PINCHme Sample Box Review

Y’all remember me recommending CurlyPenny to you right? That awesome curly haired YouTuber who’s marriage is #goals? Well, a few months ago she posted this video in which she reviewed a PINCHME Box, which is a completely free monthly subscription box filled with samples curated from all kinds of different companies. Even shipping is free, to all contingent United States.

I️ watched the video and was like “um okay yeah this is way too good to be true...” So naturally I️ had to check it out for myself.

Basically how it works is that every month there’s a specific day (Sample Tuesday!) when you can go on the PINCHME site and “claim” your samples. So no, it’s not as easy as just signing up, you have to be active on sample Tuesday and personally claim which samples you’d like to receive in your box that month. That still didn’t seem like too much work to deter me, so back in December I️ logged in on sample Tuesday and was all ready to go when the time came (sample Tuesday starts at 12pm EST and goes until 3pm). But when the clock struck noon, despite the fact that I’d been logged in and ready to go for several minutes beforehand, the website crashed and said there was too much traffic and to “try again later”. I️ tried again probably 8 times over the course of the hour and it was never up and running for me, so I️ got frustrated and gave up.

But, I️ thought, that was a one time glitch. So, come January, I️ was all ready to go again. By gum, I️ want my free samples! This time, it actually worked! (At first). I️ was able to claim my first sample with ease—some kind of Dove beautifying product with like sparkling jojoba milk or something? Idk I️ guess I’ll find out when I️ get it. The next two samples I️ tried to claim? Not quite so smooth sailing. The website crashed about three times per sample, and there were only 2 other samples I️ was eligible to claim (a free voucher for hair dye I️ think, and a free package of SlimFast peanut butter cookies). I️ guess we’ll have to see once my samples come if those products were really worth all the headache of a constantly crashing website.

I’m committed to being honest in these product reviews, so I️ must say that so far, though my sample box hasn’t even come in the mail yet, I’m pretty skeptical and a bit frustrated. It seems like a lot of work for a little bit of payoff...but I’ll try to withhold any more judgment until I️ get my box in person.

Whilst Waiting on My Products:
Okay, um, it's been like a whole month and my products still haven't arrived? In fact, it's been so long that another Sample Tuesday rolled around. I'm getting kind of annoyed because I want to try out my samples!! And so now I guess I have two boxes in transit and none in my actual possession. Urg. Can you tell I'm kind of already disillusioned with this company? I will say though, that on the second Sample Tuesday, there were no website crashes whatsoever and the process went incredibly smoothly. So that's an upgrade from last time...and the time before. We'll see how this whole thing goes. So far my expectations are set realllll low. 

———

After my products arrived:

Well, as of now, only one of my boxes has arrived, and it's the one that I requested back in January. So basically it's taken two months to get here. That's a little ridiculous considering that it's a box of samples. Three samples. Granted, when I opened the box, there were a few more samples than I actually requested, which was a nice little surprise, but even so. Plus, when I watched the aforementioned review of PinchMe on YouTube (by Curly Penny) her box was all cute and nicely packaged. Mine on the other hand was a very small package in a plain pink box. I guess I have no real right to complain since it's all free, but part of the big appeal for me was the fact that they make it seem like one of those cool fancy subscription boxes-- or so I thought. I guess when they reach out to YouTubers and influencers to review their boxes, they really roll out their best. But when it comes to just us every day people trying to get some fun free samples? Well, we can deal with the plain boring packaging and the two month wait period for our items to arrive. So yeah.

As for the products themselves, here's what I received in my first box, along with my thoughts on each item:

Here's the whole box and all its contents. 

This is the Garnier Whole Blends Gentle Shampoo & Conditioner Oat Delicacy

This is the Clairol Nice ‘N Easy 100% Free Gratuity Coupon

Here's the 

Dove Exfoliating Body Polish Crushed Macadamia & Rice Milk

And lastly, the 

SlimFast® Bake Shop Cookies.

