A Guide to Clean Beauty Boxes (Cost & Worldwide Shipping)

Clean beauty boxes give you a great entrée to green beauty, allow you discover great ingredient-conscious natural brands, and encourage self-care, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t like the anticipation of delivery and discovery, like Christmas morning before your parents woke up.

There are few things I look forward to more than the delivery of my monthly beauty box. I set up delivery notifications so that when the postman delivers it, I can go on my lunch hour to my quiet house and indulge before my cacophonous family begins to rumble.

There are many good reasons to green your routine, as they say; among them, your health, reducing toxic exposure to your little ones, and environmental reasons. Where do you start? Subscription boxes rank high on my list because the products you get retail for 2-3 times the cost of what you pay and you’re introduced to curated brands with integrity to which you might otherwise not have been exposed. Plus, if you live in a rural area like where I spend most of my life, and aren’t around amazing shops like Citrine Natural Beauty Bar or The Detox Market*, you can get the boxes shipped right to your door. Most of the boxes at the bottom of this page include US shipping (unless otherwise noted) and many ship worldwide.

*Disclosure: A few of the hyperlinked products here that I use and recommend (and link to for your convenience) contain referral or affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase after clicking on them, I will receive a small commission (for my convenience). Feel free to buy from the suggested vendors or from anywhere else you frequent or find value.

What to consider in choosing a subscription beauty box:

You really need to decide what’s most important to you, if you’re going to invest. The following are some important things to think about.

• Blend of products: Choose from skincare, body care, makeup, health (supplements, snacks), lifestyle products (toothpaste, hair ties), etc. Is the box for men, women, or unisex?
• Ingredient criteria: What do you value most in selecting products? A clean lineup of ingredients, sustainable sourcing, vegan and cruelty-free. To search by those criteria, find them in the list below by CTRL+F.
• Size of products: Sample sizes are convenient for testing whether you jive with the fragrance, texture, and first impressions before purchasing a full size, while larger products can be used over a longer period to determine their lasting appropriateness for you.
• Brand positioning: This boils down to the experience you want and where you shop. Do you generally prefer luxury brands or drugstore/health food store purchases? Do you like niche and artisan or do you prefer larger, more readily-available options?
• Price: What can you afford, and how do you determine value? You can always try a box out when there are month-by-month options, or cancel the subscription at the end of its term to try another service.
• Past deliveries: Look at the websites (and especially Instagram feeds) for past deliveries and read reviews. Do your homework and decide for yourself – this list is a simply a suggestion of many good options.

I personally prefer full-sized luxury items. If you find something you really love, you spend a little more but then you only buy your staples. (But when I was young, I used to buy a ton of products at CVS because I wanted variety.) Beauty Heroes is one box that suits me extremely well in this criteria, with a focus on quality over quantity and the tagline, “Use Less. Love More.” I was skeptical at first about putting all my eggs in one brand’s basket at a time, but the collection is so discriminatingly and artfully curated that each month I get items from the top of my wishlist or something I didn’t know I needed. Plus, there’s a lifestyle and self-care aspect that just makes me happy. I’ve never been anything but thrilled.

A close second for me is Art of Organics for the same reasons, and because I enjoy the thematic boxes and variety of items. Next on my list to try will be Botanic + Terre or Niah Box.

In addition to the options listed here, there are also non-subscription boxes available: Goodbeing periodically offers deluxe boxes, Indie Beauty Expo releases a (mind-blowing) Best of Show Collection, Detox Market has collections you should definitely check out, Target puts out a Naturals box, and Whole Foods offers a beauty bag that I will knock people over in line for – it always sells out within hours. The best way to find out about these deals is to add yourself to the respective mailing lists. And now, without further ado, listed in alphabetical order…

A Guide to Ingredient-Conscious Beauty Boxes