Research Frenzy: Subscription box reveal Walmart Beauty Box

I decided to order a couple of subscription boxes as part of my ongoing investigation.  The first of which is the Walmart Beauty Box.  It costs $5 (shipped) per box, and is shipped out three times a year.  This is a new service, I think I got in on the first box.

Here is what came in mine:




This was my favorite item that came in my box.  This is Covergirl Glowing Nights in #Afterdark  The color on this is very aqua.  It came in a 3.5ml bottle, which is full size.  These retail for $2.95 at Walmart, and it came in a color I've been thinking about buying anyway, so that's more than half the cost of the box.   Here's a link to the product on the Walmart website in case you want to confirm prices or you want to order some for yourself.  I have to say, I'd buy this product again.  The color is fabulous, and it dries really fast for a product that doesn't mention it drying fast on the packaging.  Love it.





This item comes in pretty large packaging and takes up kind of a lot of box space, but I can't say I was disappointed to get some deodorant in here.  This is a 1.6 oz container of Secret "Clincal Strength" as an invisible solid in completely clean.  Obviously, this is a useful product, I've often said I wish people would hand out free deodorant samples at Dragon Con.  Just put a basket full of them out, no suggestions made, no questions asked.  Just sponsoring the con and putting the brand name out there.  It smells pretty good.  I'm kind of shocked at how much this deodorant retails for at $7.92.  Here's the Walmart link.  This deodorant would cost as much as the whole box of stuff.




They sent me a travel sized sample of each of these.  One fluid ounce each of Dove Advanced Hair Series Oxygen Moisture Conditioner and Shampoo.  I haven't tried these products yet, but they smell really good.  Since these are the small, I can't say for sure how much they would cost to purchase, but the full size products retail for less than $5 each at Walmart.




The Dove Pure Care Dry Oil Nourishing Hair Treatment they sent me came in a .4 oz container, which is tiny.  I've never used a product like this before, so I'm at a loss to tell you what it's suppose to do or whether the "dry oil" is meant to mean you put it on your hair when it's dry.  My hair is so oily to start with I'm hesitant to add more.  It says it's made with African Macadamia nuts.  Full size (12 fl oz) at Walmart costs just under $12.




I've enjoyed trying this L'Oreal Glossy Lip Balm, but I probably wouldn't have purchased it in "Ginger Candy."  I've just never been a pastel lip color girl.  The package they sent me is 2.7 g.  This is a full size product that retails at Walmart for $6.97.  It feels pretty nice on my lips, but like I said, the color's not me.





The next item the sent me was a Neutrogena Nourishing Long Wear Makeup with Tone Correcting Complex "Find your Perfect Match" sample card.  There were eight tones to choose from.  Surprise surprise, my best blend is "Classic Ivory."  There's no real sample to speak of here, and oddly enough it's not readily available on Walmart's website, but most Walmart Neutrogena products sell for around $12.  There's a coupon on the back of mine for $2 off.

The next sample is a packet of L'Oreal Youth Code Pore Vanisher.  I have no clue how this product is suppose to work, allegedly it instantly vanishes the appearance of pores and over the course of a month can actually physically make ones pores smaller.  That sounds like snake oil to me, but when I tried this sample it actually did make my pores less visible.  This is just a packet sample, so I'd say it has no value, but a full size costs around $18 at Walmart.



Lastly, they sent me a sample sized vial (.04 fl oz) of Nicki Minaj's perfume, Pink Friday.  It smells pretty nice, and it's an interesting product to try.  I don't know yet if I'd buy this product if I just saw it on a shelf, especially since it goes for $40.18 for 3.4 fl oz at Walmart.  I'd definitely go for the Amazon price on this one ($25.42 at the time this was written).

Overall, I feel like Walmart's beauty box is a pretty amazing value.  The big dud here is the lip gloss, because I honestly would never wear that color out.  The winner is the nail polish.  Everything else is somewhere in between, and there are products here I haven't tried yet.  There were three full size products in here for $5, with a value of just under $18.  Eleven dollars of that are in products I will actually use.  Overall, I'd give this service four stars, holding only one back because it doesn't have any customization at all.  I will continue to subscribe to this service for at least the next box.

