
www.etsy.com/shop/mollyrosebalms
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Item 7. Plus Facile Natural Bath Salt Sample
You can buy these bath salts full size at 4oz = 113g for £1.31. This sample is 16g as you can see, so.. £1.31 divided by 113 then times by 16 makes this only worth around 19p!
www.etsy.com/shop/plusfacile
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Item 8: Cheeky Chickie Soap Natural Soap Sample
This was infact the cheapest sample I've ever receive in a beauty box.. And it didn't even weigh 1g. Its actually that thin that if I try to use it it will just snap. Or slide out of my hands... Full size 90g is worth £3.45 which would make it approximately 4p per gram.. But since it doesn't even weigh 1g its even less than that! I mean really. .. Sending a sample that only values £0.04. It may be a lovely soap but a sample that tiny how am I even supposed to test it? My soap sample was supposed to weigh 8g.. I think they were a bit off with that.
www.etsy.com/shop/cheekychickiesoap
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Item 9: Passion Moon Potions Perfume Sample Vial
Also according to natural beauty box this was supposed to be 5g? Anyway.. you can buy it for 56p.
www.etsy.com/shop/passionmoonpotions
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Item 10: Earth Angel Minerals Butter Cream Skin Balancer Sample
You can buy this on their shop £3 for a 3g tub with approx .5g net wt but this is only 2g and .28g .. Means per .01g it costs 6p since 3 divided by 50 (which is the .5g) equals 6p.. So if its 6p for 0.01g then 6 times by 28 gives me a value of £1.68 for this.
So... the overall total for the box is :
£7.47
In the end , the box actually worked out cheaper than I thought. I originally thought it was around £8.50 value but £7.47 is worse!!!!
I'm disgusted .. Disgusted that the company think they can get away with keeping £21.28 and only sending £7.47 worth. Apparently according to them, everything was as "described" because they added in 10-15 samples etc.. that may be so but HELLOOOOOO .. Wheres the rest of my moneys worth?
Since I got two mays boxes, one I paid £19.50 for and the other £21.28 .. the two boxes combined totalled £14.94.. Yes.. Both boxes didn't even value the price of one box.
April's box only valued £7.04.
http://aprilsrandombanter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/aprils-natural-beauty-box-that-arrived.html
So one april box plus two may boxes and the contents only totalled £21.98 and I paid £60.26 in total.. Yet they complain that I put in a paypal claim to claim my money back from them and told me they sent me an invoice and if I don't pay it they refuse to send me anything ever again. To be fair I don't care. I'm not paying it. I shouldn't have to pay it. They only sent me £21.98 worth in 3 boxes which barely passes the cost of one box... So I'm not letting them con me out of money. Sorry but not a very smart move.
I'm sorry.. what happened there? You're now telling me in another email that boxes that contain foil samples will contain no more than two.. .yet you previously told me there shouldn't be any in upcoming boxes? 10-15 deluxe samples? Err.. what were these .. They may as well change it to "cheap deluxe samples that don't even value half the box price".. Their previous boxes were good despite the lack of communication etc.. but they were over the value of the box price. I wouldn't even mind if the contents added up to the box price but these boxes now are awful. They say its because they buy the products and it costs them shipping prices as well and the boxes cost them money.. but that doesn't mean its okay to send undervalued boxes. Then they tried to state it costs a lot to send to the UK. Everyone gets these boxes so its not just people in the UK that would have been out of pocket a lot of money.. I'm pretty sure it doesn't cost loads to send to other canadian addresses and they'd be getting the exact same valued box so that can't really be used as an excuse.
As you can probably tell. I'm extremely annoyed with these boxes and the fact the company still expects me to pay the £60.26 for all 3 boxes..
Update: I've got my refund for my June box that I asked for and will no longer be receiving anything from this company.
Edited again 6/7/2013..
Since people don't understand my calculation methods
Here you go:
And like I previously mentioned, since some of the samples don't have the measurements on the samples of how much content is in them, I had to go by weight to do the calculations as it was the closest thing I could use. I never said the calculations were completely accurate since I did previously state that I had to use the weight in g / ml instead of the actual contents amount & some of the containers may weigh 1g or two..
As you can see, I am not the only one who uses the same method. A previous leaflet from a box received from this company also calculated using the contents and stated one of the items that was 1oz full size was $22 and the sample was 0.5oz and valued $11 which is half the full size price since it is half the contents amount.
Since the leaflet was nothing like the above one for this months box & just a plain sheet with the name of the products and were to get them, I had to look up every product and work it out for myself.
Anyone else get this box? what were your thoughts? x
www.etsy.com/shop/plusfacile
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Item 8: Cheeky Chickie Soap Natural Soap Sample
www.etsy.com/shop/cheekychickiesoap
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Item 9: Passion Moon Potions Perfume Sample Vial
www.etsy.com/shop/passionmoonpotions
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Item 10: Earth Angel Minerals Butter Cream Skin Balancer Sample
So... the overall total for the box is :
£7.47
In the end , the box actually worked out cheaper than I thought. I originally thought it was around £8.50 value but £7.47 is worse!!!!
