The Body Needs - Take Two

 I have debated on doing this review for the past couple of months. These are the type of reviews I HATE to do. But I figured it is only right to share this. Before I go on, let me say that this is MY experience with The Body Needs. You may have had great experiences with them and I am very glad about that. However my experience was not all that.

I will start at the beginning. On Feb 15th I placed a large order. Last time I ordered the shipping was expensive so this time I planned to spend over $50 to get free shipping. After using the 30% discount code that was emailed in their newsletter my total was $51.55. One thing that I noticed while shopping was that you could get "RUSH PROCESSING" for an extra $4.95. That annoyed me. For a variety of reasons. Basically that is saying, if you give us more money we will value you, over our other customers, whose orders are in front of yours. I knew from my previous order that shipping takes awhile and their website clearly states shipping time

"Orders typically ship within 3-7 business days after payment is received. 

The USPS quotes 2-9 business days for domestic parcels"

On March 7th I contacted The Body Needs via the contact submission form on their website asking for the status of my order. 13 business days had passed since I placed my order and I had no tracking information. No response. I contacted them again the next day via the same form and got a response saying,

"I am sorry – AOL has been blocking our emails. Our IT team says the problem is fixed so I hope this goes through.

The USPS seems to have lost your package and we reshipped it on Thursday, after your original email.
We did respond, but the emails were just bouncing back as SPAM.

Again, I do apologize!"

 At this point I am a bit annoyed but still fine. I got the package Saturday which means it took only two days to ship the package which is really fast but it was still 17 business days after placing my order which is only one day past their maximum shipping time. I personally believe that my order was never shipped and lost. I think that my order surpassed the shipping and handling time so when I brought it up they just said it got lost and were sending a new one to appease me. I believe that once I brought it up they made sure my order went right out. I could be wrong. Once again, this is my opinion. I was happy and excited to get my order, however the first thing I noticed inside one of the baggies was a black hair. GAG.

I contacted The Body Needs via the contact submission form on the website once again and got an email back right away from their packaging guy. He apologized and said the baggies are very static and must have attracted a hair. He also offered a discount for the next time I ordered. At this point I am just aggravated and sort of grossed out. I tossed the hair and sprayed all the outside of the lipsticks with alcohol. Another thing I noticed and did not like were that only some of the lipsticks had shrink wrap bands.

 I was pretty excited to swatch everything and try on the different shades. However as I was swatching I found a piece of hairy fuzz in two of the lipsticks and the texture of a couple to be completely unusable.

This was how the lipstick looked after I tried to lightly apply it to my lips. Out of the bunch three were like this.

 I did not even bother contacting them again about this. I was so over the whole situation at this point. A majority of the lipsticks are fine. I sanitized everything with alcohol and threw out the ones with fuzz in them. I am not going to be ordering from The Body Needs again which is sucky because I really liked the whole concept of MAC lipstick samples. I posted on Facebook about the long shipping time and got a few responses from people singing the praises of  The Body Needs. Like I said before, I know a lot of people have had great experienced with them, however mine was not all that.


Thanks for reading,

I edit all my photo's using PicMonkey! Go check them out!

MAC Lipstick samples from The Body Needs

I love MAC lipsticks but never seem to be able to afford to buy all the ones I want. Someone ( I think it was Kas) mentioned to me that they bought MAC lipstick samples and linked me to The Body Needs. I was intrigued by the amount of sample colors they stocked and really liked how they were packaged. They melt down the lipsticks and repot them into slimline lip balm tubes. The cost was also nice, $3.79 each and they always have sales. I used a 25% coupon code when I ordered. I got 8 tubes ( I ordered a duplicate of Craving and a Grey Friday for my niece) With tax and shipping my total was $28.69

 I ordered on 12/28. After 10 days I emailed and asked when my order was going to ship because on the website they say orders ship within 3 -7 days. I got an email back saying they were closed for the holidays from 12/22 - 1/2 and that this was posted on their website. I must have missed that which would not be abnormal for me LOL. A label was finally generated for my order on 1/8. I started checking my mailbox daily starting on 1/11. I paid $5.95 for shipping so I imagined the package would be shipped priority mail. Finally my package arrived on the 16th. It was a very small bubble mailer which was shipped first class. Inside the lipsticks were just in a ziplock bag ( first photo). I personally find $5.95 to ship 8 slimline lipsticks in a bubble mailer to be WAY too much.

Each slimline tube is filled with .5 grams of lipstick and the base of the tube is filled with a clear lipstick base to prevent waste of the sample in the bottom of the tube. I really liked the labeling and packaging.

I bet you can figure out which is my favorite? You got it, Peach Blossom. I ordered a random array of tones in colors I would not normally wear. I am trying to break out of my nude lip rut. Man, is it hard. I feel so awkward in lip color.

Overall my experience with The Body Needs was frustrating and fabulous at the same time. I can understand the delay in shipping due to being closed and I suppose the extra time frame when my label was printed to when it was shipped should be expected since they were probably quite behind on orders from being closed. But still, waiting 20 days for an order is a bit long. That and the shipping prices leave a bad taste in my mouth which sucks because I love the way they package the samples and how many colors they offer.They also offer MAC pigment samples and other various MAC products. I will most likely order again when they do a 40% off sale and spend over $50 to get the free shipping option.

Have you tried The Body Needs? If so how was your experience? What about MAC lipsticks? Any colors you can recommend for me to try out that would look good with my coloring?


Thanks for reading,

I edit all my photo's using PicMonkey! Go check them out!