Little Black Bag- First Box (April)

Today I want to write about a subscription box service called Little Black Bag. It's a bit pricier than other subscription services, but just like Julep Maven, you can skip months.

Little Black Bag uses a similar concept to the "Lucky Bag Sale" in Japan, which is when retailers sell mystery bags and customers will then trade the items in their bags with the items that their friends have in their mystery bags.

On the Little Black Bag website, after you take their style quiz, you are shown a gallery of items. Then you choose one item that you really want. Once you have picked an item, you get two mystery items. If you purchase the bag, they will then show you your two mystery items and the trading begins.

FYI, although they don't show you the mystery items before you purchase the bag, you do get a small description, which you can use to go back to the gallery and figure out what it is before you purchase it.


On to the trading, which is the fun, but sometimes aggravating part. You have to trade your items with other people who have open bags. The site allows you up to 7 days to trade. There is a counter that tells you have much time you have left. There is also a news feed that shows what everyone is trading. You can put in offers, accept offers and pass on offers. This is very addictive, especially when you are trying your hardest to get the items that you love.

Some people are great at trading and I wish I had their talent. They are able to make their 3 items into 4, 5 or more items. (You can accept a trade of 2 or more smaller items for something you have of a great value)

Here is a picture of the items I received with my first Little Black Bag in April:

Originally I had chosen the coral SAYAMI scarf and I received two mystery items, which was a penguin i-phone case and a Gorjano horseshoe necklace. I didn't let go of my scarf because I loved the color and wanted it badly. However, I traded my other 2 items. By the fifth day, I had a royal blue Danielle Nicole mini jelly bag and beautiful Jardin Moroccan earrings.
Two days after I received my items, I was out at a birthday party with all three items already. The scarf gives a great pop of color, the mini jelly is a great alternative to the huge totes I usually carry around and the earrings are huge, and gorgeous.

My first Little Black Bag was a success.

This subscription service is something I can't afford every month, but it definitely is a fun way to get a couple of designers items in your closet without paying designer prices. For those of you out there who are more into makeup, they also have great makeup products for trading.

If you want to check out Little Black Bag, here is the link: http://lbb.ag/1UDI

Color & Sparkles: What Girl Can Say No?- Julep Maven Novice

What can be colorful, shiny, long, short, down right nasty or eye catching gorgeous? Your nails!

Today I wanted to share with you some information about a subscription box service for nail polishes and other mani/ pedi related products. It's called Julep Maven and you can take a look at the website here: http://julep.com/?r=20529609

Basically, this is a monthly subscription of about $20 and every month you will get a box with nail polishes.

To start out, you have to take their style quiz, which will label you as a certain style and this will correspond to specific colors. You can, of course, check out their other styles and change your colors. For example, I was considered an "American Beauty" style, but I liked the "Bombshell" colors best, so that's the one I chose.

The following months, you can always change the "style label" depending on the colors that you like for that month, or you can skip the month all together if nothing interests you. You can also cancel at any time.




I just received my box for my first month.





Instead of paying 20 bucks, I paid a penny for my first box. Yup, a total of $0.01 is what I paid. If you want to do this, just go to the website ( http://julep.com/?r=20529609), take the quiz and put in the code COLORS4ONE during checkout. This is good for only the first month though. However, you can always cancel after that.

As I wrote earlier, my box was the "bombshell box". It included a nail file, a hand scrub (Julep facial for hands), and 2 gorgeous colors.

One was an orange called NATASHA and the other is a sparkly gold called OSCAR.




Natasha is a great summer color. It's very bright and gives you a pop of color even if you are wearing boring, dark work clothes, like I usually am. It's definitely a fun color that I plan to use a lot during the sunny, summer months. The polish also went on smoothly and without dripping every which way, which is usually a problem with me because of my small nail beds.

Oscar is great for accent nails, as I have done in the picture below, or you can put a coat on top of a bright nail color and it will add a bit of shimmer to your manicure.






Please try to look past my small, chubby, old lady hands and see the cute colors. (^_^)


Other then the nail polishes, I also tried their hand scrub and loved it. My hands are usually super dry, so it was nice to get a hand scrub in the package that was able to soften my hands. It was a nice extra with the box.

I think I did pretty well for 1 cent.


I might continue this for a couple more months.

I'll see how it progresses.