My French Box just came in the mail. But not without a little controversy!
The cards for February (postcard, recipe and product list):
And the products:
My initial review:
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Perles De Bain Heart-Shaped Bath Pearls ($8): I remember these as a kid, and as a big bath-taker, I fully plan to use them!
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Alexis Cosmetic Serum Excel Radiance ($25): If the French are using a beauty product, you better believe I’ll try it!
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L’Oreal Colour Riche Le Nail Art ($4.95): I love nail wraps and love this design!
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L’Oreal Colour Riche Lipcolor ($8.95): I’ve tried one of their lipglosses before that I really loved and this lipstick goes on just as smooth and creamy. The shade I received (Silky Toffee) is probably not a shade I would have picked for myself but it’s nice to have a more neutral lip color occasionally. The packaging this came in looked rather old, like it’s been on the shelf about 15 years…hm…
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Lime a Ongle Nail File ($3): I’ve needed a new nail file and this design is really cute.
Post Review: So, things changed a bit once I had written this review. I wasn’t really impressed with the contents of this month’s box. I thought I’d try them all but nothing really stood out. A couple of days after the box came I received notification from French Box that two products, the serum and the lipstick were probably both expired and to not use them. Yikes! Since then, they have communicated a little more with subscribers offering an apology for the contents of this month’s box and that they will do their best to make some changes on how they do things in the future. I’ve included the text of their letter below:
Dear subscribers,FrenchBox was created to bring you a piece of France in your mailbox each month at an affordable price; a themed box with quality and varied French products that makes you excited the day it is delivered and happy as you open and discover the products we selected for you. For the last 6 months, we felt proud of each box that we sent to you.
Meeting expectations for a $24 box with imported products has been a great challenge for us, one that we were conscious of when we started, on the premise that this was a novel concept and a good match in the subscription box business, allowing us to acquire great products for our subscribers to discover and enjoy.This premise has proven difficult to sustain and the product selection of our last box has disappointed a lot of you. We sincerely apologize that we did not meet the expectation level we had accustomed you to.
But more importantly, we sent you two products that we did not verify and that should have never been sent had we been more vigilant.
We have let you down. We broke the trust you had in us. We feel absolutely terrible that we only realized this after we shipped you the products.This apology letter is not meant to provide a quick-fix to our mistakes or to ask for forgiveness. It is merely to share our view of the situation with you. We know we won’t be forgiven by a lot of you, especially first-time subscribers. Trust takes time and we shattered the trust that we had built over the last 6 months.
Our ultimate hope is that we can regain your trust through actions and quality boxes, not through apologies of asking for forgiveness.
Going forward, our first decision is to hold off to the next box (March) until we can ship it with the certainty that it will match the level of quality that you have seen from us in the last 6 months. No current subscribers will be charged on February 25th, the usual date for our monthly subscription fee.
Our next step will be to provide a solution to our February subscribers. We are working as fast as we can to come up with a solution for you and we will be emailing it and posting it on our Facebook page. We will also be publishing the ingredients list for the bath pearls that were included in the box.
Finally, we are hard at work thinking and implementing the changes that we need to better serve you and get back to our mission statement. To name a few from the feedback we have received: more complete products descriptions, ingredients lists for all products, publishing more detailed ‘teasers’ for our upcoming boxes.
Until then, we will continue to try to reply to your emails with the information we have and in the shortest delays possible given the recent volume.
Thank you