Research Frenzy: Mystery Appeal

I remember a few years ago there was a big mystery box fad on E-bay.  People would bid up assorted boxes of junk.  In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom*, there were several people who were known dealers of randomly assorted Buffy merch, including props, sideshow figures, and autographs.  I never ordered one of those for a number of reasons, but it was interesting to see how much they would go for.  Use to, you could search E-bay for mystery boxes and it would come up with hundreds of general ones as well as the four or five Buffy ones that were generally on there.  For the purpose of this post, I searched E-bay today to see how those are going now, and there are only 33 on the whole website.  Buying and selling random assortments of junk on E-bay is clearly not in vogue.

But that isn't to say that mystery boxes themselves are any less popular.  I just attended Dragon Con last weekend, and I can't tell you how commonly dealers there featured mystery boxes and grab bags on their tables.  Five dollar Chinese takeout boxes stuffed with rings, pins, earings, and hairbows.  Ten dollar boxes filled with old TV guides, pins, and refrigerator magnets.  Mystery boxes are a reality of cons.  Sometimes they're a good deal, and you can get some really neat stuff in there, and sometimes you get stuck with a box of old TV guides you have to either throw away or carry back to your room.  I'm clearly not bitter about that at all.

The reality of mystery boxes at cons is that they're generally filled with things that don't sell fast and that you probably wouldn't buy if they were sitting on the table.  Overstocked merchandise.  The dealer's buyers remorse package.  I've certainly purchased good mystery boxes from crafters, and I wouldn't doubt a box from a snack vendor might be enjoyable.  After my box of old TV guides, though, I'm very skeptical about the whole con mystery box experience.

Traditional mystery boxes have a cousin.  SUBSCRIPTION BOXES.  A plethora of companies offer to send an assortment of goods related to a topic.  The quality of these boxes are as diverse as their content.  Previously, I was a recurring customer of LOOTCRATE, which is a geek themed box of pop culture related items every month.  Sometimes I'd get a T-shirt, or some Funko toys, usually there'd be some candy in there and some stickers.  It's fun to get a box of random junk in the mail, everybody loves opening things.

I cancelled my subscription a while ago, because it occurred to me that I would rather pick out $20 worth of stuff that I actually wanted every month than have a randomly selected assortment of items with a retail value of $40.  I'm generally a better shopper than other people.

And then this happened.

Look at that little Groot funko figure (AND HOW MUCH IT'S GOING FOR ONLINE) and you'll see why I had some second thoughts.  I mean, back when I was getting LOOTCRATE regularly, I could E-Bay most of the stuff in the box and then I'd end up with a neat t-shirt or something and the box would mostly pay for itself.  Lots of the items they put in these things would make fine gifts for kids or friends, so the regifting possibilities are endless.  So, I'm going to give that a second shot, I'll post how that turns out this month later (or maybe I won't).  Regardless, I've renewed my subscription.

That got me thinking about whether there were other subscription services like Lootcrate.  

The video above will give you a pretty good idea of how the Loot Crate compares to other nerd subscription services.  There are also horror subscription boxes, like the Box of Dread.  The dude in these Box of Dread unboxing videos is pretty cool, I don't know what it is about him, whether it's his assortment of horror collectibles in the background or his enjoyment of mystery items, I don't know.  He's just very amusing to watch.  Maybe it's his inflection when he says phrases like "trophy heads."

Not all subscription box services are related to fandom at all.  There are mystery boxes for every lifestyle.  It could just be that I'm a huge nerd and I don't understand other people's mentalities on receiving random boxes of junk, but not all of these are created equally.  If you've read many of my past posts when I've gone way off topic, you'll know that when I start getting interested in a topic like this, I REALLY get interested and just research constantly.  I want to see people receiving awesome stuff they're very excited about.  I also want to see total trail wrecks.  AND THERE ARE SOME DOOZIES.  I'll post a playlist of those a little later.

That's what I've been researching this week.  Let me know in the comments if you're into subscription boxes and mystery boxes, and what your experience has been.  Maybe you have some favorites you'd like me to try, or some cautionary tales.

