scenttrunk.com
Price: $18-$15/month, free shipping
The Deal: After completing a scent profile, subscribers receive three indie and niche fragrance samples hand-picked just for them.
Review: I was super excited to try this box service. I've never been the type of person who wears perfume, but I always wished I was, so this seemed like a great opportunity to try out different perfumes and see what worked for me.
There's a lot to like about Scent Trunk: I love that they only use niche fragrances, and the customer service is awesome and very personable. I also really liked the "Fragrance 101" emails they sent.
Unfortunately, all the perfumes Scent Trunk sent me contained scents I specifically said I did NOT like in the quiz. I don't know if it was human error or their website's algorithms were off or what. All but one of the perfumes were completely awful; one even made me sneeze. The "Rate My Scents" option is actually a way to get subscribers to write public reviews for Scent Trunk's retail website and not private feedback. End result: I did not feel listened to.
Add to that a snafu with the shipping (they said I'd receive the package by Friday, by Wednesday I was still waiting and then they sent me the wrong tracking number after I emailed them), and I think this box is a cancel.
On the plus side, though, these awful perfumes–which aren't cheap, by the way; check out how much this one retails for–provided an opportunity for my dad to give hilarious reviews of them. They ranged from, "You smell like you've been rolling around in old lady clothes," to "What's that smell?" to, "I don't smell anything. Five stars."
Notes: Portions of this post originally appeared on Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books.