It’s that time of the month again! Time to review another Citrus Lane box and see if it was worth it’s purchase price! See my reviews for previous months here.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with how Citrus Lane works, it is a subscription service that sends you age appropriate items for your child aged 0-5 years every month. The cost of the subscription depends on how long you are willing to commit to. For month to month or three month subscriptions, your cost is $25.00 per month, while it goes down to $21.00 per month if you sign up for a six month or one year subscription. To personalize the box, you choose the child’s age and gender (or neutral) and receive items appropriate to those selections.
In my reviews, I can only review what my daughter receives in her box. I will always tell you what my age and gender selections were, give you a description of the items, what I think of them, pricing, etc.
This month my daughter received a fourteen month old box with a neutral gender selection.
1.Charley Harper 123s from AMMO Books
Price: $9.95
Status: Useful
Comments: Always happy to see a book in these boxes! This one is quite good for a counting book, and the illustrations are quite lovely. My only real issue with it is that we have about 10 billion counting books already (a clear exaggeration, but you get it). Seems well made, and I’m sure Baby Girl will love it.
2. Push & Pull Elephant from Hape Toys
Price: $9.99
Status: Useful
Comments: Our toy collection is getting quite large thanks to Citrus Lane (also Bluum), and this isn’t so awesome a toy that I didn’t roll my eyes a little, but it is sturdy, well made, and Baby Girl didn’t already have a pull toy (surprisingly enough), so I’m sure once she gets around to walking she will put it to good use. I think it is very classic looking, and not as gaudy as a lot of modern toys, so I rather like it. Bravo!
3. Playful Wash from Episencial
Price: $3.83
Status: Meh.
Comments: This item’s presence in my box annoys me a bit to be honest. Episencial is a regularly featured brand in the Citrus Lane box, and I actually love their products. But month after month we receive sample sizes that are worth very little, and month after month I complain about it both here and on the survey that Citrus Lane sends us every month. I find this interesting, since I recently started subscribing to Bluum, which says they send sample sizes, and I received full size everything from them (I did receive a single luna bar, which is technically a sample), while Citrus Lane advertises themselves as sending full size products, and I get sample sizes. Boo. Also, how much baby shampoo and body wash do they think I go through? Every few months I get another bottle of this stuff, plus the add to box option to buy even more of it. I’m not bathing my kid every few hours, I only need so much soap.
4. Super Toddler Bar from Happy Family
Price: $0.84
Status: Meh
Comments: I actually wanted to be excited about this item. Now that Baby Girl is learning to feed herself, we are always looking out for good, portable snacks that she likes and can eat, so I like to get to try things through these boxes. My problem with it is actually twofold. First of all, as I often complain about, there was only one in the box. If she likes it, that one bar is my only chance at it, especially since my local grocery store doesn’t carry this brand (although, they did include some coupons for this brand in the box, if your local store does carry it). Normally I would get that it is a price thing…but one bar costs less than a dollar! A whole box is only $4.20! I just feel gipped on this one. If that weren’t bad enough, of all the flavors to get, we got the one with chocolate in it. We prefer not to give Baby Girl much chocolate. They couldn’t have sent us an apple one? Bah.
5. Nail Color from Julep
Price: $14.00
Status: Meh
Comments: Holy crap! Fourteen dollars for nail polish? I’m always blown away by the crazy overpriced “for mom” items that show up in my Citrus Lane box. I can see why some moms would have been excited to get this in their box, but I prefer to keep my nails on the natural side, with just strengthening serum and topcoat to keep them looking nice (but I am really lucky and have pretty great looking natural nails). This might make a good gift for someone this Christmas, but I won’t be using it.
Final Thoughts:
I’m actually starting to feel a little let down by my Citrus Lane boxes. Now that I’ve received a Bluum box, I feel like I may prefer them to Citrus Lane. They allow me to subscribe for multiple kids under one account, I earn credits toward free boxes more easily, and the one box I’ve received so far had a pretty high value. This box was very unimpressive, and I’m a little sad about it.
Optional Add-to-Box:
The optional add-to-box this month was a large selection of Aden + Anais items at 10% off. Why didn’t I take advantage of this? Two reasons. The first is that you can get many of the same items for 10% off or more on amazon. Secondly, most of the products were for newborns or small infants, and now that I have a toddler, we wouldn’t get much use out of them. I hear it’s a fantastic brand though, and hope it was a good offer for someone!
By the Numbers:
Total value of the box items: $38.61
Total value of items I will use: $24.61
Is the value greater than the cost? MAYBE –
They really walked the line with this box! The total value is more than the cost, but my useful value is less than a month to month subscription, and had I subtracted the playful wash (which I considered doing), it would have bene less than even a one year subscription would cost per box. This is the first time I have had questionable value ratings. Why is Citrus Lane going down hill?
Looking for my previous Citrus Lane reviews? CLICK HERE!
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Happiness is Now 