My latest guilty pleasure is monthly subscription boxes. This is not a new thing, but I’ve recently become fascinated with them. Right now I’m signed up for two of them, and the first one I chose is PopSugar’s Must Have box (referral link there). It’s $35 a month – but use code REFER5 to get $5 off your first month – and you get all sorts of products from fashion, beauty, food, entertainment, home, etc. I researched a lot of subscription services before choosing this one, and it seemed like you get the most for your money with it and the variety of products is exciting.

I have to say that even if the contents of the box were a dud, the anticipation of receiving it (they emailed me about a week before it came saying it was on its way) was awesome. I didn’t look up any spoilers so I had no idea what was inside when it arrived, and my level of excitement surrounding it was ridiculous. So now I’m going to be a total dork and show you everything that came.

This was the first look:

And this was what was inside! So much stuff!

1. Kooringal Giselle mid brim hat (value $28). Right away I was super happy because I do not have any summer hats and I plan to spend weekends at the pool with Meredith. My hat is black (which matches my swimsuit), it looks great on me and has a tie on the inside to tighten it if needed, and the brim is bendable. I’m going to be wearing this a lot.

2. Modern Cocktail margarita mixers (value $10). I was sad about this at first because we don’t drink at all in our house (long story). But then I realized that I could probably use them to make mocktails, which I never do, and would probably be fun.

3. Way Better snacks sweet chili tortilla chips (value $2). I devoured them in short order.

4. BeautyBlender and BlenderCleanser (value $24). I’m kind of skeptical of beauty items because my routine is super simple and I am aiming to use only natural products. Apparently this little sponge is really great at applying makeup like cream foundation, but I don’t know if I’ll use it much because I only wear powder foundation, blush, and mascara. But I’ll save it for a special occasion I suppose. The cleanser I’ll probably use for my makeup brushes, which have never been cleaned (oops).

5. Charm & Chain gift card (value $30). I will still have to spend some of my own money to get something with this, but I probably will at some point. I browsed their selection and there are several things that I like.

6. Pacifica Natural Color Quench Lip Tint (mine is in guava berry, value $7). I’m really excited about this because it’s all natural and it’s super subtle. Perfect for daily use!

7. Mindy Kaling’s “Questions I ask when I want to talk about myself” card deck (value $15). This is kind of a strange product. On each card there is an anecdote from Mindy’s life along with some questions to get conversation going. It’s really pretty, but I’ve already read (and enjoyed) her book so the blurbs aren’t new to me, and I don’t hang out with girls in social situations much (which is what the deck says it’s intended for) so it’s not something I ever would have bought. I was thinking of using it for blog prompts but since most of the questions have to do with the anecdote on the card they wouldn’t really make sense. I don’t know if I’ll do anything with this one.

Favorite item: Kooringal Giselle mid brim hat

Runner up: Pacifica Natural lip tint

Least favorite: Mindy Kaling conversation deck

So that’s my first box experience, and I have to say that overall I’m a fan! It was so fun to open, but also strange because you are confronted with all these products you’ve probably never heard of before and I really had to sit with them for awhile to form a solid opinion on them. But for now I’m definitely keeping my subscription active and I’ll keep sharing what I get. :)