Research Frenzy Subscription Box November French Box

I have to say, French Box is a bit better than your average subscription box.  It comes in a nice pink box with the Eiffel Tower on it, with a smaller white and pink inner box with an Eiffle tower pattern.  This box is the absolute cutest of any of the boxes I've seen.  It costs $24 a month, which is above average, but I got a deal on my first month at just $14.

Before I go into the items in this box with a monetary value, let me go ahead and tell you about some of the stuff that's hard to put a price on.  There's a great recipe for Croque-Monsieur in here that might be fun to try.  There's a post card that says, "Paris is always a good idea," which is an Audrey Hepburn quote.  There's an Amazon coupon for 40% off Pier Auge French cosmetics.  There's a packet sized foundation sample by Guerlain.  There's a lovely white ribbon that says French Box on it.  Lastly, there's a very cute French Box drawstring bag, which would be perfect for transporting cosmetics or jewelry.  All very, very cute, and all visible in the youtube video I made of the box opening.

Now, let's get down to brass tacks, the items that make up the value of this box, which you'll remember I paid $14 for.



The spoiler card has this to say about this product, "Wonderfully gentle, this treatment smooths the skin.  Beautified skin regains all its natural radiance and is better protected against the signs of aging, stress and pollution."  The retail price on this is $43.50 for 1.7 oz, which I believe is this size rounded up slightly, because the packaging here says 1.68 fluid oz.  This seems like a pretty good item to receive, certainly it's a high sticker price.  I won't personally use this, I might use it as a gift.  It's an excellent value, to be sure.

I can't find this product online, but it's 8.81 oz of French coffee.  L'original French Authenticity Cafe de Paris C'est La Vie 100% Arabica Ground Coffee.  The spoiler card calls it Segafredo.  It says, "Cafe de Paris <<The Original>> is irreplaceable.  Its rich, aromatic flavors will leave you craving for a little bit more French throughout the entire day..."  The full size costs $6.00, and I believe this is the full size.  It's well in date as well, good until March of 2016.  This will make an excellent gift.

A perfume sample is included from Leonard.  It smells lovely, and at .05 oz, there's enough in this spray applicator for several uses.  I enjoyed this one a lot, it's just a really nice scent.

The spoiler sheet lists the "exclusive item from the Lido collection" at a retail price of $12, which seems kind of steep if it is either the magnet or the cell phone charm from this box.  Even if it's both, it seems kind of high, but then I don't really use magnets and cell phone charms are cool but my pone doesn't have a slot for them anymore.

I thought the Missiu Eiffle Tower bracelet was pretty cool, but it slipped off and got lost the first time I wore it, so that was less cool.  It had a retail price of $12, and I can't find another one like it to show you what it looked like.

Overall, it was an interesting box, and a great value.  Again, I paid $14, and I think ti was a pretty good deal at that price.  I'm tempted to keep my subscription for next month, but I haven't decided for certain yet.  This will probably be the last subscription box I'll try until the end of the year, and then I might start again in January.  Christmas is a stressful time to try to do anything extra.

Would you keep this subscription, or do you think I should try something else?  Should I go back and try loot crate again?  Do you know of something else?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Research Frenzy: Subscription box SuperKawaiiPop's Kawaii Box

Today I received my SuperKawaiiPop Kawaii Box.  I ordered the product on October 5th, and received it on November 17th.

Here is the description of the product I ordered:

The reality of the product was that I did not receive a rement or a popin cookin kit.  I got an Aluminum lunch bag by Daiso.  I got an unmarked, unwrapped pair of chopsticks. I got some "funny" dessert erasers.  I got a bunny bento box that says "Let's Play Together!  Hey!  I want to be a friend of you." I got a set of teddy bear bento wrapers.  I got a memo set.  I got five individual sauce packets.  

No popin cookin set.  No rement.

Let's look at the individual items:

This is the bento box I received, as sold through another vendor.  It has a seal on the inside and yellow flaps that lock the lid in place.  The words printed on it in English are rather ridiculous.  "LET'S PLAY TOGETHER!" the Bunny entices, "Hey!  I want to be a friend of you."  The bunny himself is rather cute, with his plaid ears over a polkadot background.

The sauce bottles came in two sizes, three were 6ml and two were 13.5ml.  I'm pretty sure they came out of these packages.

