Loving Lately: Boxwalla 2021 Standouts
Have you heard of Boxwalla? I’ve been eyeing their boxes for several years after seeing them featured by some of my closest friends in the beauty community, and finally had the opportunity to try out a few things. Spoiler alert: I’m blown away.
Boxwalla offers a curated selection of cruelty-free products that deliver a soothing everyday experience, and nourish your body and soul with books, skincare, and – as of January 2022 – makeup. You can tell that a lot of care goes into the selection process, each product is clearly and thoughtfully chosen to represent the company’s core values and the general chill vibe. And just like that, they have me hooked!
Boxwalla sent me two different boxes to try, the October 2021 box and the December 2021 box.
The October box, titled When Time Stood Still, features a trio of exquisite skin oils from an acclaimed Australian brand Lepaar. My absolute favorite thing about these oils is the fact that none of them contain essential oils, unlike most beauty oil blends on the market right now. Instead, they contain whole plant extracts that have been infused in olive oil for a minimum of 4 months, which I thought was a pretty unique approach.
The trio included the following oils:
- Summer Wine Even Tone Antioxidant Shield ($63) is a free radical scavenging powerhouse infused with various sun-infused antioxidant-rich botanicals, like grapes, saffron, strawberries, saffron, and mulberry leaves.
- Elastic Love Firming Face & Neck Oil ($63) helps improve skin resilience and elasticity with a blend of cold pressed black currant seed oil, pequi fruit, quince, kangaroo paw flower, bamboo, red clover, horsetail, and artichoke extracts, and others.
- Smooth Operator Unfolding Face Balsam ($63) is a delight for coffee lovers! This coffee berry-infused potion is formulated to promote smooth skin appearance and improve circulation. It is also my favorite of the three.
Although I really enjoyed all three of these serums, Smooth Operator is the one I reach for most often. It’s just so unique and unlike anything else in my routine, and I always look forward to using it AM and PM. In the morning, it helps invigorate the senses with the bitter fragrance of coffee berries. In the evening, it works remarkably well to smooth and depuff when I combine it with a relaxing gua sha massage. It’s also my favorite oil to use as an undereye serum because it makes the area look so soft and radiant! I swear, my skin is looking better and better every day since I added this oil to my lineup.
The December box, titled If on a Winter’s Day, a Traveller, featured products from two brands; Cipher from Australia, and Britain-based Skin Alchemists.
The products are as follows:
- Cipher C-Shield Refining Antioxidant Serum ($95) that features two forms of stable Vitamin C – Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate and Ascorbyl Glucoside. While neither of these are as potent as the goldd standard L-Ascorbic Acid, they are a lot more stable and won’t oxidize a few weeks after opening. other noteworthy ingredients feature white pine bark [pine is so popular in anti-aging k-beauty products but rarely seen in Western products, so I’m stoked!], antioxidant-rich green coffee seed, and antioxidant powerhouse Superoxide Dismutase, a very serious antioxidant that I’ve only ever seen in NIOD products before. This serum might be one of the most impressive products I discovered in 2021.
- Skin Alchemists Time Traveler Renewing Face Cream ($117) is a rich, almost balmy moisturizer, that looks and feels incredibly indulgent. It contains two of my favorite beauty oils – seabuckthorn and rosehip; as well as a generous helping of bakuchiol, which I highly recommend adding to your routine, like, yesterday. I wrote a separate blog post explaining why you need it here, if interested, but long story short, it boosts the effectiveness of certain popular ingredients while counteracting skin-sensitizing effects [such as redness from retinoids or AHAs], so the benefits from your routine are even better. This moisturizer also contains colloidal silver which has shown promise for its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that the October and December products will go well together, and, sure enough, after combining them in a single routine, they all complemented each other beautifully!
Here’s an example of how I use them on a typical day:
- I start by using a cleansing foam or a cleansing balm, followed by a toner or an essense.
- Then I apply a full pump of Cipher C-Shield Refining Antioxidant Serum to the face and neck, and top it with a few drops of Lepaar Smooth Operator, making sure I dab some onto the undereye area, too.
- Then I grab my jade roller and give the skin a quick, gentle massage to improve blood flow and relax the muscles.
- Next I scoop a pea-sized amount of Skin Alchemists Time Traveler Renewing Face Cream and spread it onto the skin, trying to avoid tugging too much. After using the serum and the oil, it should slide easily.
- Top this antioxidant cake with SPF50 sunscreen in the AM or a pea-sized amount of tretinoin treatment in the PM. C’est magnifique!
I swap products in an out because I love trying new things, but I seriously love this routine to much! I even took a break from testing anything for a few weeks just so I can just use these products and nothing else. I’m totally blown away by Boxwalla and now I understand why everyone who ever bought their boxes, raves about them so much.
You can subscribe to Boxwalla for $49.95 bi-monthly to receive a curated package of cruelty-free beauty products to your doorstep. Or if you just want to try the products featured in this post, Boxwalla currently has a special promotion so you can get all three Lepaar oils, Cipher serum, and Skin Alchemists Moisturizer for $135 ($401 value).
Have you heard of Boxwalla before? What are your thoughts on the products featured here, would you try any of these?
