Birchbox

If you do not unsubscribe exactly one year after signing up you will continue to be charged annually, as the automatic billing is automatically on. I subscribed for 2.5 years and wanted to stop, as I had samples of mascara and dry shampoo (their most popular box items) stacking up. I am not able to cancel until the 3 year mark. I'm mad!

Samples are not great; many are cheap drugstore quality. I usually end up giving most away. I signed up for a six month membership but won't renew after this. Their shipping also takes FOREVER. My box shipped on the 7th of this month and it's the 16th and still nothing. It's just NYC to Chicago... no idea what the issue is. Try the Allure Beauty Box. Everything about it is way better.

A long time ago, i had purchased birchbox as a gift. I thought earlier this year it would be a good way to try new stuff while in lock down. Received several boxes. None have actually be used, with the exception of a few products as i cant even tell what they are for or why i would be receiving them as they are nothing i would use. Looks to be like left overs from suppliers/companies, as most would not even be enough 'trial size' to really change products. Worse part is that i bought a 12 month subscription for something that is junk, and now no way to cancel! Oh, add on the BOX IN A BOX waste of cardboard from an environmental perspective. Don't waste your money. Go buy a full size product of what you really want each month! You will be WAY better off.

Christmas gift for my daughter & she loves it. 3 mos might be a cute Secret santa. But, if youre the one paying... youre paying for free things (that they probably get free) hoping that you pay full retail for those products on their site.

Theres no hidden fees or problems. So, I cant say its a ripoff. Its just that I would never pay for free samples. If it was maybe $3-4/mos it might be a fun splurge because presumably youll get things youve never seen.

Just not something I think is worth it.

If you buy the annual subscription when they have a sale then it's not too bad. A lot of samples are repeats. That was even within a 12 month period.

I had several boxes missing samples, but the worst experience was when I tried to buy full size items during a sale. The price in the cart adjusted up ~+$20 at checkout (?!).

I contacted them within minutes and said don't ship, I've been charged completely different prices to those that showed in my cart at checkout. They insisted I needed to wait until delivery and then return. Delivery took ~2 weeks.

THEN - guess how long it took for them to refund me for their prepaid shipping from NC to NY? (oh yeah - I had to request the return shipping label THREE times)... anyone who had 8 weeks is a winner. So in total ~ 3 months to issue a refund. For an order that was confirmed as cancelled within the hour.

Yeah. No.

I really liked the two boxes I ordered individually, so I signed up for the full year to save money. BIG MISTAKE - they send so much repeat stuff, even after you tell them you don't want to keep getting the same thing by writing in or changing your preferences. I wrote in to complain because of the repetition and the tiny size of the samples - not only did they refuse to refund the rest of my money, they said that if I don't sign up to auto-renew (which I never signed up for, they did it w/o asking me) that I can't earn any points for reviews any more. This is a sad and dishonest way for them to block dissatisfied customers from expressing their unhappiness in reviews. If they have to hide the truth, they are up to no good. Will NEVER sign up with them again even for one month after that!

I received my first box today after waiting a few weeks. I was so excited! I opened the outer box and excitedly opened the little black box only to find 5 little sample size products of junk! Needless to say after searching to no avail for their phone number to immediately cancel. I finally got a chat employee and I am just saying lesson learned for me! $10 thrown away!

I ordered an amika curler from them and it was supposed to be delivered between July 27 and July 29. They sent me an email saying it had shipped with a tracking number but I'd check every day and it still hadn't gone anywhere. The tracking itself sucks and now it finally says on July 29th that the pre shipment info was sent to USPS. So annoyed at how long this take, not a professional business at all. I will never purchase from here again, I trust randoms on the internet more than this place.