I'm disgusted .. Disgusted that the company think they can get away with keeping £21.28 and only sending £7.47 worth. Apparently according to them, everything was as "described" because they added in 10-15 samples etc.. that may be so but HELLOOOOOO .. Wheres the rest of my moneys worth?
Since I got two mays boxes, one I paid £19.50 for and the other £21.28 .. the two boxes combined totalled £14.94.. Yes.. Both boxes didn't even value the price of one box.
April's box only valued £7.04.
http://aprilsrandombanter.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/aprils-natural-beauty-box-that-arrived.html
So one april box plus two may boxes and the contents only totalled £21.98 and I paid £60.26 in total.. Yet they complain that I put in a paypal claim to claim my money back from them and told me they sent me an invoice and if I don't pay it they refuse to send me anything ever again. To be fair I don't care. I'm not paying it. I shouldn't have to pay it. They only sent me £21.98 worth in 3 boxes which barely passes the cost of one box... So I'm not letting them con me out of money. Sorry but not a very smart move.
As you can probably tell. I'm extremely annoyed with these boxes and the fact the company still expects me to pay the £60.26 for all 3 boxes..
Update: I've got my refund for my June box that I asked for and will no longer be receiving anything from this company.
Edited again 6/7/2013..
Since people don't understand my calculation methods
Here you go:
As you can see, I am not the only one who uses the same method. A previous leaflet from a box received from this company also calculated using the contents and stated one of the items that was 1oz full size was $22 and the sample was 0.5oz and valued $11 which is half the full size price since it is half the contents amount.
Since the leaflet was nothing like the above one for this months box & just a plain sheet with the name of the products and were to get them, I had to look up every product and work it out for myself.
Anyone else get this box? what were your thoughts? x
Sorry to disagree with you but you are not making accurate comparisons on at least some of these items. I am the supplier of the SycamoreBoutique items and your information is wrong.
ReplyDelete1. Lip Tint - This is actually the full sized pot selling for 2.95 / 1.91 (not 3 for that price, reread the listing)
2. Eye Cream sample - these aren't even for sale in this size so you can't make a comparison.
3. You are using a weight measurement even for all the items, even those that are measured by volume. They are not the same thing.
The amount of product in pots is actually less than the weight measurement in total so that would mean that the items are less than what I value them
DeleteI calculate from the original price.. If for example, an item was £10 for 100g, a 10g sample would only value £1 compared to the original size, which is what I did with the eye cream because you do not sell it at that amount, but it doesn't mean you cant work out the value of that amount. And its what a lot of people do to find out how much smaller sizes value.
Also, you do not state how much is in the lip balms for the full sizes or sample and the natural beauty box wrote on the sheet that they sent that it is a "Lip Tint Sample" so I have not read any information incorrectly and I have listed it as a lip tint sample rather than full size due to what I was told from the information sheet so basically all I have done is gone by their information. Since being a company you could have stuck them in small pots instead of zip packets specifically for the box.
I used weight measurements to show people the sizes of the items incase they were unsure what the size of the item was as with photos its sometimes hard to tell, not to show them how much the items weigh so they have a rough idea of the sizes, not to show them how much content is inside.
I didn't have any products in zip packets so I am not sure what you are referencing. The makeup perhaps ? You will almost never find makeup samples in pots, too expensive per unit.
ReplyDeleteYou still can't take a full size product price and just divide it down. Sample size of any product cost more because of packaging and production costs. Take a travel size item from the store and multiply it to match the weight of a full size
- the cost will be considerable
I've had quite a few makeup samples in small pots or flip pots previously I guess it just depends on where you buy the containers from, maybe they purchase them cheap? I don't know. I managed to pick up containers cheap from abroad to make my homemade lip balm so I suppose that could be how
DeleteIf i had a 20ml sample and a full size was 100ml for £10 , if i tried to sell it for more than £2 or value at more than that people would say I was ripping them off since they can buy the full size for £10. thats just how it works. I couldnt turn round and say to someone "but you're paying for the packaging and production" as well because they'd just laugh at me. Its the content other people would take into consideration when calculating the price. I've subscribed to previous beauty boxes and they did the same thing. I hope that makes sense. I'm sure if you could buy a full size 100ml of anything for £10 and I tried to offer you 20ml for more than £2 you'd also think I was ripping you off, so I hope you see my point on why I do calculations by full size :)
If i had a 20ml sample and a full size was 100ml for £10 , if i tried to sell it for more than £2 or value at more than that people would say I was ripping them off since they can buy the full size for £10. thats just how it works. I couldnt turn round and say to someone "but you're paying for the packaging and production" as well because they'd just laugh at me. Its the content other people would take into consideration when calculating the price.
DeleteHave you ever made something before and sold it?
Because anyone who runs a handmade business will tell you they don't charge for supplies. Their charge for their time to make you that item.
No one would laugh. It's common sense.
No one charges only for material cost.
If you ask me to knit a blanket and tell me you want to only pay me for my yarn and supplies I'd laugh in your face and say you're going to pay me for that 14 hours I've spent making your blanket in addition to the supplies.
