Wantable Subscription Box - Review, Photos, Swatches

You may or may not be aware of my obsession with subscription boxes; this is not limited to beauty boxes, either - lifestyle, food, fitness... you name it, I'll try it! Today I have a have a review of my very first Wantable box. The cool thing is that Wantable tries to send products according to your preferences, based on a fairly thorough questionnaire that the customer is asked to fill out prior to purchase. Wantable promises to never send you products you mark as a 'dislike'. For example, if you indicate that you don't wear liquid eyeliner, don't expect to receive it; likewise, if you say you aren't fond of nude lipsticks, you won't be sent any in that color family. I automatically went through my survey to 'dislike' all skincare products offered as I've got enough of those from my now defunct Birchbox subscription. Overall I tried to guide my box to include a large amount of colorful makeup products, especially lip products, nail polish, and eyeshadow and liner. Each box costs $40. So what did I get? Let's take a look!

The items come directly inside the shipping packaging, with no second inner box:

Here are all the items included in my box, unwrapped:

The items you see are: Color Club nail polish, Be A Bombshell eye shadow, Be A Bombshell eye liner, 29 Reserves lipstick, Benecos eye shadow, Cailyn lipstick, and Milu Amber Sugar Scrub. Everything is full-size apart from the scrub (which I believe is a bonus item).

Here are the eye products:

Left to right: Be A Bombshell eyeliner marker in Provocateur (deep blue), Benecos Natural Baked Colours in Amazing (shimmery teal), Be A Bombshell Eye Shadow in Tease (shimmery teal).

I'm familiar with the BaB eyeliner marker as I've gotten the black one in an Ipsy (I believe) box some months back and have used it often for its precision and staying-power. I think the color included in this Wantable package is a very pretty one, and I've no doubt I will be using it with some regularity. I'm mostly pleased to have gotten this! Now let's move on to the painted elephant in the room, shall we? Tease and Amazing are very, very similar hues. Tease is a bit more intense, more pigmented, and softer in texture. Like some baked eyeshadows, the Amazing cake is hard and a tad difficult to get into with a brush. Besides that, it's on the sheer and powdery side, definitely not as smooth as Tease. I do like teals, though, and I expect to reach for Tease when the mood arises; I am, however, miffed that I got two shadows that are, for all intents and purposes, the same color! :/ Boo, it's disappointing.

Moving on to the lipstick:

Left to right, we have 29 Reserves Moisturizing Lipstick in Expressive Rose, and Cailyn Mineral Lipstick in #1 Lovely in Pink. 29R is a bright raspberry and Cailyn is a light peachy pink with fine, sparse glitter. I've yet to wear either of the shades, but I can tell you that these colors are right up my alley and I'm excited to try them. Wantable was pretty bang-on with this one!

Finally, I received a nail polish from Color Club's recent Fiesta Collection - Flamingo, an uber-bright neon pink:

Hmm... I suppose I'll take it! I do like Color Club polishes, generally, though I don't wear pink all that often. I am a sucker for neons, though, and this vibrant color will fit in well with the summer weather, if it ever decides to show its face (my area is having an unreasonably chilly late March, so far!).

Total value of my box -

Cailyn Mineral Lipstick - $15
29 Reserves Moisturizing Lipstick - $25
Be a Bombshell Eyeliner Marker - $14
Be a Bombshell Eye Shadow - $14
Color Club Nail Polish - $8
Benecos Natural Baked Eyeshadow - $12.99
(I'm not including the Milu Amber Sugar Scrub, both because I believe it's a 'bonus' item and because I've no idea how much product was included in my sample; for reference, however, a 250g jar is listed at $43.72.)

Total, excluding the Milu scrub: $88.99. Not bad, eh?

To summarize:

Yes, Wantable is more expensive at $40 than other beauty box services such as Ipsy, Birchbox, Glossybox, Beauty Allure, and Beauty Army; however, the biggest distinguishing feature is the ability to fairly thoroughly customize your package, short of choosing the exact items. I felt my products were as a whole decent and fit with what I expected from my questionnaire answers. Additionally, the value of the box was more than twice the price tag. The big, glaring negative is, of course, getting basically two of the same eyeshadow colors! I assume the samples were pulled randomly without any check. Still a bummer, though.

I'd be willing to try another box, and I do recommend checking Wantable out if you love these kinds of subscription services. It's a pretty neat service!

You can sign up for Wantable here! What do you think/what have been your experiences with Wantable?