I have been a loyal birchbox customer for 2 years and always felt like I got value out of the $10 I spent. It gave me the chance to try out a variety of products that I normally wouldn't be able to try, and when I review each product I felt like I was valuable to the brand I reviewed because I always felt special getting to review a quality product.
I would save my points and was excited to purchase full size products that I knew I liked, because I had already had a chance to use it.
And not to mention that I felt like a child at Christmas each month heading to my mailbox to unveil my beautifully wrapped precious little box with unknown goodies to discover! How could this be bad?
Well I have noticed over the last 6 months the quality had gone downhill. First I noticed that the variety of samples was limited. They do have a profile selector that gives you the opportunity to share what you like and what you want, but I have changed my profile multiple times and have seen less variety each month, the opposite of what I should be seeing.
I have 14 facial sunscreen samples, all of which are unopened and will never be used.
Be perfume samples are very disappointing. I have found out out of the dozen perfume samples I have, I only like 2 of them.
The box packaging has also change. It used to come in this adorable color tissue, they stopped using that about 4-5 boxes ago and now it has a cheap black pad at the bottom that sheds this weird material all over the inside of the box and in my samples.
I also have noticed he prices that were already a bit too steep, have risen even more! A typical hair product costs $30+ and up, which would be great if they were all salon quality. But a lot of the products I get I would never ever soend the money they ask for.
And what infuriated me even further is the emails I get each month that seem so exciting " choose our sample now!" But by the time I click the link all the sample choices are sold out! I have even clicked he link within 15 minutes of the email and they are still sold out! Waste of time! It's like dangling a carrot you never can reach.
I understand that may seem petty but they get plenty of my $$ and I feel like my loyalty means nothing to this company. Their greed is getting to their head. I'm sure they get the samples for free. And what's funny is when you take the time to read the sample reviews. Of coarse we are going to give a product a great review. We are excited to try something new and seemly so quality and expensive, and feel like we got value from it and we get free points for providing it. It's very rare I have left a bad review for one of their products, but thinking back I was so excited I didn't really it enough thought or I would have a lot lower scores. So the product reviews are not actual to what they really should be. If you got s free or low cost sample on a $100 product, would you give it a 1? Lol
I'm so disappointed all around I wasted so much money on this company. I have referred so many people to birchbox and I regret it.
I look at my box today and I feel no excitement. It's the same crap Over and over. And my Samples aren't even worth the $10 I spent on it.
Time to cut ties birchbox. You lost me as a customer.
Lower your darn prices! And stop being so greedy!
And maybe change your forever shipping to alittle higher quality and faster service! Waiting 15 days for a product to arrive is rediculous! >:-(

I have been subscribing to Birchbox for over a year and I am just done with it. It was fine, fun a getting the box each month but now I do not want to get it anymore. It is absolutely impossible to cancel your subscription. If you call customer service, you get an automated response telling you you must go on the website and " send a note", which I have done, with no response. There are also very difficult to find instructions on how to cancel on the web site, but that also proven unsuccessful for me. So now I'm just mad and would never recommend it to anyone again. If they had just made it easy to cancel I would have encouraged people to try it, as I wasn't really unhappy with it, it had just run its course for me.

I had faith in Birchbox and placed an order for $400 containing Christmas gifts for over 6 people. I placed my order with 1 week before Christmas and I trusted the items would arrive (with time to spare) because all over their site they advertised "order by tomorrow for delivery before Christmas Eve". I ordered 1 day before their cut off Christmas shipping. Well long story short, I noticed 3 days after placing my order there was no shipping confirmation email sent (which is odd considering it was 2 day UPS air shipping and I ordered items from Nordstrom's the day after and they had already arrived). Turns out they didn't even PROCESS my order, let alone SHIP my order and it was now the 22nd (Thursday). Its funny because they charged me $400 the second I placed the order (FYI Nordstrom's does not charge you until the order ships because they are not frauds and they actually have good customer service and guarantee their products). I reached out to Birchbox "support" team (which was near impossible to get a hold of and there is NO phone #, only email). They did not respond until after 3 desperate emails were sent- the final email I sent threatened to go to social media to voice my concerns because of their lack of response (sadly that is the only reason they actually responded the next day).
The guy I spoke with assured me that it was shipping that night (on the 22nd) and it would be there by the 24th (Saturday). I asked if I could upgrade the shipping to 1 day because of THEIR processing delay and errors but he said he couldn't change it. Well of course I looked on Friday and my package was in South Carolina and I am in California so I knew there was no Christmas miracle that would get my packages across the US to me before Christmas. The expected delivery date showed Tuesday, 12/27. I emailed support on Friday to request a status update (no response until MONDAY, 12/26). TOTAL and complete BS! When you spend $400 on a site they should at least try to redeem themselves for their colossal mistakes. The girl who responded said "Sorry, your package should have been there. I have added a $10 credit to your account". Are you kidding me? Wow. They just lost a whole lot more than $400 because I was going to buy subscriptions for people as well. I will go to Dermstore.com or Ipsy instead.

It doesn't matter if you've been a loyal customer for 3+ years. They will still take away the ONLY worthwhile rewards/ points system. It used to be that once a month, you could write reviews for the samples you received, and you would get 10 points for every review. Why on earth would customers write reviews now when they will receive NOTHING? If anything, Birchbox should be making more money now, so it just shows they are getting greedy. Just like every start up who turns out well. Unfortunately for them, they will start losing their valued customers, and will get more and more BAD reviews. Never forget the customer. That's their first HUGE mistake.

