Glambot Experience and Haul – Part One

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 21, 2014:

I discovered that one lipsticks I purchased and that is shared in this series, MAC Cosmo, had gone bad after detecting a foul crayon-like smell. I checked with Glambot to see if they check the batch numbers of products they put up for sale to ensure they aren’t selling extraordinarily old products…they don’t, the lipstick I received was over seven years old.

Disclaimer: The following post was sponsored by Glambot (www.glambot.com). I was not paid to write, but let it be known that I did receive discounted product for consideration. My content, thoughts, and words are my own. I would not have accepted a discount if I wouldn’t have written about my experience with them anyway. You can visit my Legal page for more detail.

Like me, you may have had a product you were interested in trying but were wishy-washy about pulling the trigger and making the purchase. That’s how it has been for a lot of things for me – biting the bullet and trying gel polish, BareMinerals, Stila Stay All Day liner, etc. especially when it comes to mid-range or higher products. It is easy to commit to a $2-5 lipstick, but a bit harder to commit to a $15-20 one.

Enter Glambot.com.

The simplest way to relate this is to say that Glambot can be considered the Plato’s Closet of cosmetics and tools. Someone buys something, maybe it doesn’t work out for them. Maybe they bought it from somewhere with a less-than-generous return policy. Maybe they question the ethics of returning something just because they had Buyer’s Remorse, and want it to be used by someone who digs it instead of being discarded (which is often the fate of opened-but-unused products). They sell to Glambot, who verifies the authenticity of the product, sterilizes it, and prices it based on its condition (fair, good) and how much product is left (80-100%, 50-80%, 30-50%).

Someone else comes along wanting something and they find a product they wanted to try cheaper than retail, they then order from Glambot.com as you would any other website. They receive their verified, sterilized, carefully packaged product in a few days.

Glambot carries and verifies products from MAC, Urban Decay, Lorac, Benefit, Too Faced, Stila, Nars, Buxom, Tarte, Sigma, Laura Mercier, and The Balm – amongst others, including premium labels. They seem to be expanding their options, but seem to be following the, “slow and steady,” approach rather than compromising quality and delivering anything less than a safe, legitimate product.

After I did some research of my own, I went ahead and decided to give Glambot a shot. I literally spent a couple hours perusing the site to see if they had anything I was specifically seeking. I was just matched to Nars Sheer Matte foundation in Punjab – but they didn’t have any in stock. I am definitely not interested in paying full priced for MAC brushes, but I wouldn’t mind a gently-used 242 – they didn’t have them. It is the nature of the business to have a constant revolving door of products, after all, so I pressed on.

I actually saw a Naked palette on there for something like $47, and Too Faced palettes for $32. I already have Naked and am not looking for another palette, but I thought that was intriguing. They have a lot of, “vintage,” Urban Decay – not true old school, but prior to the current formulation. Lots of 24/pencils. They have a veritable ton of MAC products – though I could not get through all of them, I sifted through quite a few. There were several lipsticks I wanted to try, but many of them (though they had a listing), were marked as sold out when you clicked through to it. Same with the shadow refill pans – I found the sheer volume of products that appeared to be in stock that actually weren’t a little discouraging. For a little while, it seemed like out of every 5 products I was really interested in, only 1-2 of them were actually available for purchase.

I finally filled my cart and placed an order on the 16th; I was surprised when, on the 18th, this showed up in my mailbox via USPS Priority. Although I received an order confirmation immedoately, I did not receive a confirmation of shipment. For reference, Glambot.com ships from California and I am located in Pennsylvania.

Obviously, the reverse side has important info. The dimensions of this envelope are larger than I was expecting – 9.5″ x 12.5″ standard USPS bubble mailer. It felt pretty full, not haphazardly filled with jumbled contents. I opened it up:

Glambot Inner Bubble Mailer

Inside, I found a super-shiny chrome bubble mailer. It is slightly smaller, and covered with a Glambot sticker and carefully sealed with branded tape. I am pleased that it isn’t just nondescript, lame packaging picked up from Staples. Carrying your branding into the details is, I think, one of those little things that will make people smile. All in all, pretty cute.

I am thoroughly pleased with the speed of shipping, even in spite of not having received a shipment confirmation (though two business days is not an unreasonable time to box-and-ship for a company without a giant warehouse with warehouse people pulling picks and so forth).

After I finished concocting this post, I realized how insanely long it was – so I am breaking it into three separate posts (and yes, part one was this long). If you’re interested in looking into Glambot, they have a couple promo codes up on their site, but you can snag 10% off with this link!

Part Two
Part Three