Subscription Saturdays-POPSUGAR Must Have Bag

Sorry it has been a while since my last blog post.  I arrived on a subscription Saturday with no recent Subscription in my mailbox to review  :(.  Also, I was out of town last weekend so I figured I would take a little week break until a review was possible.  Lo and behold, one of the newest kids on the block arrived in my mail this past week.  The POPSUGAR Must have bag is the newest subscription to hit the markets. https://musthave.popsugar.com/ It went out with a bang quickly selling out their first month's July's bag.  However, as most subscription services have, it quickly hit a snag when people began receiving their bags and realizing the contents were not quite as advertised.

POPSUGAR originally indicated that the bag would contain hand picked items from the editors of must have products totaling in value of at least $150.  The cost is $35 a month which is a little high so they certainly should deliver as promised.   As mentioned, once the bags went out and had been sold out, the amount was dropped to $100 and stands at that value now. Also, a lot of the products were duplicates (bars in different flavors, two colors of the same lipstick, two colors of the same brand of nail polish.  A lot of people love these subscriptiosn for the variety of brands you get to try so that was a also a bit of a disappointment.  The $150 original market price   was a snafu on their part...overambitious marketing?? Not sure, it got people in the door but may have put people off on an ongoing basis.  However, they seem to have a very dedicated customer service department and they seem to want to improve.  As I always give subscriptions 3 bad months before I make a cut, I'll give them another try.  MyGlam certainly redeemed themselves so I am certain POPSUGAR can as well and I am rooting for them to succeed as I like the idea of this bag. So onto the items.  The theme this month is July Summer beauty

1.POPSUGAR  Hot Pink and Canvas Beach Bag.  This is actually a high quality tote bag.  It is a thicker material, has a zipper closure and seems to be well made.  It just seemed like a bit of a throw away marketing product in my opinion.  I'm not big on products or bags that have a brand as the focus and thus won't get a lot of use in this bag.  It would make a good beach bag though if you needed one as mentioned it is higher quality and decently heavy duty.  It is made for POPSUGAR by Especial(http://shop.earthwisebags.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=EW286R)  and is made of 100% Cotton so is Earth friendly in that department.  Though interesting to me is they use organic "green friendly" cotton brand for the bag yet each product included was individually wrapped in tissue paper which in  my opinion, is pretty wasteful.  I did enjoy opening each product as it was if unwrapping a gift but Earth friendly it is not. 
Retail Value of Bag :$24.99

2. Body Drench Pomegranate Crush Lotion-8oz. This seems like a good enough bottle of lotion, smells good, goes on smooth.  I go through lotion pretty quickly though so would have appreciated a larger size but that is just me. The product is currently on Amazon for $7
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0080MU9O2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0080MU9O2&linkCode=as2&tag=popsho-20
3.Body Drench Raspberry Gelée Body Scrub 6 oz.  A love a nice exfoliating scrub and the smell on this is nice.  It seems to work well in the shower and this was a nice product to get in the bag.  I do love the full size product as with so many of these subscriptions, products are usually simply sample sized, yet they also are a fraction of the cost thus justifying the smaller size.  It is also sold on Amazon for $6 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0080MTQ3W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0080MTQ3W&linkCode=as2&tag=popsho-20
4.Ilia Lip Conditioner and Lipstick in Bang Bang and in my Room. The bright "Bang Bang" red color of this lipstick originally intimidated me but it actually is a very nice color and does make my lips feel quite soft.  The "In my room" color is a very natural pink and I really love it.  I do also enjoy the conditioning aspect of this lipstick. This product is eco friendly and organic so you can feel comfortable with the ingredients you are using on your lips..  These are $24 each ($48 total retail value) http://iliabeauty.com/collections/lipstick/products/voila
5. Kind Nut and Spices bars in Cashew and Ginger Spice and Madagascar Vanilla Almond.  The bars are all natural which I really like about them.  They are made up of mostly nuts which are filling and quite good for you. I tried the Cashew and Ginger Spice one and enjoyed the flavor.  I try when buying products to look at the ingredients and be sure that I can pronounce and recognize all of these and with these bars, I certainly can.  I know you can find them at whole foods as I've seen them there and they are sold here .http://www.kindsnacks.com/kind-store/buy-kind-bars#!/bars  The bars retail at $1.49 and can be bought in bulk.  Total Retail: $2.98
6. RGB Nail Polish in Doll and Mint.  It's funny as I never had much of a nail polish collection until I joined these subscriptions services, slowly but surely, I now have a great variety of colors and these are the perfect addition.  I love the mint and you can never go wrong with a nude for an everyday all natural look (especially for me as the professional world often doesn't allow too much craziness in nail color.  These products are also free of harmful chemicals (no formaldehyde) so we continue with an all natural theme with these products. http://otteny.com/catalog/lifestyle/nail-polish-in-doll.html?source=shopstyle&brand=RGB Retail value is $16 each so $32 total

Total Retail Value of Bag: $120.98

So it wasn't a ton lower than $150 but it you take out the value of the bag which I know some bloggers have as it is more of a marketing product, you are looking at under $100.  So give it a try for yourself if you'd like.  The August theme is "Entertainment".