See New The Skincare Box x tbg skincare

Where I got it

This is my 3rd Skincare Box from See New Skincare and after the disappointment of the second box (well, it wasn’t that the products did not perform, but it was generally not my type of products. See blog post here). While I always preach that for subscription boxes, you can always unsubscribe and re-subscribe when you see what you like, but I have forgotten to cancel the subscription for the last box and when I got the email saying “your order has gone through”, I was like “oops!”. I have seen the sneak peeks of the box already and I wasn’t really interested already. I actually like how See New gives sneak peeks for every box before they bill you so you can really see what’s in the coming box and give you a bit of time to either cancel or subscribe.

Honestly, I was going to cancel my subscription, not purely because of the previous box, that has nothing to do with See New or the brand for this edit, but when I saw the two masks in this box, I was really intrigued. The packaging of the brand isn’t very fancy or chic, actually quite bland IMO, but the insides does matter and I decided to give it a go. To be completely honest, my skincare shelf/drawer, stash is filled to the brim and I have made a conscious decision to stop a lot of skincare purchase, whether it is a subscription box, or a amazing deals of brands and products that have not been long in my wishlist. I am proud to say that I have skipped a lot of Black Friday sales this year and has managed to just snag something from Sachi Skin. I have spent my money elsewhere – fashion and jewellery (I am a shopaholic).

Anyway, back to this box, which is probably going to be my last See New box for a while…

What I got

This is the November/December edit of the See New Skincare Box and it features 5 full-sized products from tbg skincare. We have the Earth Body  Scrub, Gold Face Scrub, Lava Face Mask, Sea Face Mask and Sunray Hair Serum. I actually know nothing about tbg skincare and I have never even heard of the brand. tbg stands for “the beautiful girl” and

Earth Body Scrub ($35 for 115g). Treat your body, offering this organic coffee and cinnamon blend boosted with vitamin E, which offers a powerful antioxidant and skin protector. The coffee has been specially selected to help your skin fight pollution and regenerate its cells. Sugar, a gentle exfoliator, has been combined with cinnamon which helps minimise your pores for a smoother appearance. Coconut oil, a natural emollient, has been added to offer your skin smoothness and hydration, leaving a fresh scent after each use. 

Ingredients: SUGAR CANE *, COCOS NUCIFERA (COCONUT) OIL *, GROUND COFFEE BEANS * , CINNAMON * (CINNAMOMUM VERUM), CEDRUS ATLANTICA (CEDAR) OIL *, CITRUS LIMON (LEMON) PEEL OIL *, VITAMIN E.   *ORGANIC

Gold Face Scrub ($38 for 180g). Apply this golden organic honey scrub to offer your face a smooth and silky treat. Mixed with vitamin C, a collagen booster and a natural antioxidant, this blend perfectly complements your skincare routine. Being an ideal humectant for a long-lasting hydration, our honey  enables your skin to preserve its natural oils. The Lemon, full of vitamin C which helps rejuvenate your skin, is also an organic alkaline product that help eliminate acne. 

Ingredients: SUGAR CANE*, COCOS NUCIFERA (COCONUT) OIL*, MEL (HONEY)*, CITRUS LIMON (LEMON) PEEL OIL*, VITAMIN C.   *ORGANIC

Lava Face Mask ($60 for 63g). Honour your face with a combination of organic cacao and vivid turmeric blended with Vitamin E for an effusion of beauty. Cacao known for boosting the circulation, has been combined with honey, which is a powerful natural ingredient that helps the skin retain moisture without feeling oily, creating a perfect combination for tissue regeneration. The vivid turmeric has been delicately sprinkled into the mixture for its valuable antioxidant properties, leaving you with a glowing face. 

Ingredients: COCOS NUCIFERA (COCONUT) OIL *. MONTMORILLONITE (GREEN FRENCH) CLAY, MEL (HONEY) *, THEOBROMA CACAO (CACAO) *, CURCUMA LONGA (TURMERIC) *, CITRUS AURANTIUM DULCIS (ORANGE) PEEL OIL *, VITAMIN E.   *ORGANIC 

Sea Face Mask ($65 for 60g). Offer your face a super boost with the SEA mask and get rid of the toxins to help recover a brighter, smoother and younger skin. Full of micronutrient, honey combined with vitamin E is a gift from nature for deep moisturizing and brightening of your skin. Spirulina, the deep blue treasure of this concoction, known to be a super food and full of vitamins was specially chosen to eliminate toxins and to increase the rejuvenation of your skin. This smooth combination is a great way to fight aging and provide oxygen to your skin.

Ingredients: MEL (HONEY)*, MONTMORILLONITE (GREEN FRENCH) CLAY*, COCOS NUCIFERA (COCONUT) OIL*, SPIRULINA*, PRUNUS AMYGDALUS DULCIS (SWEET ALMOND) OIL*, TOCOPHERYL ACETATE (VITAMIN E), ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS (ROSEMARY) LEAF OIL*.   *ORGANIC

Sunray Hair Serum ($32 for 30ml). Most women experience hair thinning, either after pregnancy or due to stress level.  Men also often see their hair getting thinier with age. This elixir combines multiples ingredients, each one chosen specifically for stronger and more thicker hair. Sunray Serum focuses on recovery from the inside out to promote hair growth. Why does Sunray serum work? Because of its potent natural ingredients, burdock extract. 

