I recently subscribed to famed USA beauty subscription service Boxycharm. It works like Rubybox used to work – for a monthly fee you get a box of beauty/cosmetic goodies. But, problem: it’s in the USA. Solution – Aramex Global Shopper (AGS)! Yay! With AGS you get various shipping addresses around the world. Say you want to order something from the US (Boxycharm…), you will use the provided USA shipping address – the package then goes to this local address where after Aramex will inform you that it’s received it and will now be shipping the package onward to your chosen address in SA (postage to be paid).
The month to month Boxycharm subscription cost is $21 (bit cheaper if you do a 3, 6 or 12 month one). That’s around R275-ish (obviously exchange rate dependent). AGS shipping costs are R195 for the first 500g and R99 for each additional 500g. My July box weighed 0.41kg, so shipping came to R195 (apparently if you pay with an FNB card you get around R70 discount, unfortunately I’m not with FNB so I can’t vouch for this). Tracking is done extremely well on the AGS site and you can follow your package from there to here without issue. The risk of customs: this seems to be somewhat of a hurdle sometimes. It doesn’t seem completely clear to me when duties will be added (I didn’t have any additional costs). They can also detain your package if it contains “undesirable goods” (details on the AGS site). So in total R470, which I don’t think is too bad considering the size of the products in the box and the quality thereof.
So I subscribed on 21 June and then I waited…I checked the site religiously and got excited every time a new package status update was made. On 25 July my box was delivered! And nothing was broken (as is the risk with getting packages from overseas). During the month “spoilers” are posted on social media, indicating what will/could be included in the box. There are a view variants of the box, but nothing too major. Each box contains 4-5 full size products (bonus!). I received:
- Project Beauty Spray.Set.Go makeup setting spray (Retail price $32)
- Colourpop & Hello Kitty Ultra Satin Lip in Lock Diary (RP $6)
- Blinc Electric Eyes eyeshadow palette (RP $45)
- bareMinerals Invisible Light Translucent Powder Duo (RP $32)
- Winky Lux eyebrow pencil (RP $12)
I’m in love with the Colourpop Ultra Satin Lip – incredible pigment and it stays put! Loving the colour! I’ve never used their products (to be honest, didn’t know about the brand until recently) and so far I’m highly impressed!
So all in all $127 worth of stuff for R470, not too shabby I would say!
A spoiler for the August box was released a few weeks ago and it will include a tarte Rainforest of the Sea eyeshadow palette – I am so excited for this I can hardly contain myself!
If you would like to subscribe, please feel free to use my referral code but clicking on this link: BOXYCHARM referral code
Guys:
This is a fantastic gift option! The products in these boxes are (mostly) not available in SA and sure to be a treat. Albeit a bit more expensive…
RedLipsRedNails 
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