*A Fandom is like a fan kingdom, it includes all people who are fans of a property and all of its derivative works (like fan fiction, fan art, tumblr blogs, etc).

Update on Kevin, the victim in the dog bite incident.

Reports are saying the boy lost most of his teeth and is unable to open one of his eyes.  58,000 people have joined the Save Mickey group to support the dog.  Only 134 people have joined Unbiased Support for Kevin Vincente.  It's just so wrong to me that this dog has more people pulling for it than this great kid who is shown here hiding his face from the camera.  It breaks my heart.  No child should ever have to feel like that.

I don't care about the dog.  Put the dog in a rescue where he won't be exposed to children, and I won't care what you do with him.  Or euthanize him, it won't hurt my feelings. 

Whatever is done with the dog, somebody should do something for this kid.  Show this kid you love him, that the dog isn't more important than he is.  Show him he can go on like this, and that people will still love him no matter what he looks like.  He has no one here but his mother and his big brother, who is only a year older than him.  His grandma is in Guatemala, she can't come hug him and make him feel good. 

It's just so wrong that this kid has so much surgery ahead of him, and he'll have scars and damage the rest of his life, and people aren't showing him the same support they're showing the dog that disfigured him.  Ugh.  I just don't understand that.  I don't understand that people can raise thousands of dollars to defend a dog in court, and they're not doing as much as they could be doing to help this family pay its medical bills.  This kid is four, and people are resorting to name calling and trying to rally against the baby sitter who is at this point irrelevant.  The concern here should be about helping this kid and his mom.

Dog Bite Fever: Pit Bulls in the Media. The Animals. The owners. The Children.

I know I post all kinds of crazy things on here.  Today is no exception.  Apparently I like controversy, so I'm opening up a conversation with you about pit bulls.




Clearly this is a tragic situation.  The kid was very badly injured.

Some people think that the child is responsible for what happened, but the poor little guy is four.  Four year olds are not rational.  They're barely more than babies.  They learn a lot at that age, but they're also stubborn, willful little people who know a tiny amount of what they need to know to get by in life.  Bad things obviously happen to unattended four year olds.  But it's extremely easy to get distracted while preparing a snack, or the toddler could sneak off while you're in the bathroom.  And, let's face it, doggies are interesting for little people.  One minute, their just standing around, both of them minding their own business, the next the child's head is in the dog's mouth, and he's being shaken violently.  And this is a good kid, my kind of kid.  The kid that likes super heroes, especially Iron Man.  And now he's going to need surgery.

On the other side of this discussion are 50,000 people who have rallied to save the dog through a facebook page called "Save Mickey."  I looked for a Facebook group for people supporting the kid through his recovery and the series of plastic surgeries he will have to have, the one I found has only 130 supporters.  The dog was on a chain in its own yard.  Pit bulls are not an inherently bad breed of dog, though they are frequently mentioned in the media related to dog bite statistics and deaths.  They're big working class dogs, common in North America, and known for their stocky, muscular build.  I've known many pit bull owners over the years, none of whom has ever mentioned any incidents to me.  Anecdotally, one particular comrade of mine is a pit bull owner, and I know that animal to be a sweet creature.

But here are the facts:  Large breed dogs can do more damage than smaller dogs.  Don't believe me?  Look at lists of "dangerous dog breeds."  I'm not saying this particular list of breeds provides an accurate description of a dog's inherent temperament, but just looking at the dogs, what do they all have in common?  They're not small lap dogs.  The Chihuahua bites.  It can be mean spirited and rotten, right?  But it's not on this list, because it's a tiny little dog with a tiny little mouth that can't reach very far to bite you, and an adult human being can easily overpower it.  The dogs on this list, they're all big dogs.  It stands to reason that big dogs can do more damage to a person in a small amount of time even with a person resisting the damage than little dogs can do.  It's not because little dogs are better, or sweeter, or don't need to be socialized.

Pit bulls, along with other large breed dogs, have a lot of qualities that make an attack from them more dangerous.  They're muscular.  They have a lot of bite pressure.  They have a heavy body that can be used to knock people down, which is dangerous enough by itself when you're talking about an elderly person who can easily break a hip.  When a healthy person is prone, it's easier for an animal to get at the head and neck, which can lead to fatal attacks. 

