The battle of the beauty boxes!

This week saw the arrival of August's Glossybox and Boudoir Prive luxury sample boxes. From the comfort of my own house I had the ability to sample 11 exciting brands.

This week also saw the arrival of an email from Latest in Beauty offering this sample box:
For £4.95. Six products in the box including high end brand Clarins and cult favourite (and nearly the undoing of Glossybox) Batiste. Ever since Boudoir Prive launched I have been wondering ig there is room for TWO beauty boxes and all of a sudden I'm asking 'Is there room for THREE beauty boxes?'. I did a little internet digging into the beauty box business that originated in the US with Birchbox and found yet another monthly subscription box:
Feel Unique, boasting, yes you guessed it, five luxury samples for £9.95 per month.

Including Glossybox's price hike that is £37 a month it is possible for a beauty junkie to spend on samples. Whilst some of these may well be full sized, that's ultimately a lot of money to be spending on mini bottles of things you may or may not use. Are there enough subscribers to support FOUR beauty boxes?

Unless I cancel my husband's Spotify subscription, I can't justify buying more than one beauty box subscription each month. I admit to living on a tight budget over here but surely I'm not the only one who is going to have to make a choice? (And no, the choice isn't going to be cancelling Spotify... unless I also want to cancel my marriage!)

Where else can you get beauty samples?

1) Hop on the bus and raid your local department store - often sales assistants can be reluctant to hand out samples without purchases so wear your smartest clothes, strongest perfume, and best lipstick. Another tip from my sample blagging days is to carry a small bag from the department store around with you - it labels you as BUYER rather than BROWSER!

2) Spend your £37 on as many beauty and women's lifestyle magazines as you can - these are often full of samples. Not including the free gift on the front I counted three samples in the latest Marie Claire. The more expensive the clothes being advertised in the magazine, the more high end and impressive the samples inside are likely to be!

3) Head over to ebay and put 'sample' in the health and beauty section and you'll see a plethora of samples available to buy, many of them with free postage. You are probably paying for something that the seller got for free (possibly from their local department store) but you are paying for something you are keen to try rather than paying £2 a sample for a random selection. Better still, raid your local department store and then have fun selling on ebay yourself!

4) Get swapping! If you are a regular on swap sites such as Big Wardrobe or Make Up Alley you'll know that many people pass on their unwanted samples as little extras when they package up their swapped goods. I'd love to know how many times an unopened sample is passed from swapper to swapper before it finds a home, maybe we should do an experiment!