So none of these products are things I've already tried, and once I did try them, none of them really rocked my world. I would say my favorite was probably the shampoo and conditioner. They made my hair feel really soft and silky which is great, but I still doubt I would purchase them in the future because they have sulfates and silicons in them, which means that even though they claim that they're "gentle", they're really not. It's just a bunch of chemicals. And since I'm trying to grow my hair out quickly and healthily, I'm not trying to put a bunch of gunk in my hair. 

The hair dye voucher I gave to my friend Alex to give to her sister because I have no intention of dying my hair any time soon so I didn't really have a use for it. I did keep the free hair tie though and used it once so far. It's aight as far as hair ties go. 

The Dove body polish stuff confounds me a bit because I see no real purpose for this product to exist in life? Like nobody ever needed "body polish" before, so really the only reason it must exist now is to make the Dove company more money because nobody asked for it...it did smell good and made my skin a bit softer than usual, so that was nice. But it has little pearls or beads or whatever in it which is fine, but when you rub it into your skin with your palms, it doesn't feel so good on your palms! It feels scratchy and ticklish. I wasn't crazy about it. 

The last thing was that hunger control cookie, and I ate it before bed so I really am  not sure if I was any less hungry than usual because I was soon asleep after eating it. So maybe I'm just not the best product reviewer...but despite eating the whole thing, I did have some concerns about this product overall. Take a look at something it said on the back: 

So this product is claiming to replace two of your meals every day...but let me tell you something, if you're trying to lose weight in a healthy and efficient way, skipping two meals and eating instead a protein packed cookie is not the way to go about that. You need a well rounded and nutritious diet. Not one decent meal, two protein packed cookies, and three indulgent snacks. That's just a recipe for disaster. So I wouldn't recommend this product because I feel like it's giving false information about how to lead a healthier lifestyle. 

Box #2: A couple weeks after the first box arrived, the second box came! Once again, the packaging was nothing special. Also once again, the box contained more samples than I was originally told it would contain, so that's a nice little surprise! I forgot to take personal pictures of the items from this box, so I'll just tell you about them with the pictures from the website:

Purely Fancy Feast Filets. My dad fed this to my cat Blackie and he loved it. I'm not the primary shopper for my cats but i guess I would consider getting this again. Anything to please Blackie, amirite? 

SlimFast® Boosters Craving Control Gummies. I haven't tried these yet but they're by the same company as that sketchy hunger control cookie sooooo I'm giving them a healthy dose of skepticism right off the bat. 

Eva NYC MANE MAGIC 10-IN-1 PRIMER. I tried this once so far. It smells nice (although a tad perfumey) and it surprisingly lived up to its promise to make my hair feel dryer to the touch almost instantly! In fact I was a little surprised! I also looked at the ingredients and they're pretty natural, so that's nice. I will definitely continue to use this product on occasion, but I doubt that I'd actually purchase it on my own just because I don't really use that many products in my hair. 

Tidy Cats® Free & Clean™ Unscented. I gave this coupon to my mom since she buys the cat litter in the household, so I can't really speak about the value of this product. But I mean, it seems nice...as far as cat litter goes...

Final Thoughts:

Honestly, I'll probably continue to get these boxes because I like the little thrill of getting something in the mail, even if it's just some dumb samples for products I don't even necessarily want or care about. Maybe that's slightly pathetic, but at least it's a box of free stuff and not a full fledged online shopping addiction, amirite? Also, despite having MANY misgivings about the whole system because of the jenky crash-happy website and the packaging that doesn't live up to my standards and the not-really-all-that-exciting samples, they do kinda make up for it by adding extra samples to my box that I didn't even know about! That might be my favorite part of the whole thing!

So I guess what I would say to anyone out there considering signing up for this box is this: if you're willing to put in the work for a less-than thrilling payoff experience, then by all means, have a crack at it. It's definitely not sketchy-- at no point have I been asked to put in any credit card information, it really is 100% free-- and they don't send me a thousand annoying emails like other website things that I've signed up for. Plus, as you progress in their system, you start to get more and more samples and better samples that are more catered towards your interests (or so they tell me). So I might stick it out for a while and see if it gets any more exciting.

If you're interested in getting monthly boxes of free samples, you can go to PINCHme and sign up for free. This is by no means a sponsored post, but figured I'd give them a shout out.

VaughnDL