How I get beauty products delivered to my door for (mostly) FREE!

Let me start off by saying this - I am no beauty guru. But I am a girl who loves makeup and all things beauty. I love watching beauty guru's rave about this product or that one on their youtube channels, and I'm always on the hunt for the next perfect product that will change my life.

I'm also on a pretty tight budget. 

I was in the habit of going every once a month or so to CVS, Target, Ulta, or some other dangerous store with the intention of buying just one new product to try out - just for fun, just to try something new. 

I know, you're probably shaking your head, thinking "going into Target and leaving with one thing? Yeah, okay..." and you are exactly right. I usually would wind up walking out of there with more than one (or 5 or 10) new things, and having spent a pretty penny. That was not fitting into my 3rd year college student budget, to say the least. I wanted to be able to try good products, and not have to spend all of my money doing it. 

I began doing some research on ways to try samples for free, or to see if there was a good option for me as far as paid subscription boxes.. Here's what I've found!

This is an option that you may like, but wasn't my favorite. I've had a subscription to Birchbox in the past, and I will say there were some really cool products in there every once in a while (I got a BeautyBlender in one once. What??) But I found that after a while, I was basically getting the same products (perfume samples, lotions, self tanners) over and over again, even after I updated my account info (to basically - please send me makeup I'm begging), After my prepaid year-long subscription was up, I decided not to renew it, because spending $10 a month on tiny samples just didn't seem worth it to me. 

 This is now the only paid subscription box I have - Boxycharm. I LOVE this subscription. At $21 a month, it is definitely pricier than Birchbox, but that's because you get FULL SIZE PRODUCTS. The total retail value of every product in the box is usually over $120. This month, I recieved a full size eye shadow palette (with 20 different shadows), a mascara that is hands down the best one I have ever used, an eyeliner, and 3 eye shadow brushes. The mascara alone retails for $27, and I would have been happy if that was the only thing I got in the box! Here's a link if you want to check it out!

This next box I get randomly, usually once or twice a month. It's called PINCHme, and is completely free - all you have to do is create an account, fill out your membership profile so they can match you to samples, and on sample day (there's a countdown clock on the website) you log in, fill your box with 3 items, and you're done! After you receive your products and test them, you fill out a quick survey to tell them what you think! Check them out here!

And finally, my favorite one - Influenster's VoxBox. This box is also free, but requires a little more work. However, the payoff can be great, as they often feature products from brands like YSL, and can contain anything from 1 to 60 products, depending on the Box you win! Here's how it works: After creating an account, you fill out a profile. Then, you connect your social media accounts via your dashboard's Social Impact page to get an impact "score" based on the number of connections you have. Next, you answer some quick questions about your shopping behavior. Influenster runs many different campaigns, and Influensters can recieve free themed product shipments based on the info they provided by answering Snaps, Social Impact score, demographics, and sometimes - just plain luck! Here's a helpful tip for qualifying for VoxBoxes: stay active on the site by reviewing products and answering questions. Visit Influenster here to learn more!



Comment below if you've had any good (or bad) experiences with any of these boxes, or let me know if there's any not mentioned that you think I should check out!



DISCLAIMER: This post is not sponsored. These opinions are my own, and these are not affiliate links!