Why I Liked Beauty Pie – And Why I Won’t Be Ordering Again

Have you guys heard of Beauty Pie yet? So every skincare blog and guru is singing its praises. Its a skincare brand – but a little different. I will explain everything in detail but the rave reviews piqued my interest. And rave reviews from bloggers and skincare experts I really trust and like. So I am going to explain in detail my experience with Beauty Pie through which I will also explain how the products and service works. And why I will not be buying more from them.

What I Bought From Beauty Pie

I though the best way to start out would be to details what I actually bought from Beauty Pie and how much it cost. All of the orders were made between December 2018 to June 2019. The products were all used between April 2019 till the end of the year.

These the Beauty Pie items I have ordered and used:

– JAPANFUSION PURE TRANSFORMING CLEANSER x 2

– SUPER RETINOL CERAMIDE-BOOST ANTI-AGING FACE SERUM

– SUPER STEM CELL MOISTURE SHOT SERUM

– JEJU HYALURONIC ACID MIST+

– JEJU OVERNIGHT MOISTURE SUPERINFUSION

– QI ENERGY™ GINSENG ROOT & GINGER SUPER GLOW SERUM

 

Payment for 1 months membership plan (£5 per months for the 1 month plan)             : £5

Payment for 3 month membership plan (£10 per month for the 3 month plan)               : £30

Postage for the first order                                                                                                     : £ 3.36

Spending on first order                                                                                                          : £ 16.26

Postage for second order                                                                                                      : £3.36

Spending on second order                                                                                                    : £42.55

Total spending for the 7 items:                                                                                             :£100.53 

so about which makes it about £14.36 per item with a discount for one month’s membership.

What I Liked About The Brand

I know there is a long list below of the things I didn’t like but there are quite a few things I do appreciate about the brand.

• I liked their Japanfusion cleanser very much – its a great product.
• Great customer service.
• No issues with website, ordering and delivery.
• Products are cruelty free and many are vegan.
• Prices are extremely reasonable.

1. Difficult Structure to Understand

Now let me explain how this works. So its basically a membership and you pay a monthly membership fee and at the minimum you have to sign up for a 3 month membership. Your membership allows you to buy the products cheaper than you could without the membership.

Now theoretically it sounds logical but it does get complicated trying to figure out and keep a track of what you are spending. Its also quite hard to wrap your head around.

The catch is the whole credit or points system which I found extremely tedious and frankly, unnecessary. For instance, you can get a £5 per month membership which is advertised as you being able to shop for products worth £50. But the issue with this is when they mean you get products worth £50, they don’t mean that £50 on the basis of the member’s lower prices – its £50 on the basis of the normal prices which they call the ‘typical prices’. So I just don’t understand why they bother the second parallel form of prices at all. Why not just mention a normal membership and lower prices based on the membership without giving slightly confusing information on typical prices since thats irrelevant once you have a membership?

2. Too Much Time Commitment

This brings me to my next problem with this structure – its almost like a full-time job! Basically the goal is to get the best bang for your buck which is slightly exhausting and tedious to keep track of. I will elaborate on this in the sections below.

3. Out of Stock Items

This is quite an issue. Its very difficult to actually have a set skincare routine based on Beauty Pie products due to the frequency with which items go out of stock. This is combined with the issue that they don’t want you to stock up on the same items to give other members a chance to buy products as well. This is fair enough but doesn’t really work due to the stock issues they keep having. You don’t have the comfort of knowing that once your cleanser runs out you will be able to replace it with a new tube easily.

4. Unfair Membership

The other issue with the membership model is that once your membership runs out, your accrued credits run out too. I found this to be really unfair especially since you can’t actually buy the products you want since they are out of stock. So either you have to keep paying for the membership till the products you actually want are in stock or you just buy something you don’t really want to use up the credit you have.

For instance, I really like the JAPANFUSION PURE TRANSFORMING CLEANSER but since I couldn’t buy more than 1 tube of it I bought the JEJU HYALURONIC ACID MIST+ although I am not a fan of mists and later found out Hyaluronic Acid does not work for my skin. Its still lying in my cupboard almost two years later.

