Birch Box and Ipsy are makeup box subscriptions. Every month for $12 each company will send you a selection of five products based on your beauty profile you made online. Each beauty profile is based on a questionnaire to better get to know what you look like (eye color, skin color, hair type and color, etc.) where you’re at in your makeup knowledge, and what your makeup goals are. They’re fairly similar in idea but Ipsy supposedly gives more full sized products and less known brands, but always comes with a makeup bag, while Birch Box gives all sample sizes and more well known brands, inside just a box.
I have taken it upon myself to try both, and here’s what I found out!
I tried Ipsy first. I filled out my beauty profile and stayed a member of the subscription for about three months, which means I received three boxes. Some of the bags that came were super cute and some of the bags that came with Ipsy were honestly super ugly. In the first bag, I received normal products, no full sized ones. I got an eye-liner which was annoying because in my profile I said I don’t wear eye-liner and do not want to receive it. Later, I went online and rated each product in my bag that I did and didn’t like. I stuck it out two more months and the third month when I had been shipped my third eye-liner, and third exact same color of eye shadow, I called it quits. The program wasn’t listening to my reviews every month and wasn’t taking my beauty profile into consideration at all.
My boyfriend bought me Birch Box for Christmas and I had a three month subscription. Everything in the box matched up with my beauty profile. I was honestly amazed after my not-so-amazing experience with Ipsy. The hair products were all for light, thin hair like mine, the primers and moisturizers were for dry sensitive skin, the makeup matched my skin tone and eye color, and I never received a product I didn’t like.
If I had to pick which one to continue the subscription with, it is a clear choice: Birch Box. They listened to my beauty profile and continuously sent me products that I was intrigued by, that I didn’t have, and that worked for me as a person and my routine.