Ingredients: PRUNUS AMYGDALUS DULCIS (SWEET ALMOND) OIL *, PERSEA GRATISSIMA (AVOCADO) OIL *, SIMMONDSIA CHINENSIS (JOJOBA) SEED OIL *, CITRUS AURANTIUM DULCIS (ORANGE) PEEL OIL *, ROSMARINUS OFFICINALIS (ROSEMARY) LEAF OIL *, CITRUS LIMON (LEMON) PEEL OIL *, ARCTIUM (BURDOCK) OIL *.   *ORGANIC

How I find it

Initially I was really surprised by the size of the body scrub and the face scrub. The moment twist open the jar of Earth Body Scrub, I can smell the coffee scent and I knew it would be a coffee scrub. The coffee grounds were mixed with sugar granules which were quite large in my opinion. I can also smell the coconut oil and that’s what’s holding the dry bits together. It looked like a rather dry body scrub which means it would fall off my body easily when I use it. Not my favourite texture of body scrub, but I would still use it. The ground coffee beans are really quite large and jaggered, but the coconut oil should be quite nourishing to the skin. The sugar is also a natural humectant which would draw moisture from the environment and leave it on the skin.

After using the scrub in the shower, my skin is really smooth and soft, it leaves a layer of oil on the skin – coconut oil and vitamin E oil. However, it does make my shower a bit slippery as well. I won’t be using this on a frequent basis (maybe only once a week max) because it is quite aggressive, even for my body skin and how rich it is with the coconut oil. I can develop body acne and congested pores around my chest and back so I would avoid something that is quite occlusive on a frequent basis.

Now I am not against face scrubs, but I do not go for harsh scrubs that are aggressive and harsh. The Gold Face Scrub has rather large sugar granules, held together with coconut oil and honey. The granules are bunched up nicely, but still quite crumbly. You can smell the honey and the honey hold the sugar together quite well, that is until it gets into contact with water. With really really gentle pressure and motion, I massage this scrub on my face and the sugar granules melts slowly and eventually falls off. After washing off, my skin felt smooth and soft, without any redness, but it does leave a little bit of a greasy finish on the skin from the coconut oil. It is acceptable and people with dry skin would probably love, but I am prone to congestion so I prefer something not so emollient on my face.

Let’s move onto the Lava Face Mask. This is one of the product that made me go for the box. It is a moisturising/antioxidant mask that looks and smells like chocolate mud. The mask is quite thick and what you see in the picture before, it is like a thick paste, not a whipped texture. You are supposed to mix a bit of this mask with a few drops of water to turn it into a paste. It literally looks like chocolate spread when I scooped it up and the first few times I used it, I mixed it with a bit of water, but the mask turns kind of crumbly on my skin. On the 3rd try, I applied the mask on my dry skin directly and it worked like a dream. I was able to get an even layer on the skin. Upon spreading it out, I can feel the coconut oil oily feeling on the skin. After about 5-10 minutes, the mask dries down just a little bit and it’s wash off time. The brown colour washes off easily, but it does leave a bit of coconut oil residue on the skin. If you don’t like that feeling, this might not be for you. Personally, I am ok with it but I would only use this maybe once a fortnight because of the residue.

Next, the Sea Face Mask is also one that I really wanted to try. The texture of this mask looks amazing in the jar already and when I mixed this with a few drops of water, it transformed into a deep blue-green paste. I worked out that I could just put this mask on my damp hands to create this without adding extra water. The mask look almost like a baked cake top and when I dug in with a spatula, it was a little tough and crumbly, but when mixed with a little bit of water, it melts and turns into a paste. I personally like to scoop the mask onto my fingertips and then just put my fingers under the tap just a little bit, or apply it directly onto my damp face. The mask melts gradually and turns blue/green. I’m not sure what’s in this mask (maybe the clay?), but it smells really weird and I really don’t like it.

After 5-10 minutes, it’s time to wash off the mask and this one rinses off better than the Lava mask. Little to no residue on my skin and my skin feels clean and smooth, but not dry.

The Sunray Hair Serum is a concoction of oils and you can expect the texture of this to be oily. It is a leave on product and even though the oils used in this formulation is quite think and gentle, it still contributes to build-up on the scalp, especially if you have an oily scalp. I personally have an oily scalp, but I can still use this, but sparingly. I directly drop this onto my scalp and I only use maybe 3-4 drops for the entire scalp area. I only use this after washing my hair and make sure I massage it in. While I use this, I wash my hair every 3rd day. Most of the time I wash my hair on the 4th day. I also like to use a scalp scrub every 3rd time I wash my hair to deep clean my scalp.

Overall

Overall, I am quite happy with the face masks, but I’m not particularly wowed by the scrubs – body or face scrub. I am a user of face and body scrubs (separate products of course!). I love a good coffee scrub or a sugar scrub most of the time for the body, but I really don’t like anything with grains that are too large and just drop off my body as soon as I apply it. It’s basically a waste of product if the granules are too big for the formula to hold together. But if I was able to keep the grains on my body for a scrub, it works like a charm. I love the lemon scented face scrub, but it’s definitely not something I would on a high frequency.

As for the Lava and Sea face mask, I prefer Sea just because it doesn’t rinse off with an oily residue on the skin. However, it does smell funky. I mean both masks felt really nice on the skin and it really depends on your skin type and how often you use the masks. As for the hair serum, I have used it only a handful of times to I can’t really comment on the efficacy of it and it will take more than a bottle to see results I would say. However, the oily-texture of the hair serum is light, but anything oily on my scalp can be amplified because I only wash my hair every 4 days. Since I started using this oil serum, I’ve had to wash my hair every 3rd day otherwise I get a lot of build up and roots started to look really oily and flat.

Have you tried this skincare brand or had any boxes from See New Skincare?