The other thing to keep in mind is the minimum length of membership is 3 months so you have to pay for this. There appear to be so many complaints from customers about this so I think Beauty Pie needs to make this clearer.

5. Too Many Synthetic Ingredients and Fragrance

For a new trendy beauty brand, the amount of fragrance and unnecessary ingredients in their products was odd and does not really give the impression of cutting edge skincare. I have extremely dry skin so try and avoid fragrance which is unavoidable in Beauty Pie skincare. What I find really odd is the fact that they are really product of avoiding sulphates, parabens etc. and have a section in their product page where they tell you all the bad things their skincare doesn’t have. And then its all spoilt by adding in unnecessary perfume.

6. Way Too Much Plastic and Packaging Needs Improvement

Again, as a trendy new brand, I felt the packaging was dated. Firstly, way too much plastic. Even the jars that look like glass are actually plastic. Secondly, some of the packaging doesn’t actually work for the product. The spray for the mist I bought just isn’t light enough so you get a whole squirt of water on your face instead of a mist.

I do think due to their subscription model Beauty Pie can do so much better with their packaging and maybe even look into more sustainable packaging.

7. Can their claims really be confirmed?

So this is what Beauty Pie says about where and how their products are made:

“Beauty Pie products are produced at the world’s leading luxury cosmetics and skincare labs and manufacturers. We currently produce products in France, Korea, Italy, Germany, the UK and the USA. Each of our individual item pages states the country of origin of the product featured.”

Now the catch – there is no real way for you to confirm this. You have no idea where and which laboratories these are. Now I admit this is the case for most beauty brands – we have no idea how they are really made and trust what the brands tell us. The only way you can confirm is by using their products to know their efficacy. But this is the whole basis of Beauty Pie’s brand and its odd there is no real information on this.

The other thing you cannot confirm is which these ‘leading cosmetics brands’ are. I mean its even difficult to figure what the level of the brand we are talking about here. The other thing I am unable to understand is why they actually can’t name the brands if its true? Maybe its a confidentially issue but then again why mention and make the comparison at all?

For instance, the SUPER RETINOL CERAMIDE-BOOST ANTI-AGING FACE SERUM I used was average at best with no details on the amount of retinol. This was stated as £80 (plus delivery fees) typical price for 50 ml. One of the best retinol on the market is the Paula’s Choice retinol is £53 for 30 ml with no delivery fees, so I am not 100% convinced about the Beauty Pie typical prices mentioned.

8. Felt Cheated with the Friends Referral

This annoyed me to no end. I had a lot of people using my referral code when they ordered (you get about a months membership discounted if you use a referral code) and earned some credits. At the end of my membership – poof. They are all gone! I mean these are credits I have already received during the membership I paid for so I didn’t feel this was fair.

9. Payments for Delivery Fees

So logically yes, you need to pay delivery fees when you order online. What annoys me with the delivery fees for Beauty Pie is that they advise you to hoard up for your credits for a few months before you order so you don’t incur delivery fees for every order but order a lot at the same time. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for a system like Beauty Pie since by the time you have adequate amount of credits to make the order worth it, the items you wanted are already out of stock or your routine is in a mess since you waited so long to order the cleanser you finished weeks ago.

I found this combination of factors the most frustrating thing with the Beauty Pie membership model and just too stressful.

Summary: I did enjoy some of the products – the JAPANFUSION PURE TRANSFORMING CLEANSER could be a regular in my skincare routine. For those curious, I would recommend trying out a basic 3 month membership. Its a great way to satisfy your curiosity. For me personally, just the amount of work and stress involved dealing with the membership and the packaging involved (which is something thats very important to me since I don’t like using single use plastic) doesn’t make Beauty Pie a long-term skincare option.

I would love to hear from those of you who have tried Beauty Pie and what you though of it. You can leave comments on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter or comment below. If you have recommendations for any other brands as well please let me know. I am always on the lookout and curious to know what everyone is using.

– Anisha