I couldn't find similar aluminum bags, paper bento cups with teddy bears on them, or the chopsticks, so here are the items I received, minus the letter set, which I immediately gave to my niece.

My favorite item included in this selection is the aluminum lined lavender bag.  Here's what it looks like with all the items inside:

Do I think this service was a good value?  Not really.  I mean, yeah, this stuff can be expensive to import, but almost all of it was Daiso.  It did not include a rement or a popin cookin set as it said it would in the description.

The big issue I had with this stuff is that it wasn't all that cute.  Here's a much cuter bento set with a rabbit on it, available on Amazon right now for less than $17:

If you're willing to pay more than I did for your lunchbox, here's a very cute My Neighbor Totoro set:




The other issue I had with SuperKawaiiPop is that the customer service wasn't very good, and the product took a long time to get here.

Some months are probably better than others, but I would not recommend this service after my experience.

Edit:  Here's someone else's unboxing of the same month, her items were somewhat different from mine.

 

She got two bags of erasers to my one, a piece of candy, and a more varied set of bottles.  I think her bento box is cuter than mine, but I like the bag I got better than the one she got.  Mine has a draw string, hers has a zipper.  There's not much difference there, but there is a little variation.

Research Frenzy: Subscription Box Reveal Loot Crate Galactic Box

Yesterday I showed you all what was in my Walmart Beauty box.  Today I'm going to show you the contents of my Loot Crate.  Loot Crate costs $13.37 plus shipping from California.  With Loot Crate, it's safe to assume you'll receive a commemorative button and a booklet showing you the products inside, so I won't bother to mention them.



This month's candy:  A single packet of Pop Rocks.  Delicious.  I ate the entire packet of these immediately.



One Tribble.  This item is selling on E-bay for about $5 shipped right now, but that may change.  These are pretty cute, I might keep it or I might regift it.  Who knows?


One Aliens Reaction figure.  I would definitely have never bought this of my own accord, as I have never seen this movie, and I have mixed feelings about these simple vintage style action figures.  They're kind of cool, but I do not collect them.  I will either sell this or regift it.  These are selling for around $10 shipped on E-bay right now.

One Han Solo in carbonite mini poster, selling on E-bay for $4 shipped right now.  I gave it to my niece right away.




One Funko Mystery Mini of Malcolm Reynolds.  These are pretty cute.  Selling on E-bay right now for about $10 shipped.



This is one of the coolest items in the box, Firefly bank heist money.  These are pretty cool for cosplay.  Median e-bay cost is around $6.00 shipped.

Also included was a code for a Halo comic, and a Star Wars magnet.

Is this the $40 value advertised?  At e-bay value, you'd be pretty close to that trying to buy all this stuff, but I almost certainly wouldn't do it.  I would probably buy the Tribble at that E-bay price, because it's cute and it'd make a good Christmas gift for someone, or I could cosplay a classic Trek character in the future.  The firefly money is neat, I definitely would pay about $6 to have that in my cosplay closet.  And in this box, that's about it for me on value.  I liked the pop rocks, and it was really fun to get this in the mail.

I enjoyed subscribing to this box, but I think I'm going to cancel for next month, the theme for which is "Fear."  I've already sent them an e-mail concerning my cancellation.  They're saying next month there will be a T-shirt, but that will do me no good if I don't like the theme.  Sometimes I like horror movies, but that theme isn't as exciting for me as a science fiction, TV, or comic book theme.  I may come back to them later if they release some convincing advertising for a future theme.  Instead, I'm going to subscribe to the SuperKawaiiPop Kawaii box next month, which promises a bento box, chopsticks, and either a Rement or a Popin' Cookin' set plus more cute stuff for $20 shipped.  I've been thinking about buying a bento box and some other random Japanese stuff lately,  so it'll be interesting to see if what they ship me is to my taste.  I've enjoyed watching other people's unboxing videos from this company, so hopefully I'll get some cool stuff.  After I try that one, I may try another box.  Who knows?

Mystery boxes are fun, but I think this month's Loot Crate really illustrates the point that when you buy a subscription box, you're betting against your own ability to shop for items you want at a low price.  Sure, the stuff I got is worth more than $20, but I would only actually buy about $10 worth of this stuff of my own accord, and the rest of it will have to go.  The Wal-Mart Beauty Box kind of surprised me, because they actually sent me stuff that (for the most part) I will use.  So far, i'm still enjoying this experiment, and I hope you're enjoying it with me.

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).