Last year, there were 32 fatal dog attacks in the US.  By the same source, 78% of the animals involved were pit bulls or pit bull mixes.  Possible reasons for this:  they're large dogs that can do a lot of damage quickly, pit bulls are popular dogs in the US (with this source siting 5% or less of the US dog population), and it's not a breed so much as a fuzzy group of breeds, so it takes less genetic similarity to be considered a pit bull than it does for a dog to be considered (for example) a German Shepherd.  This source sites 56% of the fatalities last year as children under 7.  Sixty-one percent of these kids were four or younger, like Kevin.  Ninety-two percent of children who died in dog attacks last year were killed by pit bulls.

Here's a link to another dog bite fact sheet, but I'll go ahead and tell you what I found interesting from the statistics they've gathered as well.  92% of the animals involved (this list includes non lethal bites) are male dogs, 94% of which had not been neutered.  25% of the animals were chained.  Chains are not a good preventative measure against having your dog attack a child.  The insurance industry pays out over a billion dollars in damages because of this problem every  year.  Unattended newborns are 370 times more likely to be killed by a dog than an adult.  That is some really, really awful information there, and if you want to read the whole list, I encourage you to do it.

This source lists a resource for parents to teach their kids about safe dog handling, which is for kids from age 4-7.  We can't be sure that this would have prevented Kevin from having this problem, after all, he's four.  Kids at that age are very dangerous, not because they're bad or foolish, but because they're inexperienced and curious.

The dog fact sheet linked above has some suggestions for responsible pet ownership, and if you're a dog owner, I urge you to follow these directions.  Statistically, neutering your dog greatly reduces the risk of it biting a child.  Training and socialization are crucial elements of dog ownership.  Get your dog use to other dogs and people, and the world will be safer for it.  Good fences make good neighbors, keep your dog behind a fence.  Don't leave your dog on a chain.  Don't leave a baby alone with a dog.  Those are all really good suggestions.

I'd like to add, make yourself aware of animals living in your neighborhood, and assess yourself as a dog owner.  If you have a dog that shows aggression, please, take whatever steps are necessary to protect your neighbors.  Seriously.  Things are going to happen.  Knoxville has a map of places where dangerous dogs live, and it's because there are incidents.  I urge you to love the children who live in your neighborhood more than you love yourself or your dog.  There is absolutely no shame in doing the responsible thing in this situation, even if it is painful.

The point of all of this is not to disparage pit bulls or their owners (many of which are fine dogs owned by fine people), it is merely to provide relevant dog bite and fatality statistics and address the overwhelming majority of respondents to this case who rush to the aid of the dog to the exclusion of the child.  I've seen people expressing the concern that it's wrong to punish the dog for what it has done because it doesn't understand and isn't responsible for its actions.  Putting the dog down would not be a measure to punish the dog, it would be a measure to protect children who will eventually be exposed to the dog.  There is no malice or justice involved in this process, only a cautionary measure taken to prevent potential further incidents.  This is a dog that has killed another dog and injured a child severely.  I've heard people say there's no such thing as a bad dog, and maybe that's true, but I think there is such thing as a dangerous dog, and I think it's reasonable to say this particular dog has proven dangerous.  It should never be allowed near a child again.  If they can safely keep it penned at an animal sanctuary, good.  The safety of children should be the primary concern.

If you take nothing else away from having read this blog entry, remember that statistically, neutering your dog and keeping it behind a fence that will hold it rather than on a chain where children can walk up to it seems to dramatically decrease the odds that the dog will bite a child.  If everyone who keeps an unsupervised outdoor dog were to do these two things (neuter the dog and keep it behind a fence), I think dog related deaths would become much rarer.

If Kevin's story has touched you the way it touched me, or if you just feel like helping a kid in need, here are some ways you can help Kevin.  You can donate to his medical care fundraiser.   You can buy him some supplies for his hospital stay (things like Batman pajamas and tasty snacks to cheer him up) using his Amazon wish list.  Or, you could show support to the family by liking a Facebook page set up to support the child.  I chose to send the kid some oreos, some books, and a Superman cape, because he really is a super kid.