A Glossy Apology

Well hello my lovelies!

If you read my August Glossybox review post, you'll know I was pretty annoyed when I found out my box was missing a product! I know these things happen, but when I tried to reach Glossybox customer service, it was a total clustershambles and left me feeling actively annoyed, where I wasn't that bothered before.

Emails to the customer service address went unanswered. The telephone number constantly rediverted to a voicemail that was too full to accept new messages. The only response I could get was by angrily tweeting them, and even then they just redirected me to the customer service email.

In this day and age of social media, companies are made and broken on their reputations and their service, so it was very annoying to find that a supposedly savvy service like Glossybox were so bad on this front. I'm not a big blogger, and I felt that if I was, perhaps they wouldn't have been too busy to return my calls, when they appear so tapped in to the power of the web to build their business.

It was only a missing mascara, but I pay my subscription every month and I blog about what I get, and even if not many people read it, they should have the courtesy to give me, and any other subscriber, a decent service.

Out of the blue, after several days of silence, I received a package. It contained the missing mascara and also another gift. I still think it wasn't good service, but I'm easily bought as well, so I thought I would post about the items.

Essence I Heart Extreme Volume Mascara 

 

This was the missing item, and I'm so glad they found one to send me because I love it. I suspected I might, because it had the sort of flexible plastic-bristled brush found on all my favourite mascaras. 

These types of brush generally give brilliant volume and brilliant separation as well, so I suspected we might be on to a winner. Here are the results: 

 

Very, very impressed with this, especially as it retails at such a low price. It gave exactly the sort of bold, thick finish I lust after, and great separation and length as well. 

I tend to not be very keen on most mascaras until they've dried out quite a bit, and this is no exception - it was a bit too gloopy and wet for my tastes. But it performed so well that I can tell its going to be great a few weeks down the line. 

The only slight failing was that the formula seems to be quite heavy, and it dragged any curl straight out of my already annoyingly straight lashes. But most mascaras do this anyway, so I just had to work extra hard with the curlers.

All in all, I would definitely buy this again, its very good. I even like the bright magenta packaging - its not the most luxurious out there, but its fun and colourful.

The formula is buildable and the brush is very similar to the Bourjois Max Volume Glamour (but overall performs better, I would say), and includes rubber bristles on the tip of the brush, making it easy to get that gorgeous, fanned-out shape to the lash line.

I would certainly buy this again, and I'm very glad I got to try it at last. A big hit -  and I'm fussy on mascara's so that's saying something.

Illamasqua Medium Pencil

 

 My 'We're sowwy' gift from Gbox was this Illamasqua pencil, which I was impressed with. After all, they're not cheap. Somehow, I've managed to never try anything from Illamasqua (even though I've been wanting to), so I was really pleased.

This pencil is in the shade 'Elate', a creamy white, which I think is my favourite colour for a pencil, because there are so many uses for it. Unlike a black or a brown pencil, which you can really only use for eyeliner, with a white or a nude shade, the uses are endless -  use it as a highlighter, for brightening eyes, priming lids, plumping your pout...its nothing if not versatile.

This would normally retail at £14.00, so its a great gift. It's smooth and blendable - as you'd hope for a premium brand - and the only thing I can say on the negative side is that I'm not as keen on pencils that need sharpening as on twist-up ones, but that's just due to my own laziness.

 

So, even though I can't say much for the speed of their service, at least Glossybox do eventually try to make things right when something goes wrong. I believe in good manners, so I did tweet Gbox to say thank you for the gift - I'd been publicly calling them out, so its only fair that I praise them too.

It's given me the confidence that if orders occaisionally fall short or go wrong, they will try to sort it out, and I've discovered two great new products as well.