I set my husband up for a subscription and the first box came this month. It was very disappointing. This is basically just a marketing and sales ploy that isnt worth the money. They say they are sending cologn, but all it was, was a 1x1 piece of paper with the scent of a cologn, not even usable. Then the shampoo and conditioner were just one-time-use packets. Their advertising of the products they send is very misleading.

It's been three months. I still have yet to get something I can use more than twice. Most of the time, I do not know the companies they use.
Their idea of a sample this month (April) was a makeup wipe. Their whole idea is for you to use their samples and to purchase the large one at their site, but it takes more than two tries to purchase an expensive item that's not yet considered upscale.

For the first few months I enjoyed most of the products they sent me, but then I began receiving a lot of junk in my boxes. My makeup bag is full of stuff I'll never use again from them. They say they hand pick products just for "you", but after reading other people's reviews, I'm finding that isn't true. I got the same green and gold eye shadow mentioned by two other people just on this site.

Subscribed for 2 months. Received 2 boxes of things that I didn't find useful and wouldn't buy. On the 2nd month, 1 of the items in the box, a red lipstick, broke off and fell on the floor when I opened it. I emailed Birchbox about the incident and their response was to offer me points to spend on items on their site... not an appropriate response to a dispute. Cancelled my subscription that day.

We don't have as many boxes in Canada as in the USA. I was excited when Birchbox became available however it was nothing like the USA boxes. I get really horrible/cheap products not worth my money at all. I don't recommend it. Use Top Box or Ipsy, more value for your money. I don't need shampoo's and body washes... thanks but no thanks birchbox.

I must have caught a bad month! I have yet to receive my June 2014 box although I've paid for it. I do not find 100 points an acceptable trade when the tracking still says it's in Tennessee... but the company won't refund me! I am so annoyed that I've cancelled my monthly subscription!

It started out great with great products and makeup. Now all I seem to get his hair products and dry shampoo that I totally hate. Also, I was supposed to get one item that I picked early (due to extra stuff that you do), and I didn't get it this month. I was also supposed to get to pick the box I wanted one day early, and it didn't let me do it! It's very frustrating seeing how I signed up for a year. My daughter gets Ipsy and it's better.

I'm a member of Ipsy and Scentbird as well as Birchbox and I just don't think they compare. Yes the SAMPLEs they send are usually pretty good but its exactly that, a FREE SAMPLE. With their competitors you at least get 1 FULL PRODUCT item making the value well worth it. I didn't want to leave a review after the first shipment because I wanted to be fair but the 2nd one proved to be the same stuff. If I'm still not impressed with my 3rd shipment I'll be canceling the subscription. The said "pretty box" is just clutter abs used in my fire so again, not worth it to me. I truly suggest doing research on read they reviews people who know ipsy know value and won't be satisfied with this.

The definition of Deluxe: "sumptuous, luxurious, of a superior kind". Birchbox needs to read that definition! The samples I received almost need a magnifying glass to see them. I started the subscription a month ago and they were wonderful to get my first one to me very quickly. My second one came in less than a month-another surprise.
The other surprise in both boxes is that only one sample might be considered "Deluxe"-and that would be a stretch.
I waited until the second box to cancel as I wanted to give them another chance due to the great reviews on other sites.
I had paid for a yearly subscription up front. I should have read the terms and conditions! With a yearly subscription you MUST cancel within a month of ordering or no refund!
It was next to impossible to find out how to unsubscribe-a running theme with Beauty Boxes. If you Google it they give you instructions that sound easy-and they are impossible to complete. I finally got someone from Birchbox on chat and in the end I had to text that I would dispute the charge with my Amex on the grounds that they misrepresent their products. And Viola! It's cancelled.
So far, ipsy and Birchbox are tried and not true-ipsy just puts you on a "wait list" forever so you are paying for product you never get.
The last two yet to be tried are yet to come-and I'm now dreading it.

I have had the subscription with Birchbox for about nine months and each passing month, the boxes arrive later and later. This month, for example, my subscription fee was taken from my account on the 1st, it is now the 17th and my box still has not arrived. I would expect this if I placed an order from China, but a company that is in the US and shipping to a US address should not take three weeks. I just cancelled my subscription and also the Birchbox Man I ordered for my boyfriend. If any BB higher ups are reading this, get your s*^t together!
P.s. I gave two stars because it is fun to get a box of beauty samples every month, I just recommend going somewhere else.

Great concept and some great products. It's impossible to get any customer service for issues and it takes forever to get your gift shipped and delivered (definitely taking the pony express). The website is not very user friendly other than to place an order but if you're looking for other info... it takes a while to find. And once you subscribe the amount of unwanted marketing emails is excessive. Customer service should be #1 for this company to succeed. Going forward, find another source online.