A travel size bottle of shampoo runs about $1.00 to $1.50 at target. The full size runs about $4. You're getting about 15-20 times more than that sample.
Does that add up to you mathematically as you've done?
No. But people still pay that $1.00-$1.50 for that travel size for convenience.
Some of them you can actually buy for under 70p..
DeleteI have also sold samples previously , not my own made but still samples
But if i tried to sell a 20ml sample for more than £2, no-one would buy it.
I already know handmade businesses and that they dont charge only for material cost and they charge for the time to make it.
Also if you've had previous beauty boxes from the UK , you'll notice some of them have full size prices and sample prices on the cards.. and the sample prices have been calculated using the above calculations
Same with other blog posts about other beauty boxes and other stuff, you will find that other people will use the same method.
Also.. for example, Natural beauty box previously sent us Cucumber cooling facial moisturiser by delizioso skincare.. It was a 15ml sample, their full size is 30ml for $22 so on the leaflet they sent they put Sample worth: $11.00 Full size: $22.00 because the sample was half the full size.
But since this time round , the leaflet was basic, barely any info about anything and just the name of the products and where to find them, I had to work it out myself. And since some didnt have the ml or g written on them the closest thing I could do would be to work it out from weight which I already know that the containers have some weight to them but I wasn't pouring the products out to weigh them properly by gram or ml.
That said - I agree your box is way overpriced.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you agree with that, I don't know what happened. They did send good boxes before. I wont be buying anymore though. Although on a good note, they have introduced me to Etsy, which I didn't know about so thats a plus.
DeleteWell at least you discovered Etsy, that is a good thing. So many great sellers here and such a huge selection. I am sure if you look around you will find lots of great stuff at reasonable prices.
ReplyDeleteBtw - have you tried any of the products yet ?
Yeah i had a good browse on there, i have stuff to make my own soaps, bath bombs, to fragrance & oil bath salts, to make lip balm & healing balms now so I don't really need to look to buy anything now I'll just make my own :D Gives me something to do. I tried two from this box so far, your lip tint & the healing balm. The lip tint was surprisingly light, which is good since im incredibly pale and i don't really like lip colour as I feel it makes me look silly..
DeleteI don't understand your post.
ReplyDeleteHow can you calculate the weight of something and say what it's worth?
Do you realize these companies are out to make a profit?
How do you know what they paid for items? You have to take into account what they paid for the items (plus the shipping of the items to them). Then you have to take into account the people who are being paid.
You're paying someone to curate those items for you, package it and send it to you.
That's like you starting up a box business. You walk into sephora and you drop $50 on products.
Are you going to ship $50 of products to someone?
No. You're going to charge someone more so that you aren't wasting your time curating a box for free. How much money would it cost you to run that business?
Your logic doesn't make sense to me. You're paying for curation and convenience. If you wanted to scour the items yourself you would.
Instead you want a box delivered to your home monthly and someone finding products for you.
People don't work for free. Nor can you accurately say how much those things cost.
Do you really think you're getting $30 worth of eye cream from sephora? Hell no. That's market price. They pay wholesale at 50 % off and sell it to you for more.
Previous boxes have actually been worth buying. This hasn't. As I explained in prevous messages about my calculations, if people don't understand my methods then I'm sorry but I've explained it as well as I could. I wouldnt pay more than £2 for a 20ml sample if i can buy the full size of 100ml for £10
DeleteI dont buy my boxes to sell things on, but occasionally I find something that isnt suited. So you're basically saying since i have to take it into consideration what they paid for the items etc its ok for me to pay £19.50 to receive under £10 worth of items. I've previously subscribed to many beauty boxes. All which have valued the box price, slightly more or even better. I buy them to get what I paid for, not to get less, crappy service , delays and ignored by the company. None have ever been this disappointing. Even if i didnt like the contents in previous boxes from other beauty boxes, they weren't undervalue.. People wouldn't buy beauty boxes if they knew they were going to only receive half their moneys worth or less.
And.. the fact you can buy some of the samples for under 70p, its pretty poor compared to previous boxes. Not only that.. But April Box was 2 months late, company communication was poor, and its like the company arent bothered about their customers anymore. I calculate the value of the sample from the full size as an example of what it would maybe cost to buy the product that size.
I know each brand has its own price, but if the company sells a full size for a specific price I go by the original price.
Yes I've sold samples previously from UK Boxes and if I even tried to sell a 20ml sample for more than £2 when the original 100ml is sold for £10, then I'd be told "sorry i'll just buy full size" because people get more for their money. Its just used as an example. As for the weight i also explained in a previous response to someone else. Since they don't state the ml or g on some items I have to "estimate" by weight.
I make my own toiletries as well, so I know that the contents dont add up as they need to make a profit. But as you can see, I go by the original sellers price as its what they value the product at for selling.
Im sorry if you disapprove with my post, but if you look at other beauty boxes contents at least add up to the price of the box.
Edited the post, added an extra bit showing other people use the same calculation method including the company previously.. so it solves any confusion.
ReplyDelete